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Charles Thoroughgood #3
Uncommon Enemy
From a prison cell, in which he has been held on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act, Charles Thoroughgood awaits not only his bail, but also the reappearance of the woman whom all the major roads in his life have led back to. After his years in the army and then with MI6, Charles has begun a new chapter in his life with the Secret Intelligence Agency, shadowing the movements of a suspected double agent. Charles knows that he has nothing to hide, and as he casts his mind over the course of recent events, he begins to suspect a more sinister motivation, both personally and politically, behind his incarceration…
Praise for Alan
'Plotting in the best le Carré tradition' Mail on Sunday
'Belongs to the classic tradition of spy writing' Guardian
'Judd infuses his writing with insider knowledge' New Statesman
Praise for Alan
'Plotting in the best le Carré tradition' Mail on Sunday
'Belongs to the classic tradition of spy writing' Guardian
'Judd infuses his writing with insider knowledge' New Statesman
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2012
15 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Alan Judd
34 books63 followersAlan Judd is a pseudonym used by Alan Edwin Petty.
Born in 1946, he graduated from Oxford University and served as a British Army officer in Northern Ireland during 'The Troubles', before later joining the Foreign Office; he currently works as a security analyst. He regularly contributes articles to a number of publications, including The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator as its motoring correspondent. His books include both fiction and non-fiction titles, with his novels often drawing on his military background.
He lives in Sussex with his wife and daughter.
Born in 1946, he graduated from Oxford University and served as a British Army officer in Northern Ireland during 'The Troubles', before later joining the Foreign Office; he currently works as a security analyst. He regularly contributes articles to a number of publications, including The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator as its motoring correspondent. His books include both fiction and non-fiction titles, with his novels often drawing on his military background.
He lives in Sussex with his wife and daughter.
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February 18, 2012Charles Moore's review in the Daily Telegraph 13th Feb 2012
"The desire to be of some service to the state had been strong in him. It still was and it had led him to a prison cell.” This is the plight of the hero of this novel, Charles Thoroughgood. He served the state in the army in his youth and then in MI6. Now, having left the service, he is recalled in his late fifties to help find a missing agent whom he had previously recruited. Then he comes under suspicion himself. He is arrested.
Thoroughgood’s patriotism, one is meant to feel, is an unrequited love. Because he is a spy, it has to be expressed by serving the state. But now the British state has modernised itself. His old service has been amalgamated into the “Single Intelligence Agency” (SIA). Everyone uses the language of management rather than that of espionage. “C”, as the boss was always known in the days of complete secrecy, is now the CEO. The important thing is not that he is devoted to the work of the service, but that he is “politically plugged in”, as the odious head of HR, Jeremy, puts it.
Charles notes that the corridors are now decorated with “child-like paintings of bushy-topped trees and crooked houses”. Offices are open-plan; the files are not systematic. “All that need-to-know stuff which you and I were brought up on just got in the way, really,” says Jeremy. It is not that the place has become a nest of traitors: it is rather that the idea of loyalty no longer seems to matter very much. Charles laments the loss of the “ruthless integrity” (a good oxymoron that) of his dying chief, Matthew Abrahams. Intelligence has become just another career in the vast, process-obsessed, mission-statemented, self-protecting structure of modern government.
So it is fitting that it is because of another’s careerism that Charles finds himself arrested. After a period in the European Parliament, the villain – whom I shall call Q so as not to reveal him to potential readers – has come back into the reformed service as its number two, through exploiting his political contacts. Q is in line for the top job. But there is something dangerous in his Eighties past which Charles knows. Charles must therefore be discredited and the key files of which he almost alone has knowledge must be removed.
It is also appropriate that this something from the past is less extreme than the full-on treachery of a Philby or a Blunt. Over the years, I have noticed that British men who wear loden coats always have unsound political views. They are usually slightly on the Right, but of the kind which loves the European Union because it is “civilised” and – though they don’t put it that way – undemocratic. Judd seems to share this observation. He dresses Q in a loden coat as his creation lurks in the door of a tobacconist in Paris.
Q is a Euro-fanatic. At a mid-Eighties dinner party, his normal mask of control slips and he suddenly complains of “that niggling bitch” (no prizes for guessing her name) who is stopping the negotiations for the European Single Market going forward smoothly. He proudly displays on his mantelpiece a photograph of himself shaking hands with Jacques Delors.
