#Review - A Spy Like Me by Kim Sherwood

A Spy Like Me (Double 0, Book 2)

Kim Sherwood
Hemlock Press, 25 April 2024
Available as: HB, 384pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9780008495435

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of A Spy Like Me to consider for review.

In her followup to Double or Nothing, Kim Sherwood returns to the world of the Double 0s, the Section still being threatened by the mysterious organisation know as Rattenfänger. James Bond, 007, is still missing, and the focus shifts to Johanna Harwood, 004 who is determined to track down and rescue one of her disappeared lovers - while mourning another, killed lover, who died during the events of the previous book. 

Meanwhile, Moneypenny has concerns there may be another traitor in the Section...

Like its predecessor, A Spy Like Me captures, I think, the essence of the James Bond universe while refusing to be too deferential to trivia. So, the story is set more or less in the present, taking place a couple of years ago, but with references back to canonical Bond details (such as the the murder of his wife, a plot point that gives Johanna an unexpected source of help when she 'goes rogue' in search of him). Other events and settings are unashamedly modern, such as the prevalence of human trafficking and terrorism. Through it all we get the same mix of high living - the super-rich of the 2020s being perhaps even less abashed at flaunting their wealth than those of the 1950s and 60s - and intrigue, with violence never far from the surface. There are confrontations on Crete and in Venice that could easily be set pieces in a Bond movie, for example, an an ease with fast cars, guns and exotic watches.

And there is a twisty, complex plot, weaving the personal - like Johanna's motivation to recover James - and the political - terrorist outrages finances by dark money and taking place on a regular timescale - that gives the reader just the same sense of a countdown, a final date with evil, and of the risk of being distracted, of going down a rabbit hole in some glamorous resort, as in the original books. 

Sherwood's writing is also sharp - 'Welcome to Dubai, home of ex-pats, concrete and money' 'This woman smiles when she's told to smile because it may never happen and it could be worse, though it's already happened and it couldn't be worse' - and the absence of Bond doesn't diminish, rather it enhances, the shadow he casts over this book, forcing him into everyone's consciousness: Conrad Harthrop-Vane, for example, who's no fan, notes Bond's remark that 'this "country-right-or-wrong business" was old-fashioned in 1952' and that Bond 'is defined by his purpose' (note is, not was). Harthrop-Vane isn't the only one to speculate about Bond's character, personality, purpose or meaning, everyone has a go at one point or another, resulting in this allegedly two dimensional figure (I don't think that but it has been said) being fully alive and drawn as complex and active even when out of sight. 

Returning form those depths, this book is also fun. Sherwood drops plenty of references to Bond book and film titles and also allusions such as to a 'golden revolver' or having 'all the time in the world'. There are sideplots that take their time to join up with the main action, and surprise sprung. All I all, entertaining, nail biting and fun, with a bite of real world issues. It ends on a monster of a cliffhanger, and left me impatient for Book 3, which presumably though I'll have to wait another couple of years for!

Strongly recommended.

For more information about A Spy Like Me, see the publisher's website here.