NICK TORR

Nick Torr is a spymaster with MI-6.

By spymaster I mean he is the man in charge of SIS's Covert Directorate, a department designated CO8.

At 45 years of age, he has spent the majority of his adult life working for Britain's intelligence gathering agency working his way up the ladder through mission after mission to all parts of the world. He has earned his position leading the covert team and might should be spending this time behind a desk but that is not for Torr.

Torr bears the proof of his many years in the shadowy world of espionage. "His face had all the maturity he needed for the rest of his life; fair skin ribbed by clawed lines around his blue eyes, a strong mouth and a pronounced line down his right cheek as proof he smiled. Dark hair dropped raggedly over his forehead in a jagged line and a broken nose set badly gave him an aggressive arrangement that Angela, his wife, compared to a tormented Caravaggio figure."

While Torr will pay dearly for his dedication to his trade, and those closer to him pay even more, he cannot find it in himself to not be the operative he has been for so many years. Even after the horrible events of the first recorded adventure, when other men might decide to stay at their desks "inside CO8's tactical basement control centre" where it is safe and just order other people to risk their lives, Torr cannot bring himself to do that. "He was that rare type of director, a hands-on operator well versed in the turbulent world of hostile intelligence gathering, demanding of no one what he could not deliver himself."

This is a solidly written series with an interesting lead character. It is obvious to me that Nick Torr is a man who has been promoted into a position that he does not like as well as being a field agent or else he would not so readily jump into action when duty calls. No matter how much he protests, he does not look or act like someone who is angry at having to put his life in danger yet again.

In the first adventure, he is apparently unhappily married and the author has that situation end very tragically, especially for the wife. This is a trope that I really, really wish authors would stop using. Pity the poor hero who has to live with the guilt and sorrow. At least they get to live. It annoys me.

Still, once you get past that, the series gets pretty good and Torr is an interesting character to follow and worth the time spent in his company, and the author's.