I am a fan of Alma Katsu, and really enjoyed her first offering "Red Widow". However, while "Red London" started out with the same promise and excellent writing, it descended into an overlong dialogue (multiple chapters) between the protagonist and the other main character. Those chapters became tedius to read, and I found myself skipping pages trying to get back to the plot. Though "Red London" is far better than much of the genre's writings today, I would not give it my enthusiastic recommendation.

Although espionage isn't my genre of choice, this was as much a thriller as it was anything.
Alma Katsu is brilliant at characterization, simply brilliant. In just a few paragraphs, she has readers completely inside the mind of each character and experiencing the emotions they feel.
Anything I can say about this book would be a spoiler and I don't want to do that. Every single book I've read by this author puts me so deeply into the plot, characters, and even the background that I'm immersed--it's impossible for me to step back and give an outsider's point of view.
How many novels can you read where, if someone asks you about a scene, the first thing you want to say is, "Well, I was there standing off in the corner, and..."
Masterful..

A spy novel, but not your typical spy novel and that's a good thing.

What I liked about Alma Katsu's RED LONDON is that it didn't get bogged down with too many details. There was espionage, there was danger, there were thrills. There was everything you love in a traditional spy novel, but it also had this added ingredient that I'll call "perspective." Knowing Katsu's background in intelligence made this story feel close and intimate. I loved that it was a female protagonist and it was concerned with relationships and emotions. It makes sense that gathering intelligence would be so much about relationships, betrayal, and cooperation, but I don't know, this just felt fresh to me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for this free ARC. My opinions are my own.

My first spy noval and I enjoyed it. It was suspenseful and I liked the main character. I think it spent more on the marriage between the targets but it was ok. I would have liked more spying and scenes with that but it was good overall. I Would definitely recommend.

First thing first is that I didn’t realize that this was the sequel to Red Widow, so now I have to add another book to my to read list. I really enjoyed how the book described what I imagined to be the delicate intricacies that go into espionage. I enjoyed the dual perspective of Lyndsey, the CIA agent and Emily, the British wife of Lyndsey’s target, Russian billionaire Mikhail Rosenberg.. I enjoyed how the author incorporated some of the aspects of the current political climate into her writing. Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Alma katsu’s Red London is not an action thriller. It really is a spy book and with the lead character Lynsey Duncan
you get a bit of an inside look of a cia or mi6 agent. it is not an exiting read but more realistic. I liked it.

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope he writes more! I am totally hooked!

I'm a big fan of Alma Katsu's work. She writes driving, highly readable novels, of which Red London is one. I found it exciting and hard to put down for the most part, except when Ms. Katsu lingers overlong in her main characters' thoughts and feelings at the expense of advancing action and plot.. Of course this is a hallmark of her purposeful, market-facing style -- a deep dive into a female character's emotive stream of consciousness. Most of her readers will probably like this, but it tended to drag a bit for me.
That said, Red London is chock full of reversals and twists and its portrayal of realistic intelligence tradecraft is brilliant. For my taste, though, the occasionally heavy focus on romantic brooding and speculative choice-weighing pushed it too far at moments. Otherwise a first-rate thriller.

I loved this follow up to the Red Widow with the type of deceptions and pressure that just don’t let up for our protagonist. This time, she needs to solve a puzzle surrounding some very vicious Russian oligarchs in London, while staying alive herself, and maybe once again having to help a friend.

I really enjoyed Alma Katsu’s Red Widow when I read it a few months ago, so I was extremely excited to get approved by NetGalley for an ARC of Red London—the sequel to Red Widow, and Red London did not disappoint.

Whereas Red Widow used the character of Lindsey to explore what it meant to be a woman in the male-dominated field of intelligence, as far as friendships and relationships go, Red London really doubles down on the temptations, challenges, and trust issues that Lindsey deals with. While she’s less of a pawn of her superiors in this story, she hasn’t shaken the emotional damage that was done in Red Widow. The overall plot, involving a Russian oligarch, set in a hypothetical post-Putin/post-Ukraine-war London home was engaging—I appreciated Emily’s POV showing us how she ended up in the domestic situation that she was in.

