Death of a Spy (A Mark Sava Spy Novel Book 4)

Dan is really developing a good character in Sava. The plots are intriguing and action fast paced. Looking forward to more books!

Frankly, I was sucked in to purchase this book by the Amazon reviews, which were suspiciously glowing. The vendor, the publisher, and perhaps the author are not above a bit of astroturfing to give the impression of the new "Huckleberry Finn" or, in this case, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." Mr. Mayland's book, a combination police procedural, old time spy story, with a romantic/family twist was good in the beginning, but began to tip its hand about half-way through.The novel moves through the introductory segments identifying the characters, giving them a bit of background, and then lays out the plot:A retired CIA contract spy, married to another spy exiled under suspicious circumstances, with whom he has just had a child, live in a backwater of the former Soviet Union. The CIA handler is a bad guy, with an axe to grind against the wife, with readily available cannon fodder in the former spy and wife, to investigate the death of another asset, a former mentor. In the course of investigating this loss in another former Soviet republic, the former spy runs across evidence of his lost love, whom he has not seen since who knows when and whose presence has scant reason to be in the story, in the form of a picture on the wall of the murder scene. Quickly, the protagonist discovers a plot involving the former Soviets now populating the Russian FSB [read Putin and cronies], the badder guys, who are attempting to create a scenario in which they can invade Azerbaijan [read Ukraine, etc.], triggered by the assassination of an Iranian politician.Our hero gets involved in thwarting this plot, and in his globetrotting over the former Soviet Union, finds himeself hostage to the badder guys, only to be rescued by an ally in the local intelligence service, who also has been used and abused by the badder guys, with help from his former spy wife.I raced through the first two thirds of the book, becasue it was quite good, but then the story got preposterous and it was a grind getting through to the end. Preposterous stories are part and parcel of the spy fiction genre, and this really was no worse than most, for example the Quiller series or some of the incredible coincidences in Daniel Silva's art-restorer-as-spy/hitman series, but not up to the standars of Le Carre, McCarry, or Furst.Good enough for a beach; not good enough for a demanding reader who insists on plausibility, good writing, and some depth. The guy can write, but I just got the impression of a writer publishing on a deadline with a formula ready at hand.

I read all four of Dan Mayland's Mark Sava thrillers one after another, loosing much sleep in the process. Given that I haven't bought a spy novel since the '80s, and my last binge read was in 1966 (Lord of the Rings trilogy), why did I go all in on Mr. Mayland's books?First, once the books arrived, how did he hook me into this binge read?In the case of the last in the series, Death of a Spy, I suffered in suspense as a pair of freelance spies with their newborn baby tried to score Desitin for diaper rash while saving the world.I kid you not. He's the first novelist I ever heard of who could make diaper rash a significant and hilarious part of the plot. As for you men who are reading this, never fear, Mayland serves up explicit violence, too.OK, back to what motivated me to buy all four of Dan Mayland's books at once, despite my generic lack of enthusiasm for spy novels.It was a dark and stormy night, just kidding, when I received an email from a CIA-funded research project, not kidding, to identify “superforecasters” of world events. This project was sponsored by the CIA/IARPA Office of Anticipating Surprise. Would I be willing to try my hand at forecasting world events? What the heck, thought.Consequently, for over nine months, Dan and I and 2,998 others slugged it out to see who could forecast the best.When the competition ended this July, with 2,805 competitors still in the game, Dan came it at #2. Darn, he beat me!We compared our scores for each prediction and discovered that he beat me primarily thanks to his knowledge of how to predict the actions of corrupt, dangerous dictators and terrorists.Dan says that he learned how to do this by reading books about the CIA and taking vacations in dangerous places while spending twenty years running an itty bitty real estate company.Or perhaps – just guessing – instead he spent twenty years with the CIA and retired with tons of knowledge that he only can share thorough his novels.Which is it? You read. You decide.

This is the fourth book in this modern spy series by Dan Mayland and I think it may possibly be the best. You can certainly read this book without having read the previous three but I suggest that you treat yourself and start at the beginning with “The Colonel’s Mistake”.This book starts with a death in Georgia – the victim is Mark Sava’s old mentor when he was in the CIA. He is called to the scene and discovers something very unlikely there which takes him back to his days at university in Tbilisi. The author builds this story on a picture found at the scene and some disappearing computer files together with Mark’s inability to believe that his mentor has died in any other way other than murder. How a story of Russian aggression involving a chase through the minor Balkan republics can be evolved from such a simple start shows how well this book has been constructed and what an exciting story it is.Were the story just about the politics and the political posturing with a touch of corruption thrown in then it would have been an interesting read but not engaged my attention the way that this book did. The beauty of this novel is the character Mark Sava – with all his flaws as well as his good points. Mark is married to Daria and has a baby and this has made a fundamental change to his life. He also wants to return to Azerbaijan where he was very happy but from which he was expelled in an earlier book in the series. At one point we have Mark fleeing the bad guys and trying to find out what is happened whilst holding on to a satchel which contains a portrait of his ex-lover and a tube of nappy rash cream – it is a tribute to the author that he makes this engaging and even touching. Mark is a character who has dubious morals and a grimy history. He looks always for the expedient way out of the situation but his new business and his relationship with Daria have changed him from the character we saw in the first book to a man who is struggling with his commitments and with the fact that he is ageing. This makes him very real - but we always have to remember that he is in the end a survivor.This is excellent writing – I cannot recommend it enough. It grabs you from the first sentence all the way through to the last. It is fast-paced and full of adventure and action but never losing its human qualities. I rather wish we had seen a little bit more of Decker and of Daria in this book and I am really hoping that there will be another in the series which includes them a little bit more. I was entertained, engaged and, in places, amused by the story. A really good read. Thank you to the publishers who provided me with an advance copy via NetGalley.

I would recommend all of the Mark Sava series. Sava is a totally believable character, a man with flaws, humanity and intelligence. This novel stands on its own, but the reader would get a better all round understanding of the events if the preceding books were read first. Mayland knows his history, the environment and politics of the area, with a slight tendency to give too much detail but that is a personal quibble. Read all of the series.

Like other books in the series, a different setting to many similar stories in this genre. The central characters are believable. Easy to read and gripping. Have read and enjoyed all in this series and look forward to the next.

A gripping novel set in a part of the world that is important to us all, written with veracity (it’s clear the author’s done his research on the ground) and style. Mark Sava is a hero with an interesting past and - let’s hope as readers - a long future ahead of him!

Good easy read but you need to read the other 3 books in the series to get full benefit as the characters are continually developing