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Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde #7
The Last Raven
Patrick Hyde, a top operative for spymaster Sir Kenneth Aubrey, is hunted by a renegade CIA agent after witnessing the destruction of a Russian airliner designed to kill a prominent Soviet reformer.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Craig Thomas
87 books92 followersDavid Craig Owen Thomas was a Welsh author of thrillers, most notably the Mitchell Gant series.
The son of the Western Mail rugby union writer, JBG Thomas, Craig was educated at Cardiff High School. He graduated from University College, Cardiff in 1967, obtaining his M.A. after completing a thesis on Thomas Hardy. Thomas became an English Teacher, working in various grammar schools in the West Midlands, and was Head of English at the Shire Oak School, Walsall Wood.
After unsuccessfully trying script writing for radio, Thomas wrote part-time, with his wife as editor, in two fields: philosophical thoughts in books of essays; and techno-thriller genre, which although invention is often attributed to the better-known Tom Clancy, many feel that Thomas was its true originator. Most of Thomas's novels are set within MI.6 and feature the characters of Sir Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde.
His best-known novel which brought him to global prominence, Firefox became a successful Hollywood film, both directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. After writing his third novel, 1960s Cold War espionage thriller Wolfsbane, he left teaching altogether in 1977. His later books include Snow Falcon and A Different War. Shortly before his death he finished a two-volume commentary on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Thomas and his wife Jill had lived near Lichfield, Staffordshire, but moved to Somerset in 2010. He died on April 4, 2011 from pneumonia, following a short battle with acute myeloid leukemia. He was 68.
The son of the Western Mail rugby union writer, JBG Thomas, Craig was educated at Cardiff High School. He graduated from University College, Cardiff in 1967, obtaining his M.A. after completing a thesis on Thomas Hardy. Thomas became an English Teacher, working in various grammar schools in the West Midlands, and was Head of English at the Shire Oak School, Walsall Wood.
After unsuccessfully trying script writing for radio, Thomas wrote part-time, with his wife as editor, in two fields: philosophical thoughts in books of essays; and techno-thriller genre, which although invention is often attributed to the better-known Tom Clancy, many feel that Thomas was its true originator. Most of Thomas's novels are set within MI.6 and feature the characters of Sir Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde.
His best-known novel which brought him to global prominence, Firefox became a successful Hollywood film, both directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. After writing his third novel, 1960s Cold War espionage thriller Wolfsbane, he left teaching altogether in 1977. His later books include Snow Falcon and A Different War. Shortly before his death he finished a two-volume commentary on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Thomas and his wife Jill had lived near Lichfield, Staffordshire, but moved to Somerset in 2010. He died on April 4, 2011 from pneumonia, following a short battle with acute myeloid leukemia. He was 68.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 6, 2019
Gym audiobook listen (read by the author).
The one star rating is at least partly not the book's fault, as my sort-of broken tape recorder's batteries wore down and played the tapes obnoxiously slowly, so I bought another tape recorder online thinking it was the sort-of broken tape recorder's fault, but when the new one came I had the same problem, so I returned that one and got a new one and put in new batteries and was able to finish the listen at regular speed. But also while all this was happening I was having trouble finding where I was on the tape and kept on listening to the same parts over and over again, partly in confusion because I have a tape player at home that has this stupid feature where it can change the side it's playing, so when I thought I was listening to side 4 it was really just playing side 3 all over again, and also sometimes when I thought I was fast forwarding I was really rewinding. BUT mostly to blame is this book and its slow-paced, repetitious scenes and cardboard Cold War characters, which made it difficult for me to tell I'd heard a section before because everything was so samey and bland. The ending is a brainless bummer. What should've taken me 3 hours to listen to took me four weeks and now I hate this fucking book and the author's nerdy macho British voice and the off-tune depressing jazzy crap that plays at the beginning and end of every side of the tapes and I'm glad the whole experience is finally over and I can move on with my life.
The one star rating is at least partly not the book's fault, as my sort-of broken tape recorder's batteries wore down and played the tapes obnoxiously slowly, so I bought another tape recorder online thinking it was the sort-of broken tape recorder's fault, but when the new one came I had the same problem, so I returned that one and got a new one and put in new batteries and was able to finish the listen at regular speed. But also while all this was happening I was having trouble finding where I was on the tape and kept on listening to the same parts over and over again, partly in confusion because I have a tape player at home that has this stupid feature where it can change the side it's playing, so when I thought I was listening to side 4 it was really just playing side 3 all over again, and also sometimes when I thought I was fast forwarding I was really rewinding. BUT mostly to blame is this book and its slow-paced, repetitious scenes and cardboard Cold War characters, which made it difficult for me to tell I'd heard a section before because everything was so samey and bland. The ending is a brainless bummer. What should've taken me 3 hours to listen to took me four weeks and now I hate this fucking book and the author's nerdy macho British voice and the off-tune depressing jazzy crap that plays at the beginning and end of every side of the tapes and I'm glad the whole experience is finally over and I can move on with my life.
