False Flag (Behind The Curtain Book 1)

In David A. J. Axson’s False Flag, MI6 recruit Nic Slater deploys to Moscow in 1964, encountering KGB agent Irina Sashkaya. The Cold War is at its peak, and the US is enmeshed in a war in Vietnam. The two agents uncover Operation Vanquish, a Soviet strategy linking events like JFK's assassination to planned invasions of Finland and Iran. Collaborating as double agents, they manipulate intelligence services—including MI6's SirRod and CIA’s Moses Ranger—to bluff the Politburo into aborting attacks. Can the SAS and US interventions thwart the invasion without triggering World War III? This book delivers a twisty plot, a thrilling double-agent tale that becomes as unpredictable as it progresses.

David A. J. Axson’s were fun to follow, starting with Slater, who is grounded in his gritty Sheffield roots, so different from the aristocratic handler Sebastian Harmes, whose wit masks competence. Irina is fierce, intelligent, and disillusioned with Soviet totalitarianism, risking execution to prevent catastrophe. The setting was immersive for me, and I enjoyed the dazzling depiction of Cold War paranoia, well captured from London’s smoky pubs and Moscow’s bugged apartments. This imaginative thriller captures the historical moment so well, with details like chalk marks on lampposts and tapped phones used for surveillance. The imagery fascinated me, with places like the Kandinsky House, its decadence and Soviet concrete blocks, the frozen Finnish woods, and the windy Baku deserts, all well drawn. This is one of those stories in which operatives rely on their consciences and betray their nations in order to save them. False Flag contains gorgeous prose, terrific descriptions, and action, but it was the tension that built to a crescendo that kept me on the edge of my seat. There couldn’t have been a better opening for the Behind the Curtain series than this book.