Night in Tehran

This is the first espionage novel I've read in a long time. It was very different than many of my recent reads, but I still enjoyed it. It was dry, detailed, and full of historical info about the events leading up to the Iranian Revolution in 1979. It was fully written from the perspective of a US d......more

If I were rating this book as an historical novel, I’d give it four stars. If I were rating it as a spy thriller, I’d give it three. It’s an enjoyable read but doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat. Interesting to wonder how much of the plot is fictionalized and how much actually happened that w......more

Whatever I was hoping for, this book didn't deliver. A bit dry and rather bland for my personal taste. It is a great book for some, just not for me. I rarely feel bored by an international espionage novel with claims to being a thriller, so I don't know what else to say. I requested and received a fr......more

The strength of this debut novel by career diplomat Philip Kaplan is that the author knows his history and understands how things work: in government, the intelligence services, and in the the chaotic world. There were times when I forgot for a while I was reading a novel and found myself treating t......more

I don’t read many “thrillers” and I probably would have given Philip Kaplan’s Night in Tehran a miss, except that I read the author’s biography and got intrigued. It turns out Kaplan spent 27 years in the US Foreign Service, rising to the rank of Ambassador, so it seemed to me that he should know th......more