August 24, 2022
John le Carre was much, much better at this. He could convey significantly more story in half the page count. And he even added in the thoughtful stuff too. That's the kind of 'thinking man's espionage' this tries so desperately to be. If you want tidbits about the collapse of the USSR, they amount to nothing more than 'there's trouble in them Muslim republics, don't you think?' being repeated over and over again.
Mr Thomas is erudite. This doesn't read as trashy. But his story is a complete non-event. That's why it's slow. Cos nothing is happening. Throwing in a paedophile ring towards the end...well, suddenly I don't give two shits about a political assassination and a kidnapped niece. Whoops.
There's so many pointless words, I began skimming and missing details. It didn't help that Mr Thomas seemed to like, on occasion, being deliberately vague for effect. Sometimes he would start a chapter with 'He...' or in the passive voice, and then you're almost a page in before you know who he's referring to.
There's completely redundant side...well, I hesitate to call them 'plots', that would be generous. The whole Russian whoever they were POV. I mean, that had nothing to do with anything.
I hate to use the word 'boring' in reviews, because it's subjective. But the glacially slow motion of the story. And there was no interesting setting, nothing special about the characters. Just drudge. I thought I'd become better at giving up on books. Because the writing was pretty good, I figured something was gonna happen. I could condense the entire thing down into a short short story.
430 pages of densely-packed text on THIS shit? I can't warn you off it more strongly. It's extraordinary just how much of a waste of time it is.
Mr Thomas is erudite. This doesn't read as trashy. But his story is a complete non-event. That's why it's slow. Cos nothing is happening. Throwing in a paedophile ring towards the end...well, suddenly I don't give two shits about a political assassination and a kidnapped niece. Whoops.
There's so many pointless words, I began skimming and missing details. It didn't help that Mr Thomas seemed to like, on occasion, being deliberately vague for effect. Sometimes he would start a chapter with 'He...' or in the passive voice, and then you're almost a page in before you know who he's referring to.
There's completely redundant side...well, I hesitate to call them 'plots', that would be generous. The whole Russian whoever they were POV. I mean, that had nothing to do with anything.
I hate to use the word 'boring' in reviews, because it's subjective. But the glacially slow motion of the story. And there was no interesting setting, nothing special about the characters. Just drudge. I thought I'd become better at giving up on books. Because the writing was pretty good, I figured something was gonna happen. I could condense the entire thing down into a short short story.
430 pages of densely-packed text on THIS shit? I can't warn you off it more strongly. It's extraordinary just how much of a waste of time it is.
April 20, 2021
A riveting novel. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was it moved at a pace that felt slow to me.
May 10, 2025
It took me a little while to get into "The Last Raven." I hadn't read the earlier books in the Patrick Hyde/Sir Kenneth Aubrey series, so I wasn't familiar with the characters. It also begins with Aubrey talking to a superior about the unfortunate death of Hyde, which confused me further. I thought Hyde was the main character of the book.
Another confusing element was the time frame of the story. It's taking place after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, but before the collapse of the Soviet Union. We're in the period of perestroika and glasnost, but with a fictional General Secretary of the Soviet Union and a fictional American president. At the time the book was published, it was sort of an alternate future, but reading it now it's an alternate past.
But once I got the timeframe and characters straight, the story started to fall into place for me. For one, Hyde isn't dead (not a spoiler, as this is revealed in the first chapter). However, he is in pretty bad shape for most of the novel. He's at the tail end of a mission in Afghanistan when he witnesses a Russian aircraft shot down with a new secret weapon, a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) armed with a warhead. They're called drones now, but in 1990 no one was supposed to have working RPVs. In "The Last Raven" the only ones in existence were prototypes, developed by the British in a project later abandoned as too expensive and unworkable.
Somehow the CIA has gotten ahold of some of the prototype RPVs, which may have been used to shoot down both the Russian plane and an American airliner in California. It's a twisted, tangled web, with Hyde, on the run from the CIA, sent to America to protect Aubrey's niece, Kathryn, who is also targeted by the CIA because she may unknowingly have evidence connecting the two air crashes. Aubrey, is working the problem from his end, trying to find out exactly what happened to those missing RPV prototypes, and who was responsible for putting them in the hands of the CIA.
