Tom Bradby writes good and believable characters but his locations and settings are what marks out his stories. Deception has a nasty habit of eating away at people. Lying about your job to your family and neighbors. Lying to your co- workers about the work that you are doing. Lying about the work to your government who is lying about the work they don't want to know what you are doing. Lying to yourself about the importance of what you do, though all everything that exists around you is built up on a very precarious pedestal, and can fall all away with just one truth. Tom Bradby in the historical thriller Yesterday's Son shows the price of deception on one man and his attempt to fix a legacy of wrongs for his only son's safety.

At the forefront of post-war spy writing and penning twenty-seven novels, Len Deighton changed the nature of spy fiction with his unique, cynical style. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. Texan billionaire General Midwinter will stop at nothing to bring down the USSR – even if it puts the whole world at risk. I am grateful to the author and Grove Atlantic for granting me access to an ARC in return for an honest review. As a fan of Mr. Bradby's earlier Kate Henderson series, I was disappointed by this story. I knew little about the 50s politics in the Middle East, particularly Iran, so the plot was new to me. It made for a good potential story of the cold war in a different venue. That potential was not realized, with much more of a focus on James Bond-esque action with little character development. I was used to Mr. Bradby's use of moral ambivalence in his previous novels, but this story did not build on its premise. The spy thriller is often a runaway train of an adventure where agents need to think on their feet and improvise. This is at odds with the world of espionage where the less charismatic and forgettable players are, the best suited to engage in double dealing and subterfuge, they would be.

Tom Bradby's Kate Hnederson series were quite good (well, except the third one, which was disastrous), which is why I wanted to read his standalone new novel, "Yesterday's Spy". A historical spy-thriller occurring mostly in 1953 Iran. A missed opportunity, really, as Bradby's writing is anything but exciting and gripping, as he focuses his attention on all the wrong details, and never really delves into the politics and life in Iran. Everything feels unreal and superficial, including the characters who were flat and underdeveloped. Dialogues between characters also left a lot to be desired. I certainly felt that Tom Bradby had undertaken considerable research into the politics of the period including the 1953 Iranian coup.

Bradby’s modern trilogy, including Secret Service, was complex, with each new novel re-examining the events of the last but from new perspectives. This is a more straightforward narrative. Full credit to Bradby for exploring the less well-known milieu of Iran in the 1950s. It feels like this is an idea that fired his imagination and has an energy and drive that is easy to get caught up in. This is not le Carré but it has a literary tinge to it and is beautifully easy to read. Thank you to the author, Grove Atlantic and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Len Deighton books in order:

I read this shortly after reading the highly acclaimed John Le Carre novel "Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy" and it took me a while for me to separate this book from that one, particularly the main character Harry Tower who would fit right in the Le Carre novel. I liked this much better than Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy. Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. 8vo. dustwrapper. 224pp. price clipped otherwise a good copy.

On August 19, 1953, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d’etat jointly planned by the United States and Great Britain and led on the ground by the CIA. With the support of the country’s leading mullah, Abol-Ghasem Kashani, Americans under the command of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. restored Mohammad Shah Reza Pahlavi as Iran’s supreme leader. The shah’s brutal, dictatorial regime during the following two decades led directly to the 1979 Iranian Revolution that still echoes in today’s headlines. Now, British journalist Tom Bradby recalls the events of 1953 in Yesterday’s Spy, a fast-paced spy thriller loosely based on the history of the coup.A big thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I loved the last three books he had written in the Kate Henderson series so was very excited to be invited to read Tom Bradby's latest book. World-weary agent Bernard Samson is losing control of his personal and professional life. Sent to Mexico to aid the defection of a KGB agent to the West, he has a chance to prove his worth. Instead he is torn between conflicting loyalties, and lost in a maze of double-dealing and duplicity. Deep in the South American jungle the MAMista Marxist revolutionaries are fighting a hopeless, protracted war against a dictator – while the CIA see an opportunity. Amid the turmoil, three very different people – a doctor, a young firebrand and an educated revolutionary – find themselves thrown together and trapped at the heart of a battle where the enemy is uncertain, and there can be no winners. Sean Tower is a reporter for The Guardian. He stayed in Iran, rather than returning to university in England, partly as a rebellion against his distant father. His mother Amanda has recently died, widening the rift between father and son. Neither understands the other. However, Tehran is becoming a dangerous place.