Beside the Syrian Sea

Beside the Syrian Sea is a spy novel by James Wolff, a British author. It tells the story of Jonas, an intelligence analyst for the British government. His job is strictly sitting behind a desk and analyze various tidbits of intelligence that constantly come in. His father, however, is an Anglican preacher devoted to helping those in need. For this, he travels the world and does missionary work. When he travels to Syria on his next humanitarian mission, he is kidnapped by ISIS. Jonas learns of the kidnapping and notifies his boss. However, the British government is reluctant to help, because they have a strict policy of never negotiating with terrorists. Jonas is now on his own to save his father. Armed with intelligence that would be helpful to the kindappers, he sets off to Beirut to meet people who would negotiate on his behalf and secure his father’s release.

Beside the Syrian Sea is James Wolff’s debut novel. James Wolff is actually pseudonym of an officer of British intelligence. The plot and pacing of the novel is more reminiscent of John Le Carre, in the fact that it is more of a slow-burn with less action that you get with authors like Brad Thor or Vince Flynn. Also, there is more old-school tradecraft involved with a heavy dose on human intelligence, rather than cool spy gadgets that you would get with James Bond or Jason Bourne. Nevertheless, it still is a great read with characters that are developed and multidimensional.