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Author (Platform): Matthew Quirk (Kindle)
Publisher (Release): Head of Zeus – Aries Books (2019)
Length: 437 pages
Genres: Adult; Espionage; Thriller; Action; Romance
❗️Disclaimers❗️:
moderate violence
this review contains low-level spoilers
recommendation: must read
👍 Pros 👍
Strong mystery, red herrings, and twists
Peter Sutherland is a delicious protagonist
Diverse cast with rich motivations
👎 Cons 👎
Rose Campbell is bland compared to her TV counterpart
Meanders towards its finale
👀 Synopsis 👀
To find a Russian mole in the White House, an FBI agent must question everything…and trust no one.
FBI Agent Peter Sutherland waits in the White House Situation Room. He monitors an emergency line for call that might never come. Then the phone rings.
A terrified young woman says two people have been murdered and the killer might still be in the house with her. One of the victims gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: ‘Tell them OSPREY was right. It’s happening.’
The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted.
To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands, question everything, and trust no one.
🛎️ Introduction 🛎️
Normally, I like to read the book before watching any show/film based on the material, but I kicked off Netflix’s The Night Agent without much thought. It wasn’t until some casual research after the series’s completion that I found Matthew Quirk’s political thriller, giving me the opportunity to experience the source material after its serial interpretation.
It’s interesting. The show is faithful to a point, managing to keep the novel’s spirit even when it deviates, imbuing it with the pulse-pounding political paranoia that Quirk creates in his book.
🧩 Plots 🧩
The Night Agent is a tense thriller that masterfully plays its who-to-trust doubts exceptionally well. Thanks to its medium, Quirk can slowly build the bonfire around the reader, feigning ignition, tightening our nerves, before taking us by surprise with some nifty twists and well-paced action.
The plot does meander a bit in the latter half of the novel and the bait and switches start losing their effectiveness, but just before it gets too tiring, The Night Agent just manages to wrap its threads into a satisfying bow.
…plays its who-to-trust doubts exceptionally well.
🎭 Characters 🎭
Populated with a cast of laymen, assassins, and spies, Quirk equips us with Peter Sutherland, a semi-capable, semi-naive agent at the bottom of the FBI in a strangely confidential position within the White House. It’s a breath of fresh air. Peter, rather than being the complete badass or the bumbling idiot, is the ruffled square, haunted by a traumatising past, but insightful and believable.
Like the show, Peter is joined by Rose Campbell. The buddy-cop feel is here, but Rose, while likeable, doesn’t have as much utility as she does in its adaptation. With a different background and an underdeveloped arc compared to her partner Peter, she ends up feeling more like a sounding board than a contributing cast member.
The rest of the cast is diverse and well-fleshed. Motivations feel richer and less cliche than its Netflix show, with more faces adding more intricacy to the plot’s conspiracy.
Populated with a cast of laymen, assassins, and spies…
🧠 Final Thoughts 🧠
Matthew Quirk’s The Night Agent tells a full, fabulously nifty political thriller. Where the show has more action leanings, the source material carefully crafts a conspiracy that captures the reader, and, while it stumbles as it tries to find the energy to make it to the end, it has a definitive finale that closes the novel with a fairly satisfying thump.
The Phoenix Project 