Lord of the Swallows: A Malko Linge Novel

Lord of Swallows is the forth book to be publish by Vintage Crime of SAS series, and while it is clearly a earlier book than at least Revenge of the Kremlin, it's still pretty good. It moves well from the jump and keeps up it's speed until the vary end. The book still has that mix of pulp fiction and realism that the other novels had and brings back the Russian spymaster form ROK as well as the ex CIA case worker Gwyneth Robertson, who I kind of like among the women that have shown up in the series at the moment. There's bit less sex, but the action holds up well, although the ending isn't as great as the other four. It's not horrible, but it lacks a major action scene like the other books. The book like the others also unlike Bond books doesn't make one side saintly. While the CIA are still good guys, it's a dirty imperfect work which Malko runs around in. All and all I thought it was pretty good book although not as great as some of the others, it's still a good read. I'm looking forward to picking up the next book Surface to air. I know that Vintage Crime only planned to publish the five books in English, but I'm going to hope that they buy the rights to publish more of the Malko books in English. While they are far from high art they have this wonderful pulp fun that I can't find anywhere else.

This novel was filled with action (and sex) from beginning to end. And also it's an informative novel capturing the total dishonesty and back-stabbing nature of the Russia KGB/FSB. Highly recommended!

I've read all the other thrillers in this series as they come out in translation. I thought the earlier ones were better but this is still a fast-moving page-turner. It has less explicit sex acts than at least one of the earlier books if that concerns you.

The king of pulp novels, from 1966 to 2013 the author wrote 4 to 5 international spy thrillers a year! I ordered Lord of the Swallows and  Surface to Air: A Malko Linge Novel  at the same time then read them back to back. I had never heard of the author (b.1929 – d.2013) until I read a fascinating interview that you can read on line in the NY Times Magazine titled The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much, By ROBERT F. WORTH published JAN. 30, 2013.I can totally see how in the countries where these novels have been best sellers for decades (France, Germany, Russian, Turkey and Japan) the macho male reader would gobble the Malko Linge novels up - Malko is like James Bond to who lives in the political present day but who never grew out of the 1930's. Malko is an Austrian prince and CIA agent. In this case, which you do not need to read any of the others in the 200 volume series to understand what is going on, he takes on intrigue involving Russian sleeper agents in the US going back 25 years (a ripped from the headlines case where Alexi Krenkov is inspired by the 2010 case involving Alexander Poteyev,) of course this led me to the real story as profiled in the Guardian "The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies" by Shaun Walker published May 7, 2016.for newbies like myself this list of Recurring characters may prove helpful:Alexandra Vogel: Malko's "fiancee".Elko Krisantem: Turkish servant of Malko Linge. He used to be a killer.Samantha Adler: A German arms dealer.Mandy Brown aka Mandy la salope (Mandy the b***h): An American "maneater".Frank Capistrano: Special adviser to the White House.Milton Brabeck & Chris Jones:CIA agents who protect Malko on several missions.

It's like Ian Fleming on Viagara. Still a good story.

Malko, Reacher, and Bernie Gunther walk into a bar....

