Charlie M

Brian Freemantle has written a whole series of books about Charlie Muffin, who really dislikes being called Charles. I'd never heard of them, and can't honestly remember now how I found out about the series, but it sounded like he'd found a winning formula so thought I'd check it out by reading the first one. Set during the Cold War, Charlie is a spy--a leftover from a previous regime that apparently had some embarrassing events which resulted in a new Director and a wholesale housecleaning of the staff. Charlie cultivates a rumpled, even shabby appearance, but is still the most knowledgable agent they have. His ruthlessly ambitious and probably sociopathic new boss, Cuthbertson, sets Charlie up to get captured while crossing from East Berlin. Charlie, ever a  survivor, outwits the treachery, although a man Charlie was trying to help escape to the West gets killed in his place. His new boss also attempts to diminish the importance of Charlie's recent capture of a major Russian spymaster operating in Great Britain, but this backfires, so Cuthbertson is forced to keep Charlie on staff. He does manage to shove Charlie into a former broom closet of an office and is threatening a demotion. Now a major player in the KGB is making noises about defecting, and after Cuthbertson's still wet-behind-the-ears agents get killed or captured, Charlie is brought in to save the play. I was caught totally unawares by the plot twist in this first novel of the series and I'm definitely curious to see where things go from here.