Jason Matthews (1) (1951–2021)

Jason Matthews is something of a novelty in that he actually worked for the CIA for over 30 years before writing Red Sparrow and its two sequels. His experience creates a deeply authentic world within the novel, which follows the unbelievably beautiful and intelligent Domenika Egorova as she becomes a spy for the Russian Federation. Domenika is pure male fantasy: a classically trained ballerina, highly educated, she is sent to "Sparrow School" for instruction in sexpionage. As expected, the experience is pretty harrowing and degrading. For a bit of balance she also gets to go to the actual proper spy training academy.

I spent the first two-thirds of this book getting really pissed off at the way a white, male, middle-aged ex-spook created this paragon and exploited her. Then Matthews' story took off in a way that made me forget how annoyed I'd been and I just enjoyed the ride. After all, there are so many stories out there about impossibly beautiful, intelligent and resourceful men having ripping adventures and getting one up on the bad guys. About bloody time we got a fabulous female spy. Domenika is a critical thinker, brilliant in a crisis, has drive, ambition and a temper to boot. She's also crazy gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to be just like her? So read and enjoy, rest assured your feminist principles will only take a slight knock.… (mehr)

Just finished the 3rd in Jason Matthews’ “Red Sparrow” series, “The Kremlin’s Candidate,” about the trials and travails of Dominika Egorova, Russian spy extraordinaire, and Nate Nash of the CIA. I have to admit it from the start: my favourite feature of these novels is the salty language of the spys and spymasters. I am a husband, father, employer, and owner of retail stores and by mandate I have to be a very polite person from morning to night. One of my guilty pleasures, and one I counsel my daughter against, is using bad words, and especially bad words in the service of humour. Matthews has me covered. I don’t think I have heard nearly as many inventive uses for male private parts as he disgorges in his spy series. So he keeps me laughing throughout. The humour doesn’t hide the sadism in the characters, especially in his most evil villains. The stories are gory, sexist, and technical. I’ve heard Matthews interviewed about the stories but strangely the interviewers did not take him up on the recipes that punctuate the ends of the chapters. Sometimes the recipes are for great dishes, sometimes just canapés, and sometimes downright disgusting, such as the boiled cabbage one might find in Moscow Airport on a late, foggy evening. Maybe there’s a precedent for them, but I haven’t seen one. It did make me think for a bit on the life of a covert agent travelling around the world and having to acclimatize him/herself to local cuisine. You either have to have a strong stomach, or a penchant for cooking your own food. Having lived in London in the 1970’s I can tell you that survival meant avoiding English cooking for Chinese, Italian, and mostly Indian cooking. Times have changed a little over there. I live in Toronto where you have the opportunity to experiment with a hundred different cuisines and go back to your own when you’ve blundered. But for a spy working in officially “denied service” areas, you may not have a choice. It’s kebabs over a fire or nothing.… (mehr)

There are some aspects of the novel I found almost too hard to believe: the existence of Sparrow School and Dominika's ability to sense the trustworthiness of people based on the color of an aura chief among them. But the novel does a good job with tradecraft. Many of the supporting characters (Benford, Gable, Korchnoi) I found more interesting than the main protagonists. The ending of the novel is thrilling. Just outstanding. Great stuff for spy novel fans. If you can get past the implausibilities, you've got yourself a fantastic spy novel read. Highly recommended for thriller fans.… (mehr)