In the fourth and final installment of David Downing's spy series, Jack McColl is sent to Soviet Russia, where the civil war is coming to an end. The Bolsheviks have won but the country is in ruins. With the hopes engendered by the revolution hanging by a thread, plots and betrayals abound.
David Downing grew up in suburban London. He is the author of two other Jack McColl novels, Jack of Spies and One Man's Flag; the thriller The Red Eagles; and six books in the John Russell espionage series, set in WWII Berlin- Zoo Station, Silesian Station, Stettin Station, Potsdam Station, Lehrter Station, and Masaryk Station. He lives with his wife, an American acupuncturist, in Guildford, England.
A LitHub Most Anticipated Crime, Mystery, and Thriller Title
of 2018
A CrimeReads Best Espionage Novel of 2018
Praise for The Dark Clouds Shining
"Downing is a meticulous researcher of the period . . . A joy
of reading both Downing and Kerr is being transported back to a
place and time. I certainly wouldn’t want to ride in a Russian tank
today, but in a fantasy I might."
—Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail
"Intelligent and exhilarating."
—The Seattle Times
"Downing is a master at recreating historical and political detail.
People, places, clothing, and manners are so accurately depicted
the reader comes to feel as if they were living in the early
1920s."
—Deadly Pleasures Magazine
"For years now, Downing’s historical espionage novels have been
some of the most transporting stories around, full of finely
observed everyday details that make the reader feel as though
they’re at the very center of world historical events and yet also
in a familiar, lived-in space."
—CrimeReads
"[A] fitting conclusion to [Downing's] superior quartet of
WWI-era spy thrillers . . . As always, Downing’s intelligently
constructed characters complement a plausible and pulse-pounding
plotline."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Ending his series on a perfect tonic chord, Downing masterfully
combines high adventure, Doctor Zhivago–caliber romance, and just
the right amount of Graham Greene ambiguity."
—Booklist, Starred Review
Praise for the Jack McColl novels
“[Downing] is a master at bringing the past to life through the
careful and often
loving observation of even minor players and through the artful
deployment of specific detail. In addition, Jack McColl’s debut has
a zest, an exoticism and a joie de vivre well-suited to an era when
best sellers were being written by Zane Grey, suffragettes were
demanding the vote, and opium parlors were a readily accessible
temptation.”
—The Wall Street Journal
"[A] splendid saga of espionage during the Great War . . . Downing
is a master of action . . . [He] also slips in plenty of historical
reality—women’s suffrage, revolutionary hopes, progressive
politics, Irish nationalism—without ever losing sight of the
story."
—The Globe and Mail
“Engrossing . . . Comparisons to W. Somerset Maugham’s classic
stories about Ashenden, another gentleman spy, are well
deserved.”
—The Seattle Times
“Downing reaffirms his place as one of the finest espionage writers
with this engaging historical thriller.”
—Bruce Tierney, BookPage, Top Pick in Mystery
“A brilliant historical portrait and a captivating love story to
boot. A remarkably engaging world tour of pre–World War One
espionage featuring an honorable protagonist begging for a long
series.”
—Lyndsay Faye, author of The Fatal Flame
“Moves along briskly and offers interesting facts about events now
a century past.
It’s always entertaining.”
—The Washington Post
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