A Foreign Country, Cumming - B +

                                                As I read the second novel first, this is the previous one. Tom Kell is only eight months into exile when he gets the call.  The Service really needs some help  - Amelia Levene, his old friend and boss and the next  Chief, with an appointment on the books with the PM at 10 Downing Street,  has gone missing.  Someone needs to find her and Tom does in Tunis.  She's there with a man twenty years younger, who just happens to be the son she gave up for a French adoption as a twenty-year-old au pair three decades ago. But Kell is good, really good, and figures out that this Francois is a fraud. Her real son is being held by the DGSE, as the French try to pull one over on the next C of MI-6.  If she's dismissed for scandal,  it's business as usual on Her Majesty's Secret Service and the old school chums will let the French have their way in the Levant.  I'll leave the plot at this point for those who will read this and say I believe both books are worth the effort. This, and the newer one I read first, are excellent examples of spy craft  and go into significant depth two or three times per book on different ops.  For what ever reason, I thoroughly enjoy those sections (although I concede some may find it boring) and for me, they enhance the already superb plot.