Free ARC from NETGALLEY

Love the story and the 50's set in Tehran but the characters are just so flat. I needed some pep but the historical events kept me reading. Enjoy

Another intriguing thriller from Tom Bradby who has become to 50s Tehran what Alan First is to pre-war and occupied Paris. (That's a compliment Mr Bradby). Meticulously researched to capture the tension of the 50s in Tehran and Iran, a country ruled by the omnipotent King of Kings, the Shah at constant conflict with the Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who wanted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian oil to achieve significant oil revenues for the population. A period seething with tension with the communists and Russians lingering in the background to enforce their position. A time of upheaval.

Against this backdrop, yesterday's spy, Harry Tower, recently retired from the SIS yet always claiming he worked for the Board of Trade, and even more recently widowed, is faced with a major worry. His son, who blames his father for the demise of his mother, has journeyed to Tehran as a stringer for the Manchester Guardian. When his article on the drugs trade is published - he disappears. Harry needs to find his son...

What follows is an intense espionage thriller that, come the terrifying end had me completely blindsided. Mr Bradby has done it again!

An exciting Cold War spy story. Tom Bradby's are always a delight to read; fast-paced, tense and with a strong but flawed hero, which Harry Tower certainly is. There's also has a strong female lead character in Shahnaz, a young Iranian woman who tries to help Tower find his son, who has disappeared in Iran. Vivid descriptions of places and events make this a gripping read, though I found the changing time-frames and settings rather confusing at first. The ending is a shocker.

Another thrilling read from Bradby. I found this to be a pacy, intriguing and enjoyable read. Harry Tower is what makes the book unputdownable- trying to keep up with the ever shifting landscape that he is trying to survive as well as trying to fathom his true nature made this a compelling read.
There are lots of grey areas here and we are kept guessing throughout. The description of place is second to none and a real strength of this author. The characters are vividly drawn and three dimensional (with the exception of Harry’s wife but perhaps we only got to know as much of her as Harry did?).
I eagerly await the next book from Tom Bradby!
Thank you to random house and netgalley.

Good read that did not pull me in quite so deep as previous “Bradby’s” have done. The book certainly reflects the post war turmoil of the time and of Harry Tower, the main character, in search of family, both lost and disappeared and perhaps, redemption. Set in Iran, with oil the key, the usual main power suspects seek surreptitious control of events whilst Harry seeks his son who is an unwitting pawn in the spy game, one that Harry had hoped he'd left behind.

Harry a British Spy's has his son go missing in Iran set at a time of upheaval in the 1950's amidst a coupe is going on.

Harry and his son Sean sing get along as well as Harry would like, it's became worse after the death of his Wife a few years before. Harry had a history when he was sent to Tehran ten years earlier and has contacts but how they stand now he is about to find out.

This is definitely an action packed and historically correct novel, thriller it grips you and well wants not to love. It's a totally believable it sucks you in to the drama as all good Thrillers should.i really enjoyed it and recommend it as a good read. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Another top read by Tom Bradby!
This fast moving, well written spy thriller set in the time of the Iranian coup of 1953 (with reference through flash-backs to pre-war times) involves, of course, the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R. and the UK in their political manoeuvres and fight for Iran and its oil reserves. Interwoven is the story of an ageing spy Harry Tower and his quest to find his journalist son Sean who had mysteriously disappeared in that country.
Well crafted, intriguing and well developed I highly recommend this book.
My thanks to NretGalley and the publishers for this chance to read and leave an honest and unbiased review.

Another excellent spy thriller from Tom Bradby. This one is set in Iran during a period I knew very little about. It is fast paced and well delivered with a good cast. Very enjoyable stand-alone thriller. With thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an e-ARC to read and review.

I was pleased to be invited to read this book having enjoyed a previous story. I am afraid I was disappointed in this one, I found it difficult to engage with the characters and was not really involved in the long reports of historic information.
I was actually keen to reach the end in order to read something else- sorry!

