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Mark Pack's Reviews > A Spy Alone
A Spy Alone
by
by
A very enjoyable read from a first-time novelist who, we are told, used to be an MI6 spy himself.
It being someone's first novel shows. The best way it shows is how highly polished the opening is, with a strong showing of (apparently real) spy tradecraft details that are not the usual fictional fare. Usually, the first part of a first novel is the one that has had the most work on it as it's the bit that has been written and rewritten to land a publishing contract in the first place. It's similar to how TV scripts often work - with, for example, the very first episode of the rebooted TV version of Sherlock Holmes showing more brilliance in the detailed wording than latter scripts in even that first season. It also shows in the novel having a big concept to make it not just familiar spy fare but also something with a twist, in this case quite what spying for different sides means in 21st century western Europe.
There are also some rough edges that show it is a first novel too, such as the at times clunky writing. At times it seems that everyone has a gravelly voice, and a gate being called impregnable just before it opens jars a little, for example. And although I have no experience of stealing cars or going on the run, but I find it hard to believe that stealing a Maserati owned by a major figure is the smart way to evade the authorities.
But the success already of this first novel hopefully means future ones will get a closer copy edit by the publisher and these blemishes don't get in the way of a cracking plot. In fact, for me the fun started before even the first line as the dedication - to spy author John Costello - itself set me off down an internet rabbit hole about Costello's own attributes and successes, as well as his love of conspiracy theories. As the with the dedication, the book itself I suspect deliberately playfully trolls the more knowledge reader, such as by mixing in references to real events with references to known myths (such as about the Duke of Windsor's correspondence with Hitler), presenting both as being believed by the book's characters.
That is though part of the fun of the book, as it trying to guess which real characters part inspired the book's fictional ones. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings seems pretty safe bets on that front, and that gives a clue to the post-Brexit setting of the book.
The ending does a neat job of reasonably wrapping up the story while also very obviously leaving the door wide open for a sequel, even a series. It does it well enough that's something to hope for.
(I was given a free copy of the book.)
It being someone's first novel shows. The best way it shows is how highly polished the opening is, with a strong showing of (apparently real) spy tradecraft details that are not the usual fictional fare. Usually, the first part of a first novel is the one that has had the most work on it as it's the bit that has been written and rewritten to land a publishing contract in the first place. It's similar to how TV scripts often work - with, for example, the very first episode of the rebooted TV version of Sherlock Holmes showing more brilliance in the detailed wording than latter scripts in even that first season. It also shows in the novel having a big concept to make it not just familiar spy fare but also something with a twist, in this case quite what spying for different sides means in 21st century western Europe.
There are also some rough edges that show it is a first novel too, such as the at times clunky writing. At times it seems that everyone has a gravelly voice, and a gate being called impregnable just before it opens jars a little, for example. And although I have no experience of stealing cars or going on the run, but I find it hard to believe that stealing a Maserati owned by a major figure is the smart way to evade the authorities.
But the success already of this first novel hopefully means future ones will get a closer copy edit by the publisher and these blemishes don't get in the way of a cracking plot. In fact, for me the fun started before even the first line as the dedication - to spy author John Costello - itself set me off down an internet rabbit hole about Costello's own attributes and successes, as well as his love of conspiracy theories. As the with the dedication, the book itself I suspect deliberately playfully trolls the more knowledge reader, such as by mixing in references to real events with references to known myths (such as about the Duke of Windsor's correspondence with Hitler), presenting both as being believed by the book's characters.
That is though part of the fun of the book, as it trying to guess which real characters part inspired the book's fictional ones. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings seems pretty safe bets on that front, and that gives a clue to the post-Brexit setting of the book.
The ending does a neat job of reasonably wrapping up the story while also very obviously leaving the door wide open for a sequel, even a series. It does it well enough that's something to hope for.
(I was given a free copy of the book.)
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
December 31, 2023
– Shelved
