“Magnificent cunt! How are you doing?”

It’s a term of endearment from a Serbian mercenary to ex MI-Sixer Paul Samson in Henry Porter’s latest spy yarn, WHITE HOT SILENCE, a lingua franca illustrative of Porter’s ear for dialogue in an English as second language Europe.

Timely and terrific, WHITE HOT SILENCE speaks with a white hot eloquence about modern espionage and the masked continuation, evolution and elevation of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union may have dissolved and the Berlin Wall dismantled, but the Russians are still playing geopolitical chess with the West in a game of high stakes and unwilling pawns.

Kicking off with a kidnapping in Calabria, WHITE HOT SILENCE catapults the action into the high seas with ping ponging intrigue on both sides of the Atlantic.

Cyber sourcing intelligence is de rigeur in 21st century espionage, but tried and true traditional trade craft is still employed with agents in place and blunt instrument practice deployed.

WHITE HOT SILENCE is dense in description and extrapolation delivered in sprawling chapters that are sagas in themselves, which makes the action even more explosive when it comes.

Paul Samson is a credible protagonist, former secret servant of Her Majesty now private sector security sleuth, part time restaurateur and heavily in debt gambler.

Abducted aid worker, Anastasia Christakos is an admirable creation, a great gumption and colossal compassion fused into a formidable force of nature.

Gripping in guile and dripping in vile, the central villain of the piece is Kirill, incensed at the loss of the soviet empire, intent on destabilising the west by use of social media and inflammation of racism.

Reading like exciting fact, WHITE HOT SILENCE, grips the reader with a taut, suave, sensual stranglehold from the beginning and never lets go through a capering 438 pages.

WHITE HOT SILENCE by Henry Porter is published by Quercus