Yesterday’s Spy by Tom Bradby is a sophisticated and smartly plotted spy thriller that is a genuine page turner.

It’s 1953 and Harry Towers, an agent in the intelligence services and recently widowed, receives a call to inform him that his son Sean, a journalist with the Guardian, has gone missing in Tehran. Sean’s disappearance coincides with a contrived coup in Tehran for which the British have some involvement.

We follow Harry as he travels to Tehran in search of Sean,
but also flashing back to earlier missions which may give motive for why his son has now disappeared. Assisted by Sean’s girlfriend, Harry soon finds himself at the centre of a significant political web.

The spy genre is tricky to pull off. All to often the plot is either so high octane it lacks credibility or plods along with too many confusing twists. But Tom Bradby is a genuine master of his art. The smart plot zips along, the characters are interesting and believable and the jeopardy is real. Much like the Secret Service trilogy that went before, I struggled to put this book down and would highly recommend it. Suffice to say I now have Tom Bradby on my ‘must pre-order’ list.

Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for an advance copy.

I have to say it took me a bit to get into this book as I was thinking about a similar character I'd read in other books, however once you got your head round this one, what a great book it was to read. Lots of twists and turns you weren't really expecting and I'm loath to say more about the plot for fear of giving it away! But definitely a great book to read and one you'll find you can't put down until it is finished!

I find this author easy to read with writing that seems not just plausible but frighteningly real.

The spy thriller is often a runaway train of an adventure where agents need to think on their feet and improvise. This is at odds with the world of espionage where the less charismatic and forgettable players are, the best suited to engage in double dealing and subterfuge, they would be.

Tom Bradby writes good and believable characters but his locations and settings are what marks out his stories.

In Yesterday’s Spy we have the prospect of a Soviet mole in London but the real interest is based in Iran and the behind the scenes string pulling to maintain British and American interests while thwarting the expansion of communism and the threat of nations being drawn under a Soviet influence.

While I enjoyed the book enormously and the various interests in play trying to control Iran’s future and therefore the access to its oil production. I wasn’t fully comfortable with the lead protagonist Harry Tower. While I wanted him to succeed I was not sure of his principles or moral code. I never really unpacked his relationship with his immediate family; the loss of his wife and the disappearance of his son in Tehran. This lack of emotional engagement, or clarity of motivation in Harry’s home life and driving force at work remains as much of a mystery in the end as it is revealed through the pages of the book.
Therefore although I appreciated the book I feel I never fully engaged in the story.

This is a fast-paced, engrossing espionage thriller, set in an era when The Great Game was still afoot, which portrays evocatively the tension of 1930s Berlin; the weariness and greyness of London in the immediate post-war period; and particularly the chaotic events surrounding the 1953 coup d’etat in Iran, orchestrated by the US and the UK, when the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in favour of allowing the Shah to rule more firmly as monarch. The core narrative is of a British spy searching desperately for his missing journalist son in an increasingly dangerous and violent Iran, while a complex and treacherous group of adversaries attempt to stop him. This narrative is mixed cleverly with an exposition of the self-serving motives and actions of the US and UK governments, backed by a cast of powerful Iranians with their own vested interests. Overall, this makes for a compelling read.

While the pacing of the book, and the graphic description of the historical events which form the backdrop, grabbed my attention throughout, I did not feel strongly emotionally invested in any of the main characters and while I remained interested in their fate, I did not find myself rooting for them to either come up trumps or get their comeuppance.

