Rating
The Pequod Review:
It's an ingenious premise: a Soviet double-agent (Krasnevin, operating under the alias Alexander Eberlin) has penetrated British intelligence to such an extent that he has been tasked by the Brits with assassinating important enemies. Unfortunately, his next assignment is to find and kill a Soviet spy named Krasnevin — i.e., himself. Krasnevin/Eberlin is an amusing character — middle-aged, over-educated, unmarried, and alone (“I added up my friends the other day. It was a difficult task but finally, after much drastic deliberation, I narrowed the number down to none") — and the story has some depth as he looks to find a way out of Britain and back to Russia. But it is not clear what Derek Marlowe intends his book be (whether comedy, drama, romance or spy thriller), and he winds up with a tentative novel that does each of them decently but none of them well.