The Kremlin's Candidate

The entire Red Sparrow trilogy is outstanding, I hope there might be another book coming to round it out.

The Story has been catching me since Red Sparrow looooooove it

great engaging book. built up well from the previous two.

Really good book, but I honestly wasn't fond of the ending. I've enjoyed the trilogy immensely though.

Excellent ending to an exceptional trilogy.

Have to say, when I started the first novel, I truly questioned if Matthews could hold my interest for all three books. Instead, when I finished each, I couldn't wait to get on to the next one.

I'm not going to spoil anything here, but if you want to read a completely satisfying series from beginning to end, these are the three books you want.

An enjoyable page-turner written with the authority of experience, but saddled with an average of four UCAs (Unnecessary Capitalized Acronyms) per page and a cringeworthy surfeit of references to “ponderous breasts” and the like.

A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Like the other two, this starts out clunky and some clichés, but picks up delightfully with huge complications, developments, and uh situations. I've completely enjoyed them.

A good end to the Sparrow series however, I rated this lower than the first two. While the story was exciting and on par with the previous books, there were too many basic errors that bothered me throughout the book. 1. Varna is in Bulgaria not Romania. 2. The tedious Russian phrases he uses on every other page are often wrong or not something a typical Russian speaker would us. 3. The part in Khartoum started off well, but having lived in Sudan for 4 years, it was laughable to think that there are Nile crocs in Khartoum (like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) or that the CIA would arm Darfuri rebels with stringer missiles. (Also Darfur is in Western Sudan, not Southern). 4. The Crimea part was confusing as he notes "Ukrainian customs in Crimea" but otherwise references the Russian occupation. Perhaps he was on a deadline, but an editor should have spotted or questioned some of these errors. I liked the book because of the characters and the action, but I don't think it should be compared to John Le Carre, as it had a more of a Frederick Forsyth vibe.

Great spy fiction. Over the top, but not *too* far. Overwritten, but not *too* much. Matthews keeps it just in check, and so you grant him some liberties, and it makes for a very enjoyable read. I most liked #1 in the trilogy, because parts of it felt authentic. This feeling has largely gone away, but I'm absorbed enough in Matthews's alternate reality that it's okay. (The ending was spoiled for me by another review. But that didn't ruin the book.)

Great spy novel and last in series of three.Wish story hadn’t ended!

No, not that candidate. In spite of making every effort to keep up with today’s headlines (references to the Russian seizure of Crimea, North Korea’s nuclear programme and so on), author Jason Matthews never imagines for a moment that Vladimir Putin could have a hand in choosing an American president. That would be absurd. A CIA director, maybe. But not not even the most vivid imagination among thriller writers would have imagined what we have now.Matthews’ Red Sparrow trilogy ends with this volume, and has its centre the inexorable rise to power of a CIA agent inside the ranks of the Russian intelligence services. Lest anyone thinks that idea implausible, remember that in its day, the feared Okhrana — the Tsar’s secret intelligence service — managed to plant agents that rose to the very tops of the underground organisation against which it fought. Among those were super-agents like Ievno Azef among the Socialist Revolutionaries, and in the Bolshevik ranks — Roman Malinovsky and Josef Stalin. Matthews’ world is one in which the CIA are all decent chaps (though some are bunglers), and the Russians mostly monsters. There’s even the occasional, casual racism (in particularly, a scene set in Sudan), which does not help. But overall, the trilogy is a good read and maybe, with luck, there’s even another volume in the works.

I liked the first book in this series because the whole idea of Sparrow School and double agents seemed fresh and new. But this book, the last in the trilogy was more of a typical espionage thriller. But although the plot was interesting, there was too much gratuitous sex and violence and the plot seemed to stall every once in awhile.

'The Kremlin's Candidate', the 3rd in the Red Sparrow series by Jason Matthews, is yet another intricately crafted thriller with strong writing, good dialogue, and great 'tradecraft'. I'm sad to see this series end but getting there has been very satisfying. The plot involves a bit of a race to see which spy, Russia's or our's, ascends to the top spot in their respective country's spy organization first. Whoever 'wins' is in a position to identify and expose the biggest traitor on the other side. The American, a female USN admiral who has spied for the Russians for years, is on the short list to succeed the CIA director who had been assassinated to set up her possible promotion. On the other side, 'our' Russian agent, an ex-Sparrow (specialist in sexual 'honey traps') who has climbed the ladder in Putin's organization, is under consideration for the top spot in their version of the CIA. Whoever succeeds first will have access to information that will expose their infiltrator. A little romance, some Chinese contact, a lot of violence, tons of spy stuff, and a few 'barium enemas' ensue. The ending is tough but you'd have to say the outcome was positive.Unlike previous entries in the series, I had a bit of a problem with a few situations that just didn't seem very believable. Almost everything in the first two novels rang true, yet the passages related to the 'Wolverines' in particular didn't pass the smell test, and several other minor sequences just didn't seem very believable. I also continue to dislike the whole 'aura' thing that our Russian agent has going- she can 'read' people by interpreting the colors she sees surrounding them... too much of a gimmick for me but a good shortcut by the author to eliminate pages and pages of the work that would be needed to actually have her learn about people through 'normal' means.All in all, a good finale to what's been a great series.