Queen and Country

Dear reader, are you by any chance, familiar with the TV-series, The Sandbaggers? If not, I should tell you that it was a British espionage-series, created by Ian Mackintosh. The series, which ran for three seasons, before ending abruptly due to the mysterious disappearance (and most likely death) of its creator, starred Roy Marsden as Neil Burnside; the ruthless, but oh-so effective, head of operations of the British secret service. As spy-fiction goes, The Sandbaggers had much more in common with Le Carré than Fleming, meaning that an episode consists of about 90% of people talking to each other, either on the phone, in the street or in an office and the remaining 10% (or less) are dedicated to action-sequences.
I love The Sandbaggers, it is, hands down, one of my all-time favorite TV-shows. However, as you have undoubtedly figured out by looking at the title, its not the main subject for this post. The reason why I brought up the show, is because writer Greg Rucka has acknowledged it as the inspiration for his comic, Queen and Country.

Of course, there are some notable differences between the two. For example, Queen and Country began publication in the early 00's, meaning that the Cold War is over and that terrorists, not communists, are the chief enemies of the Western world. Another difference lies in the main characters; rather than letting the head of operations be the main character, Rucka decided to focus on one of the field-agents (or minders, as they are called) instead. Furthermore, said field-agent is a woman; Tara Chase, who deserves a place among the great female lead characters in comics. She's backed up by a solid supporting cast, including her boss, Paul Crocker, a worthy successor to Burnside.
I've currently read five volumes of Queen and Country, each one better than the last. Rucka does a great job at spinning suspenseful plot-arcs that keeps the reader intrigued all the way to the end. All the while keeping his characters and their relationship, both professional and otherwise, interesting.
Like all the great works in its genre, Queen and Country comes with a dose of moral ambiguity as Tara and the other agents on occasion have to compromise their morals and ethics in order to carry out their mission. One particularly memorable example of this occurs in the fifth volume (drawn by Carla Speed McNeil, each volume has a different artist), in which our heroine commits an act that, while perhaps understandable, in some ways, nearly pushes her into villain-territory. I won't say what it is, you'll have to find it out for yourself.

If you're a fan of good spy-fiction, Queen and Country is a must-read.