Red Sparrow (Review)

Red Sparrow (Red Sparrow Trilogy #1)

Jason Matthews

Genre: Thriller, spy thriller, mystery, fiction

Synopsis:

We all make sacrifices to play the Game...

In Putin's Russia, former ballerina turned intelligence agent Dominika Egorova is struggling to survive. Ordered to become a "Sparrow", a trained seductress, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, an idealistic and ambitious young CIA officer who handles the Agency's most important Russian mole.

Nate must protect his source's identity for as long as the mole can keep supplying golden information. will Dominika unmask him, or will the mission destroy her faith in the country she has always so passionately defended?

Spies have long rallied on the "honey trap" to ensnare foreign agents. But Dominika has more skills in her armoury - she is a secret synesthete, seeing emotions and intentions as colours, an invaluable aid for a fledgling spy. But is being able to see the true colours of everyone around her a gift or a curse?

As the action careens between Moscow, Helsinki, Athens, Rome, and Washington DC, Dominika and Nate soon collide in a duel of wills, tradecraft, and - inevitably - forbidden passion that threatens not just their careers but their lives and the security of their countries.

About the Author:

Jason Matthews is a retired officer in the CIA's former Operations Directorate, now the National Clandestine Service. Over a thirty-three year career he served in multiple overseas locations and engaged in clandestine collection of national security intelligence, specializing in denied-area operations. Matthews conducted recruitment operations against Soviet-East European, East Asian, Middle Eastern, and Caribbean targets and, as Chief in various CIA Stations, managed covert-action projects against the weapons-of-mass-destruction programs of the world's rogue states and collaborated with foreign liaison partners in counterterrorism operations. He lives in Southern California.

My Review (Warning: May contain spoilers!!!):

I did the thing I typically avoid doing when a novel is made into a movie: I saw the movie first.

The reason for this is that I tried to read Red Sparrow before the movie hit theatres, but found it very difficult to read due to an extensive use of jargon surrounding the world of intelligence. So I watched the movie first, and then tried reading the book, in which case a lot more made sense.

Matthews, being a former CIA officer, writes using a lot of terminology from the world of intelligence, without providing a lot of definition or context to these terms for someone with non-existent knowledge on this topic like myself. So I struggled following along, in quite a few places when the jargon was heavy.

Being based mostly in Russia, but being written in English, Matthews interjects a lot of Russian into his writing; but, luckily he often follows the Russian sentence with an English translation (but not always, which is sometimes frustrating). Overall, I enjoyed the interjection of the Russian language into the writing, as it adds just that little extra touch of culture to the world Matthews is trying to portray.

Another aspect of the novel that I liked was that in every chapter the characters eat a food from varying cultures, and then the recipe (in short form) is provided at the end of each chapter. I have read several books in which the authors do this, and have always enjoyed it. Being someone who loves to cook, as well as try new foods from around the world, I liked being able to visualize or imagine the food just a little bit more.

Being a novice to the world of mystery/spy-thriller genres, this book was outside of my comfort zone. In that I mean, with the jargon and concepts involved with intelligence, and counter-intelligence, if you do not have any background in these, you are kind of thrown into the deep end. Watching the movie beforehand helped a lot, but the movie and book are significantly different, so the struggle was not completely alleviated.

One, difference in particular, is that Dominika in the novel is a synesthete, so she can see emotions of people around her in colours, whereas in the movie this does not occur. I really enjoyed this aspect of the novel; it made Dominika's character that much more strong and powerful, because it gave her the ability to pick up on lies, truths, and people's overall personalities. I do wish Matthews, would have delved into this part of her character more extensively; it's not something a lot of readers are used to their characters experiencing, and it adds so many layers to Dominika that could have been developed.

Continuing with Dominika's character; I loved her. It's awesome to have a strong female lead in a world that is usually portrayed as being dominated by men. She was independent, strong, and didn't take crap from people, or let others do the hard things for her. It was also nice to see that she wasn't 100% persuaded in the ending to continue working for the CIA because she had concerns and trust issues. She held her ground, while also thinking about other people (MARBLE) first.

Another difference between book and movie, is that the movie focused a lot more on Dominika's training in Sparrow school, whereas the novel in my opinion kind of skimmed over this. This kind of education and pressure had a significant impact on Dominika's character as we see throughout the novel, and I think as a reader knowing more about what she went through and the kinds of "classes" they put her through (like in the movie) would help develop her character more strongly.

Overall, I really enjoyed the novel, and would recommend it to fellow readers who love a bit of mystery, romance, and a touch of thrill. And if you're knew to the spy-thriller genre, thats okay too, I still recommend it.