Unfortunately didn't live up to expectations. The main character, Bill Kerr was rather uninteresting. The other characters were mostly stereotypes. The first third of the book was very slow. As Kerr didn't know what was happening, it also left the reader feeling lost. When the story speeded up, it all became unbelievable. The writing was rather flat so even the action parts were boring. Sorry it just didn't work for me.

I found this book rather tedious. It was written in a very dated way I felt, about a dated plot. Really did not enjoy it

Bill Kemp is not the mild mannered Insurance Investigator he appears to be. With a background in the military and a recent series of hair-raising adventures, he is trying to be relaxed in his job. Phone calls from suspicious sounding characters are not exactly strangers to his life. However, the call he takes one morning in January 1975 is more troublesome, since it leads him to the knowledge that a friend has been ‘disappeared’ by the caller, or his organisation. To preserve her safety, all he has to do is travel to Vienna (tickets, hotel reservations, transport, funds are all covered) and there collect a package, details to be supplied, from someone? who turns out to be Anna Stern. Sneaking through the snow clad woods to the deserted spot on the Danube to which she has directed him, he is in time to see her body being dragged from the river, and to note that, just across the river, the Iron Curtain is clearly visible in the form of barbed wire and military defences forming the border with Czechoslovakia. Still processing what he’s seeing, Bill is discovered and arrested by the Austrian State Police. Who arranged this? What was the package? Who killed Anna? How can he explain he doesn’t know anything? What will happen to his ‘disappeared’ friend? What will happen to him? Lots of questions to be resolved.
As I believe I’ve noted before, getting someone to be a covert agent is a weak way to get our hero into a tricky situation where his surprising abilities will win out. However, the idea has a long history, for example the start point for Desmond Bagley’s novel “Running Blind”. I choose this example because this novel is the third in a series where Davies attempts to recreate Bill Kemo, one of Bagley’s heroes. In the 1970s and 80s, Begley was a very successful writer of thrillers, using a variety of heroes (I remember reading some of his work at the time). However, he had dropped out of sight (he doesn’t feature in any of the lists of thriller authors I have looked at) until Davies revised and published one of the many drafts he had left at the time of his death. Nothing wrong with producing new stories about old heroes, of course, but they have to be more than just pastiche, and more importantly they have to reach a modern audience. There has to be the famous ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ and I feel that, here, that suspension is stretched too far. Firstly, none of the characters seem real. I can cope with the idea that Bill might go along with the original request (it is 1975, after all, the height of the Cold War), but most of the opening section seems unlikely, and a bit spun-out. However, once the actual story starts to unroll, it is one highly improbable event after another, a sub-Bond chase (think the precredit bit of “For Your Eyes Only” and any of the Lake Garda chases). As text, this is just not very exciting, although on film it would be good. So I applaud the idea but was disappointed with the execution.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

A spy novel featuring a protagonist from Desmond Bagleys catalogue. Fast paced and dark, unfortunately I do not enjoy the genre and failed to finish.

Thus is Michael Davies picking up a character originally created by an author many of you might be familiar with, thriller writer Desmond Bagley. You might have encountered Bill Kemp in Domino Island, this is the third outing, it has Kemp at his Devon home when he receives a sinister phone call, which results in him being manipulated and forced to fly to Vienna where he is instructed to collect a parcel. Totally in the dark as to what the package might be, he is awaiting further instructions, and rather than twiddling his thumbs at the hotel, he goes out and plays being a tourist in the famous city, accompanied by his thoughts of the well known atmospheric film set in the city, The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles, with its memorably haunting soundtrack.

It does not take long for him to realise that he is being followed by a man in a homburg hat, a tail he puts a lot of effort into trying to lose, particularly when he has a meeting in a cafe with Anna Stern, with whom arrangements are made to meet again. Unfortunately, the meeting, on the banks of a river, next to the Iron Curtain's Czechoslovakia, does not turn out as planned, with Kemp ending up being arrested by the Austrian police. His nightmare continues into surprising and deadly territory, as he ends up having to rely on skills he had learnt during his military training as he fights for his life. Still having no clue as to what is going on, he finds himself bumping into an old friend he last saw in Australia, Kenny Hines.

As Kemp learns more, he finds little is as it appears, he himself is a target, on a dangerous mission to France, having to cross the beautiful but lethal mountains, in this tense and dark Cold War era narrative of conspiracy and espionage, will he live to tell the tale? This is engaging historical storytelling of a turbulent time when there was little trust between the Soviet Union and the West. This will appeal to readers interested in this time period, the fears, and the heavy reliance on intelligence and espionage by both sides, and to those who might have enjoyed Bagley's original novels, or those who simply enjoy a good thriller. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Anyone looking for a thrilling novel to fill the Le Carre sized hole in spy fiction could do no better than to look at Michael Davies.

If you have read and enjoyed novels by Desmond Baggley or Alastair McClean then you will love this book, the third in a trilogy with the unlikely hero, Bill Kemp. Set in the Cold War (70's) this is a tale of intrigue and espionage.
When his ex-girlfriend is kidnapped, Kemp feels duty-bound to follow her kidnapper's instructions and agrees to deliver a package to Austria to ensure her safety. He finds himself wrongly accused of murder and not only has the police on his tail but also The Vixen, a renowned Russian spy.
This was a fast-paced read, full of twists and turns.