The Hidden Man

Charles Cumming's "The Hidden Man" is certainly the finest espionage novel I've read. While I love the works of Littell, Deighton, Greene, McCarry, Ignatius and Le Carre, as well as Cumming's own "A Spy By Nature," "The Hidden Man" is unique in how effectively it deals with the effects of cold war espionage on very ordinary people. The main characters in Cumming's novel are not spies, ambassadors or diplomats, but a businessman and an artist. Nor does Cumming succumb to having them turn into James Bond. History simply reaches into their lives, and unravels them. Even one is not interested in that particular theme, one will be treated to a fast, engrossing drama. By page fifty, Cumming has amassed so much intruiging plot with remarkably little prose.