Running Blind, by Desmond Bagley – classic thriller
Running Blind is another of the thrillers by English thriller master Desmond Bagley that has been made into a movie. It is a great, very suspenseful roller-coaster of a novel that tied me to me chair. 
It all begins with a simple errand – a package to deliver. “It’ll be simple”, they said at the Department. “You’ll just be a messenger boy.” But to Alan Stewart, on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, it looks anything but simple. Almost immediately, he finds himself in a maze of bluffs and double-bluffs. Set amongst some of the most dramatic scenery in the world, Stewart and his girlfriend, Erin, are faced with treacherous natural obstacles and deadly threats, as they battle to carry out the mission.
Stewart escapes a very cunning trap and in doing so stumbles, almost by accident, on the scary possibility that a top official in British intelligence may actually be a Russian mole. What follows is a spellbinding sequence of action involving the mole, the Russians, some stray CIA agents in fascinating pursuit all across Iceland.
Running Blind culminates in a shootout that contains a huge surprise, and a shocking conclusion.
An excellent thriller! The language and descriptions are excellent, the plot full of surprising twists, and the suspense almost intolerable. Running Blind moves at a faster pace than the average Bagley novel. Still very well worth reading!
The Last Frontier, by Alistair MacLean
Filed under: Alistair MacLean, book review, Thriller
(a k a The Secret Ways) This 
Michael Reynolds is a capable agent but not a superman. He doesn’t even have any fancy technology. He is well trained and resourceful. His skills are immediately put to the test when something goes wrong and he falls into the hands of the ruthless Hungarian Secret Police. In an attempt to continue his mission, he seeks the help of the leader of an underground movement that is set up to smuggle Hungarians over the border into the West.
The Last Frontier was published in 1959, just three years after the crushing of the October Revolution by the Russian troops. It is a tough book to read, and an excellent spy thriller. If you don’t know or have forgotten just how hard-fought the Cold War was for the United States and its Western Allies, and how desperate many people in the Eastern European countries were under Soviet rule, this may be a good book to read. It is, I think, very realistic on some levels, and besides: it is great entertainment, and very exciting. The Last Frontier is recommended to fans of Cold War spy fiction and to fans of Alistair MacLean.
Praise for The Last Frontier:
‘Breathless, bloody and detailed.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Swift-moving, with a tremendous climactic scene on the snow-swept roof of a trans-Hungarian express.’ Glasgow Herald
, Amazon UK
, and Amazon CAN
. See also Bokkilden.no and Tanum.The Eleventh Commandment, by Jeffrey Archer
Filed under: bestseller, book review, Fiction, Jeffrey Archer, New York Times bestseller, Thriller
Connor Fitzgerald works for the CIA. Nobody knows of his double life, 
Actually, Connor is being sent on a bogus mission, set up by the director of the CIA, presumably with the permission of the White House. The job ploy is to eliminate Connor, who has, in the Director’s view, become a threat to her job.
The Eleventh Commandment is another Jeffrey Archer-tale with a lot of twists in the tale, and clearly with some references to the goings on of the real world. Well worth an intensive weekend of reading!
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