Red Sparrow: A recipe of mixed opportunities

Author: Jason Mathews
Genre: Thriller, Espionage
Series: Red Sparrow Trilogy

Ever since I finished Millenium trilogy, I am in search for a great thriller series. Red Sparrow was another of my attempt to find a grand spy thriller to lose myself in. But, apart from few exhilarating moments, the book missed several opportunities to become a classic.

The story kick starts in modern-day Russia. Here a young CIA officer Nat Nash is handling, MARBLE, the CIA’s most precious mole in Russian intelligence. But Nat’s cover is blown after one of the meetings with MARBLE and to prevent the identity of MARBLE, he’s relieved from the case and sent to Helinskey. Though, because of this incident, SVR realized they have a mole in their intelligence, and the only man who can lead them to the mole is Nash himself. SVR’s director Vanya Egrova forces her niece, Dominika into espionage training. Dominika is smart, gifter, a quick learner, and is proud of her nation. Vanya sends her to get specialized training in the infamous “Sparrow” school, to train as a seductress. Then Dominika is assigned the mission to seduce Nash and find out the identity of the mole. But Dominika, after being betrayed by her uncle and Russian establishment decides to side with the CIA and help them protect MARBLE. And, in this process, she falls in love with Nash.

So, let me first start with what worked in the story. The relationship between Nash and Dominika was I guess the strongest point of the story. The author takes his time to build the relationship between the two leads slowly. There banters and attraction towards each other feels organic and real.
Jason sets up the plot with quite a lot of detailing of inner workings of SVR and CIA. He spends quite a bit of time on several aspects of these two intelligence services. It helps readers understand the stakes and characters’ actions.
The ending of the book is also a positive for me. Not what actually ends up happening, but how it sets up the series.

So now let’s move to the negatives, and there are quite a few. I’ll start with the pacing. For a thriller, the pace with which the narrative unfolds is one of the most crucial aspects. You’d want to keep the reader engaged at the same time not omit any details. Jason gets too greedy with the detailing, and that hampers the pace of the story. The details could have been easily trimmed to make the plot progress briskly.

Also, the story is quite predictable. There was not a single instance where something unexpected happens. Any significant development can be seen coming from miles. For a spy-thriller, this is just unacceptable.

Another significant lost opportunity was how under-utilized the protagonist was. One crucial feature of the Millenium trilogy was how it treated and utilized the protagonist. It also had a strong female protagonist, and the story after book 2 goes beyond her vengeance against the people who wronged her, but it remains her story. Her importance in the story didn’t dilute because of the sudden rise in stakes. But, in Red Sparrow, Dominika though the protagonist is not even in the fore-front of the story. Though finally, it was all about getting her back to Russia as a spy, she remains in the background and what Nash and CIA are doing becomes the driver of the story. Also, the whole arc of her being a “Sparrow” is a little ridiculous, and of no significance. All it accomplishes is fueling her anger against her uncle. And what was all that about her seeing colors around people? What kind of weird power is that? It really has no significance in the story, and even if we remove it altogether, it won’t affect the story at all.

Lastly, the recipes at the end of each chapter: once again, very distracting when you are reading a thriller. No one wants to learn something of no significance while in the middle of a thriller. It doesn’t add anything to the story it’s not even a trivia related to the story. I guess the author is way too passionate about food and cooking and couldn’t help to display his passion.

Okay, so after all this ranting it would sound weird, that I am still going to give a chance to the part 2 of the series, only because of how Jason sets up the series with the ending of part 1. I’d like to know if Jason can redeem this series in the next installment.