Dark Arena, Jack Beaumont

Jack Beaumont is a pseudonym used by a former operative in the clandestine operations branch of the DGSE, the French Foreign secret service. He joined them after being an air force fighter pilot, flying special operations and intelligence missions. Needless to say there are a lot of similarities between the author's background and that of his main character Alec de Payns.

Not that the expertise is mishandled in this, now, series of two novels. Beaumont has the knack of providing more than enough detail of how missions are conducted, operatives work, and the difficulties, challenges and risks involved, without it reading like a how to manual. The pace is brisk, the settings really well evoked, and the pressures on agents, their families and the higher-ups crystal clear without pulling focus from a series of really believable and quite scary plots. Especially with the connections that DARK ARENA is drawing between energy supplies, Ukraine and Russia.

In DARK ARENA, the whole point is that the French intelligence services know Russia is up to something. The trail quickly leads them through secret meetings on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, shadowy businessmen, connections with the Wagner Group mercenaries, and some out and out terrorist organisations. There are agents moving around countries, gathering and distributing intelligence, and all the while, there is a distinct feeling that there is misinformation as well as information in that mix. de Payn's search for a target, a mission, and an end game is increasingly fraught, as the plot builds, with the outcome likely to be big, but exactly what, and even how attack is being planned, mightily unclear. Until right at the end of the novel when things ramp up in one hell of a hurry, and the stakes immediately become obviously high.

The thing with both the novels in this series, is that even when they are deep in spycraft, and intelligence gathering, they are interesting and really engrossing. Partly this is the way that the little inevitabilities of life evolve - how to get into a mission and how to extract yourself without consequences. The potential of consequences for an operative's family and friends let alone the operative themselves, always at the forefront, and the actions they must take are demonstrated in every move described. All of which happen at pace, and, in a matter-of-fact manner making it part of the story, not part of a lecture.

The other thing that was particularly well done in DARK ARENA is the family and private life of an operative. The way de Payns chaotic and unpredictable life has an effect on his wife and their young sons, the stress that it causes, and the potential of marriage and family breakdowns because of that. I doubt there's many women who would cope well with finding their husband sat on the sofa, armed and lost in the middle of the night. There's also the pressure of her wearing the burden of raising the children, despite an important job of her own, mostly because he's stressed when there, and unpredictably not there way too often. How that played out, against the backdrop of his bosses insistence that the mission matters more, and in particular, her desire to form friendships and connections, made the stress and potential for disaster soberingly obvious.

It was hard to avoid a comparison with the game of chess as this proceeded. There is a lot of staring at the field, a lot of sitting, watching, waiting, followed by flurries of activity. There are a lot of components to the game, and a lot of pieces (operatives) from a lot of countries, who are moving around in set moves. Granted there's also some unexpected moves which isn't chess like, and there are a lot of cars, guns, and spy toys. 

All in all, for fans of spy thrillers, this series should be a given. Even though the subject matter, the target and the players in this one was just a bit too close to real life for comfort in the end.