Red Star Falling

Charlie Muffin #16

by Brian Freemantle

In a botched escape from Russia, MI5 spy Charlie Muffin is seized by the FSB, Russia's intelligence-service successor to the infamous KGB. Charlie is Russia’s long-term target in British counter-intelligence, and Moscow is determined to extract, by whatever means necessary, every secret of British---and Western---espionage over Charlie’s thirty-year career.

Charlie’s determined not only to resist the interrogation but to learn from it if his Russian intelligence-officer wife and their daughter escaped the trap that snared him and have reached England. He embarks on a cat-and-mouse battle of deception to convince his interrogators that they’re learning what they want---or think they want---aware that one misspoken word could be fatal.

That’s not Charlie’s only problem. He’s also trying to work out how his escape was foiled. It could not have been only due to the FSB, or his wife and daughter would have been caught as well. His MI5 boss doesn’t think it was, either, and suspects treachery by Britain’s external intelligence organization, MI6. To help discover the truth, Natalia, Charlie’s wife, uses all the Russian tradecraft she’s ever learned to help save her husband.

Red Star Falling---the third in the Red Star trilogy---continues the acclaimed series that has established Brian Freemantle as one of the world’s most ingenious espionage writers.

Genres: Espionage, Mystery, Thriller, Russia, Fiction

353 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 25, 2013

About the author

Aka John Maxwell, Jonathan Evans, Jack Winchester, Harry Asher and Richard Gant.

Brian Freemantle [b. 1936] is one of Britain's most acclaimed authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold over ten million copies worldwide. Born in Southampton, Freemantle entered his career as a journalist, and began writing espionage thrillers in the late 1960s. Charlie M (1977) introduced the world to Charlie Muffin and won Freemantle international recognition—he would go on to publish fourteen titles in the series.

Freemantle has written dozens of other novels, including two featuring Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the Cowley and Danilov series, about an American FBI agent and a Russian militia detective who work together to comabt organized crime in the post-Cold War world. Freemantle lives and works in London, Englad.

Reviews

[Miss M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a lot of frustration (and a bit of boredom) along the way, I suppose this does overall deserve four stars. Been a hell of a ride to go along with Charlie and, eventually, Natalia, and the last quarter of the book does pay off. Still, really only recommended for long-term Charlie Muffin afficianados.

[Shawn MacDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd have to look back to see when I read the first of the Charlie Muffin books, probably four or five years ago, and I liked it but I thought it was merely okay. I read the next book because I bought the first three as a package and I wasn't going to let them go to waste, and read the third after that. The books were consistently good and, along the way, a few of them were great. Having finished the sixteenth (and presumably final) book in the series, I feel like I'm saying goodbye to an old friend. Man, I hate that cliche, but it's appropriate. The last three books in the series have been great and made all of the okay books worth the effort.

[Diogenes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A spy story as satisfying to observe and as complex with twists of strategy as a world championship chess match. The internecine battles between espionage agencies are both vicious and amusing. The characters are deftly stripped to expose their bare emotions, greed and vanity.
Thoughtful, absorbing and highly entertaining.

[Christie Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish. To many people doing too many things. Battling MI5 and MI6 is just not working for me. Story scattered. Boy did I ever try. I usually love this kind of story. Physically, print too small. This is also the first book I haven’t completed in a long long time.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I put this book on my DNF shelf. I found it very confusing and not very interesting. It was hard to keep track of the characters. There are a lot of them.

[Adolfo Ramon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a way to end a long serie of books. I was apprehensive most of the time.

[Tom Woodbery · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much interagency squabbling and not enough action.

[Scott Parsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read the immediately preceding book in the Charlie Muffin series. Even so I found it hard to follow the tangled plot of this novel. It was hard slogging, worth it in the end but certainly not an easy read.
I'll make no attempt to summarize the plots here; they defy summing up I think. Overall there are two main but connected threads. The Russians are running a giant scam on the Brits and the Americans with the defection of a very senior guy in the FSB (formerly KGB) and a woman who worked for him. Meanwhile Charlie Muffin has been apprehended in Moscow while orchestrating the escape of his wife (a Russian spy whom he met and married in a previous novel) and their daughter. His wife and daughter escape to a safe house in England while Charlie is taken into custody by the FSB after an attempt on his life engineered by the Director of MI-6.
Back in England there is internecine warfare between the heads of MI-6 and MI-5 and their Deputy Directors, both women. Charlie's wife is instrumental in picking up the clue as to what the Russians are up to and this sets the scene for the unravelling of their disinformation scheme and Charlie's return from Moscow.

[Nicholas Roznovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I felt the book was good, but it definitely didn't live up to expectations set by the first two books in this trilogy. Instead of Charlie Muffin applying his spycraft derring-doo, we've got the background characters from the first two books trying to connect the dots between various characters being kept separately in captivity. It's an interesting move to completely sideline your main character for an entire novel, but that's what Freemantle basically does here. Fortunately, the other characters are well developed enough to carry the story and still make it compelling.

[Harry Allagree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so relieved now to know the Charlie Muffin's wife & daughter were able to get out of Moscow! Fremantle left us hanging in the previous book, Red Star Burning. In the present book he leads us on another gripping account of Charlie's attempt to get out of Moscow, only to be ambushed by a rival from MI6 & arrested by the Russian FSB (former KGB). The rest of the book will tell you how that all plays out. It'll keep you on edge. And the last page, though it doesn't exactly leave you hanging, suggests that the story isn't over yet! Fremantle is about due for another Charlie Muffin sequel.

[Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprising in many ways, intricately plotted, primarily a story of intra-organizational conflict within British Intelligence, compounded with conflict with an amazingly adept Russian intelligence organization, and a comically inept American Intelligence team that makes an oxymoron of 'intelligence team'. And internal conflict in Charlie Muffin right up to the surprising self-realization denouement. So convoluted and Machiavellian that it is a difficult read, but satisfying none the less.

[Aaron Krebs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and solid wrap-up to the Red Star trilogy. 16 books and 30 odd years and Charlie is still my favorite.

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, especially towards the end, but certainly not a match for le Carré.