The book plays out in a novelistic manner, as we switch perspectives between Hyde, Aubrey, Kathryn, Harrell (the lead CIA agent), and various high-ranking Soviet officials. Craig's characters feel more authentic than characters in thriller novels tend to be. For the most part, they're fairly well-rounded human beings with real lives (except for Harrell, who is essentially the villain that you love to hate).
The only real problem that I had with the novel is that it does seem to go on for a bit too long. It drags a bit in the middle, particularly the grueling scenes of Hyde trying to make his way home from Afghanistan. But once he arrives in America and links up with Kathryn the pace of the novel picks up considerably, leading to an action-packed finale worthy of Donald Hamilton.
Another confusing element was the time frame of the story. It's taking place after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, but before the collapse of the Soviet Union. We're in the period of perestroika and glasnost, but with a fictional General Secretary of the Soviet Union and a fictional American president. At the time the book was published, it was sort of an alternate future, but reading it now it's an alternate past.
But once I got the timeframe and characters straight, the story started to fall into place for me. For one, Hyde isn't dead (not a spoiler, as this is revealed in the first chapter). However, he is in pretty bad shape for most of the novel. He's at the tail end of a mission in Afghanistan when he witnesses a Russian aircraft shot down with a new secret weapon, a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) armed with a warhead. They're called drones now, but in 1990 no one was supposed to have working RPVs. In "The Last Raven" the only ones in existence were prototypes, developed by the British in a project later abandoned as too expensive and unworkable.
Somehow the CIA has gotten ahold of some of the prototype RPVs, which may have been used to shoot down both the Russian plane and an American airliner in California. It's a twisted, tangled web, with Hyde, on the run from the CIA, sent to America to protect Aubrey's niece, Kathryn, who is also targeted by the CIA because she may unknowingly have evidence connecting the two air crashes. Aubrey, is working the problem from his end, trying to find out exactly what happened to those missing RPV prototypes, and who was responsible for putting them in the hands of the CIA.
The book plays out in a novelistic manner, as we switch perspectives between Hyde, Aubrey, Kathryn, Harrell (the lead CIA agent), and various high-ranking Soviet officials. Craig's characters feel more authentic than characters in thriller novels tend to be. For the most part, they're fairly well-rounded human beings with real lives (except for Harrell, who is essentially the villain that you love to hate).
The only real problem that I had with the novel is that it does seem to go on for a bit too long. It drags a bit in the middle, particularly the grueling scenes of Hyde trying to make his way home from Afghanistan. But once he arrives in America and links up with Kathryn the pace of the novel picks up considerably, leading to an action-packed finale worthy of Donald Hamilton.
January 2, 2023
Another solid spy thriller from the late great Craig Thomas. This was written in 1990 when the dust was still settling on the Berlin Wall and Soviet Russia was at a crossroads. We start with Sir Kenneth Aubrey (veteran spymaster) back in the ascendance after a rough period in recent books. He is now chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and reports to the PM herself. His regular sidekick, agent Patrick Hyde, is less fortunate, still scrabbling through the valleys of Afghanistan pursued by Hind gunships.
There's skullduggery afoot with hardline Soviets trying to keep their empire intact with the help of a ruthless CIA outfit - "The Carpetbaggers". Hyde undergoes his usual perils: shot at, framed, chased, constantly jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Let's not mention his cat. At least he gets a personal life (girlfriend Ros) and a personality, albeit 'off the peg' Aussie - sweary, drinks, rebellious. It also transpires Aubrey has a brother (first mention after umpteen books) - introduced just as his body is being taken to hospital. He doesn't recover.
There's a taut pacey thriller here but it's wrapped in a thick caul of needless similes and turgid scenes. At 517 pages there is room for judicious pruning. "The silence constricted around Aubrey's temples like a drying thong" (uggh!) "The cypress trees and more distant cedars were like severely-regular stains on the hard blue sky". Later that same paragraph: "The dark trees....were like shadows created by a detached retina". Just get on with it man!
Despite this, there's a satisfying finale and a new villain is introduced - South African tycoon/smuggler/KGB ally Paulus Malan. The next book in the series, "A Hooded Crow", is already looking down from my bookshelf like....er, a big book...on a shelf.
There's skullduggery afoot with hardline Soviets trying to keep their empire intact with the help of a ruthless CIA outfit - "The Carpetbaggers". Hyde undergoes his usual perils: shot at, framed, chased, constantly jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Let's not mention his cat. At least he gets a personal life (girlfriend Ros) and a personality, albeit 'off the peg' Aussie - sweary, drinks, rebellious. It also transpires Aubrey has a brother (first mention after umpteen books) - introduced just as his body is being taken to hospital. He doesn't recover.
