Stella Rimington was the Director General of MI5; she now writes spy novels featuring a female MI5 operative. She can hardly be accused of writing about what she doesn't know!
The book is in the classic thriller mould. It uses the past tense with told by an omniscient narrator who adopts multiple-perspectives - I counted fourteen separate characters who acted as a third-person narrator. This enables the author to keep the story moving along; the next bit of the narrative is always available because somebody can tell that segment of the story. However, there are two disadvantages of multi-PoV. Without using an unreliable narrator (which might be regarded as 'cheating' in this genre) the author cannot narrate from the PoV of one of the baddies ... so the reader can cross each narrator off from their list of suspects. The second disadvantage is, for me, more critical: only an exceptional author would be able to create fourteen characters sufficiently distinctive that they can convincingly narrate.
It was interesting to note that wherever Rimington does describe the traits of a character it is almost always by saying what one of the other characters thinks of them, as if the author believes that the dictum 'show don't tell' can be circumvented by having one of the fictional characters do the telling.
I understand that a novelist isn't obliged to give a balanced account of the socio-political structure of the world . There were moments when Rimington tried to offer a balance, for example when it was explained why Somali pirates were forced into piracy and when the villains were allowed to offer justifications (though these seemed shallow, the platitudes of fanatics, rather than any sort of personal soul-searching) but these were momentary paragraphs, lost in the bulk of the book, and had the appearance of unconvincing tokens. I reiterate that it isn't the function of a novel to offer balance. But the best spy novels (eg those of John le Carre and Graham Greene) are able to be intensely personal accounts of individuals seem from only their perspective and yet can still suggest that the world of espionage (like the world itself) is full of moral ambiguities. This book reverts to a simplistic division between goodies and baddies; the baddies are almost all dyed-in-the-wool villains and the only possible criticism that can be levelled at a goody seems to be that he (or, more rarely she) is incompetent or inefficient.
But character doesn't really matter in this genre. The plot is everything, and Rimington has constructed a workable if fairly standard plot. It gets off to a slow start with the inciting incident being delayed until the end of chapter two but again that is standard within the genre; there is almost always a little bit of scene-setting first.
Despite the jarring use of the word 'expatiating' in the second sentence, there is little to object to in this book. It was a thoroughly competent example of the genre; the story rattled along in 63 short chapters (averaging less than six pages each chapter).
But if there is little to object to, equally, there is little to celebrate in this book.
Fundamentally, this novelist can't seem to see that there are always many more than two sides to every story. That's a deficiency for a novelist (and scary in a spymaster) but perhaps it's inevitable if you have fourteen viewpoints.
Selected quotes:
- "He'd be a self-proclaimed 'straight shooter', which really just meant he not only lacked sophistication but was proud of the deficit." (Ch 28)
- "Tall, dark and not entirely handsome." (Ch 55)
The story rattles along, told in 63 short chapters. A perfect example of the genre. Think of it as a burger from a fast food outlet. There's a lot of skill goes into making food that millions of people enjoy. It's cheap and easy to eat and the flavours are unsubtle and utterly predictable, which often adds to the appeal: you know exactly what you will get. But I prefer meals with more complex flavours. Fast food is forgettable; I like memorable meals. I doubt I'll ever read another Rimington.
October 2023; 369 pages
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