DARK ARENA is the first bona fide top flight thriller of the year.

Jack Beaumont secured his place in the pantheon of espionage page turners with his first book, The Frenchman. With DARK ARENA he cements that place.

Again we have Alec de Payns, espionage operative of the elite Y division of the DGSE, France’s foreign intelligence service, in a plot as fresh as paint regarding gas pipelines and the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The detailed description of trade craft, a mix of traditional and digital, is as exciting as the violent set pieces in this splendidly paced thriller. If page turning were an Olympic sport, DARK ARENA goes for gold.

As well as expert plotting, DARK ARENA is full of crisp characterisation. The domestic life of the international spy is examined, paranoia the price paid, divorce the looming dividend to a life of professional deceit. The irony that the service preferred to recruit married agents for their stability and raison d’etre to be patriotic and return home only to have those agents adopt a life of subterfuge and suspicion that would jeopardise their marriage is a thread picked at throughout the narrative.

One thinks of similar examinations of the dilemma in the spy genre – Le Carre’s Smiley and Deighton’s Samson – for example.

Along with the action man par excellence, Alec de Payns, DARK ARENA sees the reintroduction of his operational team mates, Shrek, Jeje and Templar, and the brilliant boss of Y Division, Dominic Briffaut, a remarkable and looming creation.

DARK ARENA also crackles with dialogue bon mots, laconic limpet mines peppered across the pages, eliciting levity in grave situations, emphasising the ironic.

This is skilful storytelling, a sequel among equals, weaving in strands from its predecessor, and setting up anticipation for another adventure.

DARK ARENA by Jack Beaumont is published by Allen & Unwin