Exclusive interview with author Brian Freemantle and a review of his third book in the Red Star trilogy
Rating: Three Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Red Star started out as a single novel, the plot revolving around the determination of Charlie Muffin, a British espionage agent, to bring out of Russia his wife Natalia, a colonel in the FSB, the successor to Russia’s KGB, to whom no-one knows he’s married,” says Red Star Falling author Brian Freemantle. “The majority of my books have been espionage based. I have a circle of CIA, FBI, Russian and English acquaintances who have given me help and guidance.”
While British secret agent Charlie Muffin is in Russia he gets shot by another British agent and captured by the FSB. Charlie’s boss in London at MI5 suspects treachery from within M16, Britain’s external intelligence organization. Muffin is someone the FSB has wanted to get their hands on for some time. It’s their turn to extract any information they can about British intelligence from him. Muffin knows much and has secrets he wants to keep that way. He is determined to lead them down the wrong path and he really wants to know if his wife and daughter got out of Russia. Muffin is secretly married to Natalia, a former KGB intelligence officer.
Red Star Falling is more cerebral than the first two books of the Red Star trilogy. The two sides of British intelligence fight for control and there is notably less violence in this novel. The focus is on who says what in the meetings and confrontations and the plot twists will keep you guessing throughout. Freemantle presents vivid descriptions of Russia and London but there are a few references to events in the previous book that may cause confusion. Another quibble? The font is rather small.
“Red Star Falling completes a trilogy featuring my character Charlie Muffin, about whom I’ve had a great deal of international success with 17 previous Charlie Muffin books out of the total of 87 novels I have so far published,” says Freemantle. Before becoming a full-time author, he worked as a foreign correspondent for British newspapers. During the Cold War he was asked to spy for the KGB-controlled Hungarian and Polish intelligence organizations.
In addition to help from personal sources, Freemantle researched documents at the National archives. Freemantle has enjoyed sales of more than 11 million during his long career.
Red Star Burning, the second book in the trilogy, was nominated this year for a Barry award. Freemantle’s book The Blind Run was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe award. Charlie Muffin, the first Charlie Muffin book, was made into a TV movie in 1982 and was re-released in 2010. Red Star Falling has yet to be optioned for film or television.
Freemantle was banned from the Soviet Union and its satellites for writing an expose called KGB. In 1982 the KGB stole Freemantle’s only copy of the book from the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 1985 the FBI uncovered a murder plot against Freemantle by Colombian drug lord Jose O’Campo, whom he’d identified in the non-fiction book The Fix. Payment for his successful murder during a Florida book tour was to be a kilo of pure cocaine. Freemantle cancelled the tour.
Days before Vietnam fell to the communists, Freemantle organized a rescue mission that airlifted a hundred orphans out of Saigon. Freemantle’s website has a clip of Viktoria Cowley (her adoptive name), who was one of the babies he brought out on that flight. “Last year Viktoria named her baby boy Harry, my middle name, ‘for saving my life’,” says Freemantle.
Freemantle is currently writing a novel about terrorism. He is based in London. His official website has clips of the Charlie Muffin movie and of the escape from Saigon.
Red Star Falling: A Thriller by Brian Freemantle. Series: Red Star (Book 16 of the Charlie Muffin books). Hardcover: 352 pages, Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (June 25, 2013) Language: English, ISBN: 9781250032249 $ 25.99
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