There's a taut pacey thriller here but it's wrapped in a thick caul of needless similes and turgid scenes. At 517 pages there is room for judicious pruning. "The silence constricted around Aubrey's temples like a drying thong" (uggh!) "The cypress trees and more distant cedars were like severely-regular stains on the hard blue sky". Later that same paragraph: "The dark trees....were like shadows created by a detached retina". Just get on with it man!
Despite this, there's a satisfying finale and a new villain is introduced - South African tycoon/smuggler/KGB ally Paulus Malan. The next book in the series, "A Hooded Crow", is already looking down from my bookshelf like....er, a big book...on a shelf.
November 10, 2021
Got the book from my dad after he found it on a second hand book shelf at the local theatre. He read it first and enjoyed it but I gave up before I got half way in.
The idea behind the story seemed right up my street but it moved too slowly for me and I had real trouble keeping track of the characters.
I want to compare it to books, with similar themes, that I’ve read which were written around the same time, like some of Robert Ludlum’s. Some of those I thought were great, others I found to be good but slow and overly wordy (why write something in a sentence when you can fill a whole page with adjectives). This is the first Craig Thomas I’ve read and I think he’s a poor-man’s Ludlum - I may be wrong and I’m willing to hear people argue otherwise!
I have about 40 unread books on the shelf, some have been there for 2 house moves. This one will go back on the shelf and maybe one day I’ll try it again but probably not until I have no other unread books!
The idea behind the story seemed right up my street but it moved too slowly for me and I had real trouble keeping track of the characters.
I want to compare it to books, with similar themes, that I’ve read which were written around the same time, like some of Robert Ludlum’s. Some of those I thought were great, others I found to be good but slow and overly wordy (why write something in a sentence when you can fill a whole page with adjectives). This is the first Craig Thomas I’ve read and I think he’s a poor-man’s Ludlum - I may be wrong and I’m willing to hear people argue otherwise!
I have about 40 unread books on the shelf, some have been there for 2 house moves. This one will go back on the shelf and maybe one day I’ll try it again but probably not until I have no other unread books!
May 28, 2021
This is my first read from this author but I have to say that this book wasn't the best, however it definitely wasn't the worst. It does keep your interest, and I love the way the author describes the scenery and the moods and feelings of the characters, but it did at times feel like the book dragged on longer than it should have and it felt like the author added more twist and turns than was necessary. But again, the book was interesting and even though I wanted the ending to be different it was a good book to read at least once. I don’t feel this book is a great judge of the author though and I will give his other works a chance.
Edit: I didn't know this book was a part of a series when I bought it, so I'm hoping when I go back and begin reading the series in the correct order that maybe it'll help more.
Edit: I didn't know this book was a part of a series when I bought it, so I'm hoping when I go back and begin reading the series in the correct order that maybe it'll help more.
January 12, 2024
This book was written as a thriller, full of action. Unfortunately, the thrill ran out for me after roughly half of its 460 pages. Even the action seem endlessly repetitive. A lone good guy was always escaping after being surrounded by a group of bad guys intent on killing him. There were an inordinate number of characters to keep track of and more were constantly being added. None of them fired up my imagination. The ending hints of a sequel which I won't be reading.
December 19, 2023
Listed to on cd, Not my type of book at all, could not really follow it very well. Does not mean that it was a bad book just not my type of book an listening to it on tape in spurts made it harder to understand. A suspensful thirller it says and it is fulll of action -packed adventure this is true.
August 9, 2025
Low Energy!
** 2 Stars.
** 2 Stars.
Currently reading
July 10, 2011I think you have to read the previous novels in the series to really understand this. At the beginning there are so many characters I would have needed a spreadsheet to keep track of them. So I just ignored them. And the further we go the more characters are added.
Not sure if I can finish this one or not, only one character I am at all interested in. And I don't know his name.
Not sure if I can finish this one or not, only one character I am at all interested in. And I don't know his name.
Read
October 8, 2008A Tho
December 20, 2013
More of the same but the same is good
October 18, 2015
I enjoyed the plot and Hyde but got lost with some of the politics and their characters.
June 3, 2024
Too many characters in the prologue. Published in 1990, Couldn't imagine it would be good.
July 17, 2011
Not as good as the Hooded Crow until the last 75 pages.....Read the Hooded Crow and save some time.
September 22, 2011
can't remember a thing, hence the 1-star
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews