A Voice for Independent Authors

“You can kill a book quicker by your silence than by a bad review.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

REVIEWING TODAY: OF OUR OWN DEVICE BY M.K. SOUTH

Two aspects of M.K. South’s complex espionage thriller Of Our Own Device starkly define the reading experience one must expect upon tackling this lengthy novel. The plotting is meticulous and brilliantly satisfying. The sex is graphic, detailed, and same gender, but it is not gratuitous, and it is absolutely essential and integral to the book’s unfolding storyline. The year is 1985, an historical period rife with cold war strategy and tactical maneuvering between two primary players: the superpowers – Russia and the United States. Jack Smith, in deep cover with an alternate backstory to keep him well hidden, plies his dual trades under the predatorily acute scrutiny of the Soviet Union as Gorbachev comes into power, a time when glasnost and perestroika serve to belie the undercurrent of severe danger inherent to his placement, especially considering the devastating and imminent threat of nuclear war.

Amidst the cunning games of spy vs. spy played out during this unstable time, Jack Smith develops a strategic and unintentional emotional/sexual bond with a young Russian would-be rock star, who happens also to be an up-and-coming physicist studying the potential effects of Nuclear Winter. M.K. South’s treatment of their most clandestine affair within his novel Of Our Own Device becomes the essential metaphor and conflict serving to propel his ever more thrilling and dangerous storyline. Which particular secretive revelation might cause more damage to them both becomes a crucial consideration. Meanwhile, the book accelerates progressively toward a fateful, unanticipated, but highly satisfying conclusion.