The Navy and the CIA desperately needed unique, critical intelligence about hints of Soviet anti-ship and ballistic missile threats being brought to Cuba.
Putting a radio-intercept operator into Cuba was one way to gain insights, otherwise unavailable, into Soviet activities there. U.S. Navy Communications Technician First Class Salvador Conte had the long list of skills to pull it off, and he volunteered without hesitation.
Salvador quickly learned that it was an arduous mission and became exhaustively challenging, especially when his future in Cuba teetered on the worst outcomes. The risks to his life became all too real!
Come along on this mission and share his experience. It remains to be seen whether he will survive.
Azzole, a retired Navy officer, again demonstrates meticulous attention to detail, tradecraft, and the military mind, lending welcome realism to the story. Azzole persuasively ties his invented character to actual events, which he lays out with methodical and impressive precision. For all its ticking-clock suspense, Blown Clover bursts with technical information, supplemented by instructive photographs. Readers fascinated by the nuts-and-bolts of mid-century espionage and military planning and hardware will relish Azzole’s authoritative accounts, though the emphasis on detail comes at times at the expense of narrative momentum.
Azzole's life experience is also felt in the highly plausible mission he assigns to Salvador. Unlike many Cold War spy thrillers, Salvador isn't some slick secret agent on a glamorous mission. Instead, Azzole presents his readers with a realistic endeavor that captures such work’s nerve-racking mixture of plain grind and intense danger. Azzole shows the long waits and doubts that actual spying entails, and how things can go horribly wrong regardless of a person's skills or objectives. With its focus on realism and information Azzole's enthusiastic story is a true to life espionage novel.
Takeaway: This detailed, highly realistic spy story will thrill lovers of actual Cold War espionage.
Great for fans of: Stephen L. Carter’s Back Channel, Moisés Naím’s Two Spies in Caracas.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-
A narrator has been selected for the production of an audiobook for Assignment Bletchley. The publication date is undefined at this time.
A narrator has been selected and has begun initial work for the production of an audiobook for BLOWN COVER. Currently, there is no firm completion date, but the goal is to complete the project and publish the audiobook on Audible.com.
