tamaranth | 2024/173: Deck the Halls in Secret Agents

2024/173: Deck the Halls in Secret Agents — Aster Glenn Gray

Christmas crashed over George again like an ocean wave: the brass quartet, the bright swags of holly along the mantelpiece, the smell of wood smoke from the fireplace. Somewhere behind him, a glass broke, and people shrieked with laughter. [loc. 111]

M/M romantic novella. It's Christmas 1991, and American spy George Douglass is somewhere in the wilds of France, searching for an abandoned chateau whose attics supposedly harbour compromising letters which can be used against a Soviet general. Vital to get to the blackmail material before the Russians do... but when George finds the chateau, it's ablaze with lights, overflowing with Christmas revellers, and harbouring his nemesis and counterpart Nikolai Meleshenko.

George and Nikolai have history: two decades of professional enmity, with a side order of fantastic sex and real, if unspoken, affection. The last time they met, Nikolai was bleeding out in a warehouse: now he seems wholly recovered -- and, like George, he's searching for the mysterious letters, hidden in the chateau's well-appointed attic. But do the letters really exist, or is this a setup? Has Gorbachev really just announced the end of the USSR? And, if so, can George and Nikolai salvage anything from twenty years of spy vs spy?

Delightful, lightweight but heartfelt seasonal romance, with two likeable characters striking sparks off one another. I liked the setting, and the appalling but cheery English host, and the ambience of the chateau. A nice end-of-an-era mood, too -- and new beginnings. Recommended!