In Secret Service

"In Secret Service" is a compelling, nail-biting homage to Ian Fleming from first-time author Mitch Silver; a gripping historical thriller which, I am certain, would have pleased the old master himself. Silver has carved himself a vast historical canvas, and has rendered a gripping yarn about a dark secret dating from World War II. A secret ferreted out none other than by Ian Fleming himself, and recounted in a "memoir" that comprises much of the novel. Four decades after Fleming completes his unpublished "memoir", a young American art historian travels to Ireland, and there, claims her odd literary inheritance, which Fleming has bequeathed to her. Soon she realizes that Fleming's unpublished work is not just a compelling memoir that's been hidden deep within the vaults of a Dublin bank, but one whose dark secret will take her on an epic, almost nonstop, relentless journey back home. Pitting herself against secret agents and assassins eager to use every deadly foul means at their disposal towards retrieving that manuscript, she realizes soon enough that her trek home is a desperate struggle to stay alive. Silver's historical research is quite admirable in both its scope and detail; readers will wonder whether many the events described are real, especially when we are introduced to such major real-life figures as Winston Churchill, Edward, Duke of Windsor, and Anthony Blunt. But, most importantly of all, Silver takes his readers on a glorious fictional saga worthy of comparison to James Bond's, and giving us more than a mere glimpse as to what the real-life adventures of former British naval spy Ian Fleming were during the course of World War II.

Mitch Silver has written a fast-moving, involving, witty thriller that combines history and fiction creatively and evokes both place and time in a way that captures the imagination. Silver draws on a few facts about Ian Fleming's World War II intelligence service and builds an edifice from it that imagines treachery during the War and murder to protect the treachery in the present and recent past. As with most thrillers of worth, he makes parts of New York and New Haven into characters in the book with his clear and evocative descriptions of the places (whether they be real or imagined). Only quibble is that his British spy tradecraft is somewhat far from the mark. However, read it! (Full disclosure: Mitch and I were classmates in college and friends since).

If you have ever read and enjoyed Ian Fleming's James Bond books you will love this book also. Mitch Silver writes the book in such a way that it feels like two stories have been written by two writers. One writer being Silver and the other writer being Ian Fleming. I do admit that I think he has Fleming's writing style down cold. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much. So if you are a fan of the James Bond series of books by Ian Fleming I think you will love this book also. I was pleasantly surprised by it.

"In Secret Service" is exactly what I look for in a book - - a great diversion that takes you on a journey. This one's a thrilling ride that gets you thinking, keeps you guessing and drops you off with a feeling of satisfaction - a job well done. I enjoyed the book so much I was inspired to write the author to tell him.

In reading Mitch Silver's book, historical truth and witty conjecture become hard to separate, and one is led down alley after fascinating alley wondering which is which. Did Wallis Simpson really have unique genital architecture? Was Ian Fleming truly a Churchill protégé? Surely, Princess Diana's death cannot truly be connected to the abdication of Edward VIII... Only when an author has seriously researched his subject can he play with smoke and mirrors so effectively. The fictional Amy Greenburg becomes the unwitting courier of a deadly document, one that contains allegations of treachery at the highest level. But Silver's trick is to combine this fiction with a nagging feeling that it might all be true, and you're left wondering until the very end. And even then... Half way through `In Secret Service' I called out to a friend, in another room of the house, that I believed this guy Silver had a best seller on his hands.