Red Widow and Red London are both more character-driven and less testosterone-driven than typical spy novels, which honestly, makes them perfect for me. Red London ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next book in this series.

Alma Katsu continues to shine as an extraordinaire spy author presenting the most believable and nail-bitingly intense stories in step with the geopolitics straight out of the newspaper headlines.
CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan is assigned to the London office where she is tasked with handling a newly turned Russian asset. When an attack on a Russian oligarch and his family in their London home makes sparky headlines, her MI6 counterpart and former flame asks her help in going undercover with the oligarch’s wife to find out why the Kremlin would brazenly attempt an assassination on foreign soil. Lyndsey agrees to step into the battlefield of spies and assassins to figure out what the newest Russian despot has in store for the world. Undercover stories have never felt so intense and anxiety-inducing.
Red London elevates the cerebral espionage aspect that readers loved so much in Red Widow. Lyndsey’s greatest assets are her smarts in outwitting her opponents and disarming them intellectually rather than with brute force. The emphasis on tradecraft has never felt more poignant and necessary and helps achieve the perfect balance between old school cerebral tales and modern day fast-paced thrillers. You never know what’s going to happen in the next sentence let alone the next page. This unpredictability stems from complex and dynamic characters with multi-layered motivations that make them remarkably lifelike. The impending feeling of doom stays in the air as you flip through the pages, rooting desperately for Lyndsey as she makes some difficult decisions to accomplish what she must.
Alma Katsu keeps you engaged and hooked from the inception to the conclusion, ending on such a scary cliffhanger that you can’t help but tense up thinking about what will come next. Katsu is setting up this universe splendidly with a plethora of interconnected narratives and subplots to pay off with a bang. I can’t wait to read where Lyndsey Duncan finds herself next, especially after that haunting last sentence.


Full review on https://www.bestthrillerbooks.com/kashif-hussain

I am a huge fan of spy novels and really loved Red Widow, so was definitely looking forward to reading this sequel. Unfortunately, the things I liked most about the first book were rather significantly downplayed throughout most of this iteration, and I found that a bit frustrating.

This one is more about the marriage between a bored rich girl who doesn't feel like she's appreciated and a megalomaniacal Russian oligarch who was appalling in pretty much every regard. I found the endless goings on about her life and their marriage to get rather monotonous and do not hold my interest. That type of domestic drama is not a story I typically pursue. And the Lyndsey/Davis drama played out in a similar vein, in a way that I found somewhat aggravating.

I did enjoy the actual spy bits of this book a great deal though, and the ending totally tied it together and redeemed Lyndsey in my eyes - and made me exceptionally eager for the next book, which this story's ending leads me to believe will return to the Red Widow roots that I so enjoyed.

Alma Katsu is one of my favorite authors and I was very excited to read her newest novel, Red London. This is the sequel to Red Widow featuring Lyndsey Duncan and the CIA, this one did not disappoint. It's very difficult to talk about a book that hasn't come out yet (March 2023), but I would pre-order now and pickup Red Widow while your at it.

Lyndsey is in London this time around and the stakes couldn't be higher while working with the MI6 and those with connections in Russia. Between taking on a separate assignment while beginning her time as a handler for a devious war criminal, Tarasenko, Lyndsey finds herself questioning everyone and everything.

I know I did, there were so many twists and turns and trying to figure out motives and characters. I couldn't tell if Davis Ranford (MI6) was on the up and up due to his and Lyndsey's past connection, thank goodness for the ending... I don't want to spoil it, but I'm glad Lyndsey did what she did.

That ending by the way was pretty shocking in an I can't believe Emily did that and her husband's reaction given the amount of trouble he was in (again, I don't want to spoil it, but what happens couldn't have happened to a "nicer" person. The plot was timely, I can see a lot of similarities with current events. Theresa's revelation near the end left me wanting to know when the third book in the series is coming out (she's only mentioned a couple of times and I hope we will see more of her in the next book. I think her and Lyndsey make a great team.) and Red London hasn't been released yet.

would like to thank @netgalley for the ARC of Red London in exchange for an honest review. The book starts out strong with a action scene and the ending is action packed, but in felt the middle was slow. The book spend a lot of time on Emily and Mikhail’s marriage and why she married him instead of his relationship to Russia.