"Agent 6" Tom Rob Smith

You are not doing this for her.  You're doing it for yourself.  Your life is not  just about the people you love. It's also about the people you hate.

Nara talking to Leo, "Agent 6" by Tom Rob Smith

I just checked the list of the drafts of posts waited for me to write, and there are 60.  That is how much I am behind in writing posts on what I have read.  I have a plan to be finished before the end of this summer, but that means I have to write an old post every other day, not counting any new books I read.  We'll see how this goes.

Earlier this year I said that I was working on this reading list from PopSugar.  One item on the list is a trilogy.  There is little chance I will decide to read a three-book series this year, but "Agent 6" is the third book in the Leo Demidov series, after "Child 44" and "The Secret Speech", and I am pretty sure it is the last of the series.

I have devoured Tom Rob Smith's books so far.  I find him a consummate story teller.  The three books in this series are not just three iterations of the same story, but instead place Demidov in completely different situations, in different locals, and with different levels of personal involvement.  In this book, Raisa and their two adopted daughters are traveling to New York City to participate in a joint choral production by Soviet and U.S. children, but Leo is denied the opportunity to travel with them.  The events there lead Leo on a 15-year quest to solve a mystery that takes him not only to the depths of despair but also to Soviet occupied Afghanistan.

I was finishing this book in the car as He-who-caters-to-my-every-whim was driving us back to Indy from Kansas City.  I told him that I was more than two-thirds of the way through the book and that I hadn't even read anything about Agent 6 yet ... and that I didn't care.  I was so engrossed with Leo's story that it didn't matter.

I'm sure I mentioned this in a past post, but what is it about Smith's with three names (Tom Rob Smith and Martin Cruz Smith, no relation) write stories about Soviet Russia so well.  I can't say whether the writing is accurate or not, and in fact, I enjoy fiction more when I can more easily suspend my disbelief because I don't know enough about the situation to compare to reality.  Whether either writes with accuracy, I found their story-telling captivating.

I see that Tom Rob Smith's book "The Farm", set in England and told mostly through the monologue of a wife and mother, has not been received as well as the Demidov series.  I suspect that Smith's reader's wanted more of the same and did not find a psychological thriller as interesting as one with violence and espionage.  I think it looks worthwhile and might be a good follow up to Lehane's "Shutter Island."