Eventually, he makes contact with the French authorities. He starts flying frequently on missions which, he tells his wife, are EU negotiations, but actually take him home from Brussels via Paris. There he tells the French what Britain’s EU negotiating positions are. Charles detects him in this, but the politics are too tricky for anyone to act against Q.
Back in the 21st century, as Q intrigues to get the top job, the reader becomes almost sympathetic to his treachery. At least it showed that once upon a time he cared very much about something. Given the capitulation of the British elites to EU demands, it is obvious that Q need never have bothered to go in for any actual treachery to achieve his aims: they were pretty much official policy anyway.
How much does this fiction reflect reality? In an author’s note at the end of the novel, Alan Judd cites a book called Friendly Spies by Peter Schweizer, published in 1993, which claimed that a young Foreign Office official in the British European Community negotiating team had spied for the French between September 1985 and June 1987. Judd admits that he does not know whether this story is true. The matter is left hanging. From the point of view of the novel, I do not think this matters.
Uncommon Enemy is the last of Judd’s Thoroughgood trilogy which began with A Breed of Heroes more than 30 years ago. It is about a man whose love for his country is inexpressible. He is as secretive about it as spies are about their treachery. The effect of such love, paradoxically, is to separate him from most of his colleagues. This gets worse as he grows older. Has it all been worthless? No, is the author’s answer, but I shan’t reveal the exciting denouement, which involves other sorts of love as well as patriotism.
Alan Judd knows the world he writes about from the inside, and the reader feels this to great effect. But the stance of the story and of the hero is that of the outsider: how can one do the state good service when there is something rotten in the state? One comes away from this fascinating book with many feelings stirred. In my case, one was: please God we are spying on the French.
"The desire to be of some service to the state had been strong in him. It still was and it had led him to a prison cell.” This is the plight of the hero of this novel, Charles Thoroughgood. He served the state in the army in his youth and then in MI6. Now, having left the service, he is recalled in his late fifties to help find a missing agent whom he had previously recruited. Then he comes under suspicion himself. He is arrested.
Thoroughgood’s patriotism, one is meant to feel, is an unrequited love. Because he is a spy, it has to be expressed by serving the state. But now the British state has modernised itself. His old service has been amalgamated into the “Single Intelligence Agency” (SIA). Everyone uses the language of management rather than that of espionage. “C”, as the boss was always known in the days of complete secrecy, is now the CEO. The important thing is not that he is devoted to the work of the service, but that he is “politically plugged in”, as the odious head of HR, Jeremy, puts it.
Charles notes that the corridors are now decorated with “child-like paintings of bushy-topped trees and crooked houses”. Offices are open-plan; the files are not systematic. “All that need-to-know stuff which you and I were brought up on just got in the way, really,” says Jeremy. It is not that the place has become a nest of traitors: it is rather that the idea of loyalty no longer seems to matter very much. Charles laments the loss of the “ruthless integrity” (a good oxymoron that) of his dying chief, Matthew Abrahams. Intelligence has become just another career in the vast, process-obsessed, mission-statemented, self-protecting structure of modern government.
So it is fitting that it is because of another’s careerism that Charles finds himself arrested. After a period in the European Parliament, the villain – whom I shall call Q so as not to reveal him to potential readers – has come back into the reformed service as its number two, through exploiting his political contacts. Q is in line for the top job. But there is something dangerous in his Eighties past which Charles knows. Charles must therefore be discredited and the key files of which he almost alone has knowledge must be removed.
It is also appropriate that this something from the past is less extreme than the full-on treachery of a Philby or a Blunt. Over the years, I have noticed that British men who wear loden coats always have unsound political views. They are usually slightly on the Right, but of the kind which loves the European Union because it is “civilised” and – though they don’t put it that way – undemocratic. Judd seems to share this observation. He dresses Q in a loden coat as his creation lurks in the door of a tobacconist in Paris.
Q is a Euro-fanatic. At a mid-Eighties dinner party, his normal mask of control slips and he suddenly complains of “that niggling bitch” (no prizes for guessing her name) who is stopping the negotiations for the European Single Market going forward smoothly. He proudly displays on his mantelpiece a photograph of himself shaking hands with Jacques Delors.
Eventually, he makes contact with the French authorities. He starts flying frequently on missions which, he tells his wife, are EU negotiations, but actually take him home from Brussels via Paris. There he tells the French what Britain’s EU negotiating positions are. Charles detects him in this, but the politics are too tricky for anyone to act against Q.
