I have never come across Charles Cumming before however I will now be looking out for any books by him. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

This version of Her Majesty – shrewd, sensible and inquisitive – has much in common with Alan Bennett’s royal creation in The Uncommon Reader, and the resulting book, with its mixture of real and imagined characters, is charming, cosy and respectful. On the morning after her 90th birthday celebrations in 2016, one of the guests is found dead in his room, and, when the servants come under suspicion, Elizabeth II takes matters into her own hands. How the personal elides with the professional is an aspect of espionage largely forgotten in the zeitgeist of the modern spy thriller - not in Cumming’s books.He finds it very difficult as the time goes by as his friend Xavier could find out and his does not like to dishonour their friendship. He finds his loyalties torn, and guilt accumulating when it comes to the Bonnard family, and in the midst of it all, is the flowering of his romantic relationship with Martha. The events and tragedy of that summer and his mission is to have an indelible impact on his life and future, having repercussions through the years that leave him with a burden of guilt that is to affect his friendship with Xavier and the Bonnard family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and thought the transition between then and now was masterfully handled with the action playing out seemingly in real time in both time points. The story and plot, while very clever and tense, are easy to follow, which is part of the appeal of Cumming to the modern day reader. As this plays out we start to learn in flashback of Kite’s background and how he was recruited into this exclusive and mysterious group. No longer is Cumming the pretender to the throne of John LeCarre, but a much vaunted peer increasingly held in the same esteem. Box 88 by Charles Cumming is an outstanding espionage novel which is is superbly written has an excellent main underlying storyline and well drawn out main and supporting characters.The backdrop of the Cold War in the early narrative is expertly drawn, giving relevant contact in an engaging way. Despite not being able to afford it, his mother wangles him a place at an elite public school, Alford College, in England, leaving a lost and rootless Kite having to come to terms with this new milieu, the divisions of social class and its hierarchies, the male only boys culture, with some beaks (teachers) rather keen on touching their young charges.

This is the story of Lachlan (Lockie) Kite and how he is recruited into Box 88, a covert, below the radar US/UK espionage group. is the tale of Lachlan Kite, recruited by a teacher at a lightly fictionalised version of Eton to spy on behalf of the titular agency, a super-secret organisation embedded in the UK and US intelligence network.Thank you, thank you, thank you to Charles Cumming, Harper Collins UK and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and give my unbiased opinion of this book. In this novel we are taken back to his teenage years during which, whilst always remaining an outsider of sorts, he attends an elite boarding school (a thinly disguised Eton). Many thanks to HarperCollins, NetGalley and Charles Cumming for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review and I look forward to seeing promotion events up here in Scotland so I can get a copy signed.