Sandy McCutcheon has been absent from the Australian thriller scene for several years now, while he has been pursuing other interests in Morocco, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s he wrote some exceptionally good, and slightly quirky, spy thrillers.

Dead North (Beacon Books) is his first thriller in some years and is an impressive spy story that moved confidently between Britain and Finland, with a clever and very up to date plot that took a persistent British Police Detective Inspector into the wilds of Finland. Facing opposition from MI6 and the CIA, she teams up with a Finnish Intelligence officer to put a stop to a fiendishly dangerous plot. Peopled with a rich cast of characters, it grabbed attention from the opening pages and held it all the way to the exciting conclusion. Fast paced, original and very evocative it was a really good contemporary spy thriller. Unfortunately, it received little publicity, or even promotion, by its publisher and hardly made a splash on the thriller scene. It wasn’t released locally in Australia, but is available on Amazon and is well worth seeking out. Highly recommended. SHARE THIS!