The Linquist by
Mark Urban
hbk out April 98
Published by Headline
at £17.99
Ted Lofting works at GCHQ Cheltenham. Having started as an engineer he was soon promoted into the management stream and is now head of a newly formed experimental division. He and his team have discovered a way of tapping into fibre optic cables without being detected.
The story starts as Ted is giving a presentation to various VIPs in the hope of earning extra funding to perfect the new invention code named OREGANO.
Also working at GCHQ is Margaret Reynolds who leads a team of linguists
covering Africa. She is fluent in French and Spanish and several other languages. As the tale starts her long-standing partner has just left her and is planning to marry someone else.
The U.K. government will not provide any more money for the project and so an
appeal has to be made to the U.S.A. Thus Ted and Margaret find themselves working with members of the CIA in a top secret, highly dangerous mission to fit the new invention to the latest secure communications system in France. This operation, code-named Polyp, carried out in and under the streets of Paris is the background to this exciting spy-thriller.
The main characters, particularly Ted and Margaret are very well portrayed and their lives and loves add considerably to the credibility and depth of the book. Mark Urban writes with great authority and in some detail of the workings of the various secret intelligence agencies. Indeed, The Linguist is such a convincing piece of fiction that the reader is left wondering whether some of it may be fact.
The Linquist by
Mark Urban