It\u2019s 1965 and Churchill, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, is near death. As the nation, and much of the world, prepares to mourn him, some nefarious elements see an opportunity: The funeral will certainly attract powerful figures from all over the world, and it creates a fine opportunity for chaos\u2014or so goes the thinking of some leading members of the KGB. The Cold War is raging, and it\u2019s spawned a plan in the Soviet Union called KOBA, which involves placing explosives in Churchill\u2019s coffin. They would be set off during the service, killing \u201cmany, many others in the church,\u201d and after the initial attack, \u201clong-dormant agents provocateur\u2026would launch an orchestrated wave of precision bombings and assassinations\u201d all over the world. It may sound like a somewhat bizarre way to kick off an operation, but Soviet spies have long been developing assets in other countries for a situation such as this; they include leftist sympathizers in Northern Ireland, who are \u201cparticularly susceptible to recruitment\u201d by the KGB. It\u2019s an ambitiously sinister plan, but it\u2019s not one that goes completely undetected. When suspicions regarding the funeral ceremony are brought to the attention of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, he takes action: Not only does he decide not to attend the memorial services, but he also consults former CIA director Allen Dulles, who, along with many other government operatives, recognizes the seriousness of the situation, which could easily spiral out of control.<\/p>\n
The story begins with a rather bland speech from 1960s-era Prime Minister Harold Wilson (\u201cWe are on the threshold of an extraordinary moment in the history of the realm\u201d); a bit later on, there\u2019s a similarly unexciting flashback to Churchill\u2019s final public appearance in 1964, in which a woman unnecessarily explains to her young daughter, \u201cSweetheart, that is Sir Winston Churchill and his wife, Lady Churchill.\u201d Nevertheless, as the pages turn, so does readers\u2019 anticipation regarding the wild spy mission, which involves a large cast of diverse characters; they include a couple in the U.K. that \u201chad dedicated themselves to Soviet intelligence for nearly three decades, their commitment unwavering despite upheavals and betrayals,\u201d as well as a frazzled American spy who, before the threat of KOBA came to the CIA\u2019s attention, had been living a very unhappy existence in Rome. The lively mix of real-life historical figures and Stokes\u2019 fictional creations keeps events moving briskly along, and that includes the action scenes; in one, a character makes quick work of his adversaries by firing \u201cthree shots with great poise and precision, dropping all three men in less than two seconds.\u201d And, of course, there\u2019s always the chance that world-changing fiascoes will occur if the plan actually succeeds. The potential for such chaos will give readers plenty of good reasons to stick with the novel all the way to its conclusion.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s 1965 and Churchill, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, is near death. As the nation, and much of the world, prepares to mourn him, some nefarious elements see an opportunity: The funeral will certainly attract powerful figures from all over the world, and it creates a fine opportunity for chaos\u2014or so goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}