This is my first experience of the authors books and I must say I was very impressed.. His telling of fiction is as good as his telling of the news on TV! Yesterday's Spy is a work of fiction set in a few days of real history, the Iranian coup of 1953 when the democratically elected Prime Minister was overthrown in a revolt orchestrated by the US and UK governments. The motivation was to both, prop up the Shah who was sympathetic with the West and generous with terms to exploit Iran's oil reserves, and to keep out influence from the USSR. Thrown into this real life subterfuge are the fictional characters of this story namely Harry Tower, a long serving MI5 operative but a bit of a misfit, his estranged son Sean, a reporter who has gone missing in Iran and Sean's girlfriend Shahnaz whose also has an estranged father, an important figure in the Iranian Military. Harry secretly travels to Tehran to try and find his son and comes across Shahnaz, unaware his son was in any relationship. This unlikely pairing with suspicions on both sides set of in search of Sean as the expected coup with the inevitable chaos and confusion starts to unfold.
While the main timeline covers just the few days of the coup there are flashbacks to pre war periods when Harry was a student and meets his future wife in Germany in the prewar days of the Nazi regime and to other periods in his life as he tries to come to terms with his wife's periods of anxiety and depression and eventual suicide which results in the estrangement with Sean.
All the characters are very well crafted as is the storyline. There really is something for everyone, the intrigue you would expect in a Spy Thriller, plenty of action as Shahnaz finds out that Harry really is pretty handy in tight situations, guilt and introspection from Harry all too aware of the people he has hurt in his lifetime plus a ringside view of what a coup d'etat is like in the middle of 1950's Tehran.
There is a twist in the end which I found disappointing but readers will have to make up there own minds. Other than that I found the book very enjoyable and a real page turner.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me access to this book.

Taut spy thriller - good story and pulls you along with a great narrative.
Looking forward to the next one.

Yesterday's Spy by Tom Bradby​ is​ a fast-paced, well-written suspense-thriller.  

Ex-spy and confidante of Winston Churchill, Harry Tower, learns his son, Sean, has gone missing in 1950s Iran after his article about government corruption is published.

Harry's and Sean's already-difficult relationship hadn't receovered following the suicide of their wife/mother. Sean quits Cambridge and runs off to become a foreign correspondent. Harry blames himself for it all and mourns the loss of his wife and his son.

After learning of Sean's disappearance, Harry flies into a troubled, chaotic and dangerous Tehran, teetering precariously on the edge of a coup. With the UK's knowledge and support, the CIA is supporting the Iranian government's overthrow to ensure the US and UK cash in on Iran's oil. The KGB are involved, of course. The UK's spies follow Harry to Iran, intent on exposing him as a longtime KGB double-agent. 

With the help of Shahnaz, Sean's girlfriend and daughter of a senior Iranian army officer, Harry uncovers a secret arrangement among key players to profit from oil sales and this leads them to find Sean amid the chaos of the eventually successful coup. All that remains is to escape, but as this is a suspense, that's where I stop and you start. Because if you like suspense-thrillers you must read this book. 

Bradby has plotted the story very tightly and so it's a fast read. The characters are well-developed and their relationships feel real. The dialogue sounds authentic. An exotic setting sometimes dominates such books, but Bradbury doesn't dwell much on the romanticism of Iran/ancient Persia (OK, just a little, but not too much). 

I enjoyed this book immensely for its intensity, its pace, the genuineness of its characters and their relationships, and for the masterfully constructed ending.

Yesterday’s Spy is an excellent spy thriller set mainly in Iran which revolves around a British spy searching for his missing son.

As with all good spy novels not everybody or everything is what it initially appears and the author, Tom Bradby, creates a great cast of the good and not so good which helps propel the story along at a good pace.

Highly recommended.

I enjoyed Tom Bradby's Kate Henderson trilogy and wanted more but this is an excellent standalone thriller with flashbacks and forwards from the 1930s to the 1950s featuring spy Harry Tower and his exploits in Iran.

More important are his family issues and the search for a missing son who blames him for his wife's suicide.

Fast paced with characters who are credible and well drawn this was a book which slowly drew you in as the excitement grew and the description of Iran appeared accurate and comprehensive.

An excellent book by a good writer.

A compelling thriller about Harry Tower, who is in search of his son, who blames him for his wife's suicide. The characters are well drawn, particularly Harry. I don't want to spoil the plot by saying what comes next. But the novel is a good read. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.