Gerard De Villiers’s Malko Linge is like Ian Fleming’s James Bond but with even more, and more graphic, sex, and not only MORE sex but sex in more varieties --including a bit of S&M. Linge takes a decidedly utilitarian approach toward love, even when he connects with his sexy fiancée Alexandra, who gets back at him any time he displeases her (by putting his work ahead of her whims, for instance) by heading off into the wilderness (well, shopping or partying or) with some other man, whoever’s available at the moment. This particular episode starts with an attempted seduction. With virtually no warning, a Russian financier’s wife, Zhanna, tries to seduce Malko. When that fails, she offers him a bribe to kill her husband’s new mistress. The payoff is huge: her husband runs a circle of “swallows,” Russian sleeper agents inserted into the United States decades ago to work their way up to positions of influence, and she’ll turn them all over to the CIA in return for one simple act of murder. But Malko isn’t a killer, at least not when he doesn’t have to be. He does however free-lance for the agency –it’s the only way he can pay for the renovation of his rundown family castle. So soon he’s sitting in a secure room with a CIA handler, deciding how to play out Zhanna’s offer without actually killing anyone. What follows is a long and tortuous cat-and-mouse game between Russian spymaster and free world spies, with Malko in the hot seat. The Russians know that Malko is involved. The question is whether to neutralize him and alert the West to the real importance of the U.S. spy operation or to let him run and watch for signs that it’s time to step in. En route, Malko has sex with one woman, then another, and then … well, you get the drift… He eats and drinks his way through a slew of top drawer stuff: there is “an excellent Pouilly Fume’” and then “a Chateau Latour 1992,” sautéed fois gras and lamb with ginger…. More sex, more meals, and on to the climax, which is both satisfying and believable. The best thing about the book, though, is the building of tension between the two sides as the Russians watch Malko and debate whether to maintain a watching brief on him or just cut to the chase and do him in. This is only the second Malko Linge novel I’ve read –De Villiers wrote more than 200—so I expect we will see a lot more of them in months to come. I not only liked it better than the first (The Madmen of Benghazi, pub. in English in 2014) but better than many of the James Bond novels. During his lifetime (De he died in 2013), the French literary establishment pretty much ignored De Villiers but a former French minister commented, “The French elite pretend not to read him … but they all do.” If you like James Bond, you’ll like Malko Linge.

Thanks...

The Lord of Swallows is the latest English translation of one of the late French author Gerard De Villiers’ SAS series of novels featuring Austrian aristocrat and part time intelligence agent Marko Linge.Each time I finish another of De Villiers’ Marko Linge novels I swear it will be the last one I read. Poorly written stylistically (but solidly and fluently translated), lacking in genuine thrills and threaded with borderline misogyny, De Villiers books cannot by any yardstick be described as being good. However, there is something compelling about the ongoing adventures of Marko Linge that makes them an undeniable guilty pleasure.Maybe it’s the fact that they’re inherently old fashioned whilst simultaneously featuring plots that are nothing but contemporary. In a world where many modern spy novels feature troubled protagonists battling both their own inner demons and enemies on all sides, including their own, it is refreshing to have Linge as the central character, a man utterly comfortable with who he is, working as a spy simply to pay the bills and taking pleasure in the (mostly female) fringe benefits that go with his part-time job.It’s also nice to have tales of espionage that aren’t doorsteps, don’t fetishize technology and/or military might and aren’t packed with wall-to-wall action that simultaneously defies the laws of both physics and reality. Lord of Swallows, like the other Marko Linge novels, is a slim tome that you can rattle through in a couple of sittings and doesn’t outstay its welcome. The story is entertaining if not particularly propulsive, but avoids getting bogged down with too much exposition or unnecessary factual detail.You also can’t shake off the feeling that you’re being allowed to see behind the curtain and into the reality behind actual headline making events; in Lord of Swallow’s case the uncovering of Russian spy networks in the US back in 2010. That feeling may be completely erroneous, based entirely on De Villier’s reputed but never confirmed connections to the intelligence community, and obviously a vast amount of the book’s plot is entirely fictitious, but the nagging suspicion always remains and gives Lord of Swallow an extra frisson.Of course none of that gets around the fact that De Villier’s writing style is perfunctory at best and leaden at worst, Marko Linge remains a passive cypher throughout (though maybe this is a secret advantage too, as it allows the reader to more easily envisage themselves in the role), the multiple sex scenes are entirely gratuitous, unnecessarily graphic and worryingly obsessed with the female bottom and the story rather peters out towards the end.It does however, possibly explain why, having read the four translations published so far and knowing rationally that none of them constitute what could be considered ‘good’ books, I undoubtedly be back for the next one when its released and why De Villiers managed to write and have published 200+ Marko Linge novels before his death in 2013.