Back in the 21st century, as Q intrigues to get the top job, the reader becomes almost sympathetic to his treachery. At least it showed that once upon a time he cared very much about something. Given the capitulation of the British elites to EU demands, it is obvious that Q need never have bothered to go in for any actual treachery to achieve his aims: they were pretty much official policy anyway.
How much does this fiction reflect reality? In an author’s note at the end of the novel, Alan Judd cites a book called Friendly Spies by Peter Schweizer, published in 1993, which claimed that a young Foreign Office official in the British European Community negotiating team had spied for the French between September 1985 and June 1987. Judd admits that he does not know whether this story is true. The matter is left hanging. From the point of view of the novel, I do not think this matters.
Uncommon Enemy is the last of Judd’s Thoroughgood trilogy which began with A Breed of Heroes more than 30 years ago. It is about a man whose love for his country is inexpressible. He is as secretive about it as spies are about their treachery. The effect of such love, paradoxically, is to separate him from most of his colleagues. This gets worse as he grows older. Has it all been worthless? No, is the author’s answer, but I shan’t reveal the exciting denouement, which involves other sorts of love as well as patriotism.
Alan Judd knows the world he writes about from the inside, and the reader feels this to great effect. But the stance of the story and of the hero is that of the outsider: how can one do the state good service when there is something rotten in the state? One comes away from this fascinating book with many feelings stirred. In my case, one was: please God we are spying on the French.
October 26, 2018
Retired MI6 officer is brought back into the spy game to track down a missing agent he used to run. The task proves to be a trip down memory lane in many ways, one that leads to the unravelling of an old rival's plotting.
I haven't read either of the previous books in the series, but this one stood well enough on its own. Intriguing enough that I read the whole thing in one sitting.
I haven't read either of the previous books in the series, but this one stood well enough on its own. Intriguing enough that I read the whole thing in one sitting.
August 13, 2020
Oh, dear. I didn't finish this. A spy novel must surely entertain. It might not thrill, exactly, it might not be a so-called page-turner, but there should surely be some tension at least, some action. It should matter too, somehow. The action should ideally be shown, not told in endless, overlapping conversations in offices and cars among people who went to Winchester and Oxford, slept together or wanted to but who somehow managed not to, and who spend their time in endless meetings over drinks or coffee or food or all three, over and over again ad nauseam just to tell the reader stories he or she would prefer to taste, see, feel. Most of this novel seems to be backstory. Sadly, there's none of Len Deighton's wit, humour or drama, for example. One minor matter: would an intelligence officer detained by members of the Metropolitan Police really answer the detectives' questions? No, he almost certainly wouldn't. I simply didn't care enough about the characters, who didn't seem real or fully formed, at least not to me. I so much enjoyed Mr Judd's first novel. I expected better and that's no-one's fault but my own.
September 22, 2017
I think I was disappointed. Charles Thoroughgood is too unemotional, his upper lip is too stiff. I was not convinced by his relationship with Sarah, nor could I work out why he was friends with Nigel and he seemed to have no other friends at all. My sense is that the whole story seemed contrived, laced with convincing detail from an author who knows what he is talking about, but peopled by 'characters' rather than real believable humans, and getting involved in 'scenarios' invented by a clever author rather than it being a thrilling 'true' story.
September 2, 2017
If you like spy procedurals this one might appeal. The author is clearly well versed in spooky spy tradecraft which has a 'Boy's Own' quality which rang my chimes.
The plotting is good but my reservation was about the somewhat bland nature of the chief protagonist. It would have been nice if Throughgood (what a name) had taken a day or two off spy stuff to go fishing, drinking or break dancing. Even James Bond played some cards and went snorkelling in between socking it to SMERSH.
The plotting is good but my reservation was about the somewhat bland nature of the chief protagonist. It would have been nice if Throughgood (what a name) had taken a day or two off spy stuff to go fishing, drinking or break dancing. Even James Bond played some cards and went snorkelling in between socking it to SMERSH.
November 29, 2023
Very enjoyable.
November 18, 2025
Ebook. Solid mi5 thriller. Very droll at times
September 12, 2017
What else can I tell you other than I'm in love with Alan Judd and his Thoroughgood character?
Captivating. Brilliant writing, plot, characters. Can't find any fault.
Captivating. Brilliant writing, plot, characters. Can't find any fault.
August 12, 2014
The book was billed as an espionage thriller. Unfortunately it had little espionage and was rarely thrilling. And while it was reasonable well written in places, the story suffered from being somewhat cliched and implausible in roughly equal measure.
