In Secret Service, Kate Henderson, a MI6 agent enlists a young undocumented immigrant to work as a nanny for a Russian oligarch’s son and has her plant a listening device. From the little they were able to intercept, they learn someone who will be running for Prime Minister is a Russian asset.  In spite of their tightly controlled security, somehow the Russians learn they have been intercepted, revealing there is a mole.

The story follows her and her team through their efforts to unmask the candidate and the mole. Unfortunately, it hits very close to home as her husband works for one of the candidates she must investigate. She also faces scrutiny at work where her supervisor questions whether she should trust her source, speculating that she, albeit unknowingly, might be manipulated by Russia to sow distrust of the candidates.

I wish I could say the idea that Russia could cultivate and, through extortion, greed, or ambition, persuade anyone who ran for high office is too implausible and that Bradby should at least try to write a reasonable plot. Unfortunately, truth has surpassed fiction and the implausible has become real. It is unfair, but that has made Secret Service a difficult book to like.

However, my disappointment with the book is not rooted in how it is “torn from the headlines.” but in that it was too predictable. I was less than halfway through when i realized who the mole was, who tipped off the Russians, who was responsible for the deaths of Kate’s associates. It was practically in neon lights, though explaining exactly why would reveal who it was, which I won’t just in case you want to read a fictional variation on our miserable present.

I received an e-galley of Secret Service from the publisher through Edelweiss.