THE MOROCCAN GIRL

When novelist Kit Carradine is approached by a mysterious man calling himself Robert Mantis, he knows his dearest wish has come true—the British government wants to use him as a spy.

Kit’s assignment involves traveling to Morocco and slipping a passport to Lara Bartok, formerly involved with a group known as Resurrection. Resurrection started as an international movement against corrupt politicians and mouthpieces, but their actions quickly evolved into terrorism as they began kidnapping and even murdering high-profile right-wing figures. In Morocco, Kit runs into an American agent who could burn him; after Mantis fires him, he continues to look for Bartok, and when he finds her, he has to help her escape from the Russians who are chasing her. The two share several intimate days as they get away to Gibraltar and back to England; once home, Kit must face the fact that no one he has encountered is who they said they were, and the novel ends with a twist and a shootout as old enemies resurface. There is an odd pace to Cumming's (A Divided Spy, 2017, etc.) novel; the early scenes unfold with an almost old-fashioned slowness, full of allusions to Casablanca and Cary Grant, that lends a romantic haze to the very 21st-century spy games. Kit, of course, wants to be a spy in a novel or a movie, and when he's faced with the true nature of such a life, he’s rather desperate to cling to his illusions—about Lara, about the craft of espionage, and about the exotic settings in which he finds himself. But once Kit finds Lara, the pace rachets to a rather dizzying speed, and the climax comes and goes so swiftly there’s hardly time to absorb the action.

Seduces with its romantic settings and tantalizing touches of modern-day conspiracy.