The story follows Charles Thoroughgood, a retired MI6 office who has been asked to return to tracked down an ex-agent. In the intervening years, MI6 has been merged with MI5 to create a new Single Intelligence Agency (SIA), his old boss is dying, and old spying practices has been replaced by modern management theory. And someone is trying to get rid of witnesses which may hinder their rise to the top.
The story suffers many faults. It has little to do with spying and focuses many on Charles relationship with Sarah, his first love at university, who is now the wife of Nigel the new head of SIA (who Charles new also at university), and the mother of the missing agent; to complete the implausibility Charles is the agent's father. The villain of the story is obvious from the start, and doesn't show sufficient brilliance to get to the height suggested in the novel. At no point is Charles challenged or under real threat, the conclusion of the story just happened without any great effort. And the bureaucratic incompetence of the SIA, relative to the bureaucratic success of MI6, was overplayed.
After recently reading the first two novels of John Le Carre's Karla Trilogy, as well as Ben MacIntyre's study of Kim Philby, Alan Judd's Uncommon Enemy was thin gruel.
The story follows Charles Thoroughgood, a retired MI6 office who has been asked to return to tracked down an ex-agent. In the intervening years, MI6 has been merged with MI5 to create a new Single Intelligence Agency (SIA), his old boss is dying, and old spying practices has been replaced by modern management theory. And someone is trying to get rid of witnesses which may hinder their rise to the top.
The story suffers many faults. It has little to do with spying and focuses many on Charles relationship with Sarah, his first love at university, who is now the wife of Nigel the new head of SIA (who Charles new also at university), and the mother of the missing agent; to complete the implausibility Charles is the agent's father. The villain of the story is obvious from the start, and doesn't show sufficient brilliance to get to the height suggested in the novel. At no point is Charles challenged or under real threat, the conclusion of the story just happened without any great effort. And the bureaucratic incompetence of the SIA, relative to the bureaucratic success of MI6, was overplayed.
After recently reading the first two novels of John Le Carre's Karla Trilogy, as well as Ben MacIntyre's study of Kim Philby, Alan Judd's Uncommon Enemy was thin gruel.
April 23, 2013
Charles Thoroughgood, a veteran of Britain's intelligence services, is recalled to undertake a task for the new, combined, Single Intelligence Agency (SIA). This brings him into contact with two acquaintances from undergraduate days at Oxford - Sarah, with whom he was in love, and Nigel, who was his rival for her affections. To say more would reveal too much of a genuine page-turner,
The coincidence in the basic premise is undeniably possible but it is even more implausible. Without it, there is no book so accept it and become engrossed in a gripping tale not just of spies and spying, but also of love and loyalty and treachery.
The bonus is to encounter an author of intelligence and style (with a dash of humour in his portrayal of an SIA enmeshed in box-ticking and health and safety).
If Alan Judd is not quite John Le Carre, the comparison is valid and the margin small.
The coincidence in the basic premise is undeniably possible but it is even more implausible. Without it, there is no book so accept it and become engrossed in a gripping tale not just of spies and spying, but also of love and loyalty and treachery.
The bonus is to encounter an author of intelligence and style (with a dash of humour in his portrayal of an SIA enmeshed in box-ticking and health and safety).
If Alan Judd is not quite John Le Carre, the comparison is valid and the margin small.
June 9, 2016
Third installment in the series featuring Charles Thoroughgood. Called in from his retirement from MI6 to help find a missing agent, Charles must deal with the ever increasing bureaucracy of the newly formed Single Intellgence Agency, old friends, enemies, and frenemies. Some quotes are painfully reminiscent of U.S. bureaucracies, "Nothing of value can be measured, so it's not valued."
May 23, 2014
A retired MI6 officer is asked to review an old case.
I found this book really absorbing / interesting, except for the last two chapters which were a let down – too unrealistic / ambiguous / people acting out of character.
I found this book really absorbing / interesting, except for the last two chapters which were a let down – too unrealistic / ambiguous / people acting out of character.
March 10, 2012
Not quite le Carre standard, but a good tale, and sufficiently involving to have read it in six hours.
November 14, 2014
the first book I have read by this author,its a good spy thriller,very enjoyable.
May 13, 2015
I encourage people to read the whole series of Thoroughgood novels.
January 22, 2017
Very good.
On a par with le Carre. Read if you like spy stuff. Can't think of any more words for hoodreads
quota
On a par with le Carre. Read if you like spy stuff. Can't think of any more words for hoodreads
quota
August 7, 2018
Didn't finish, didn't like it
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews