Is there a more purely entertaining British novelist writing today than William Boyd? I doubt it, and I would even go a step further than that. Since his crowning achievement with 2002’s whole-life novel Any Human Heart, Boyd has pivoted from the witty, Evelyn Waugh-ish literary books with which he began his career to a series of period-set spy novels that focus on what it’s like to be an innocent caught up in events beyond their comprehension. From 2006’s mega-bestseller Restless to 2012’s Waiting for Sunrise, Boyd has consistently proved himself the purveyor of high-class, page-turning espionage fiction. Warmer and funnier than le Carré, less jaded than Mick Herron, his novels are page-turners par excellence.
The great author recently celebrated his 70th birthday, and shortly after that, the first in a projected trilogy of novels about the travel writer-turned-reluctant spy Gabriel Dax appeared, Gabriel’s Moon. Reviewing it for this title, I called it “most definitely a spy novel of the [John] Buchan-esque school” and applauded its breathless pacing, finely handled and dexterous twists and well-tuned characterization of its protagonist Dax, who is drawn into being a double agent for both MI6 and the KGB in the early ’60s, even as he lusts after his icily enigmatic handler Faith Green. I ended my review by saying “it is with some impatience that all I want to do is read the next installment and await the further adventures of Gabriel, Faith, et al., with almost indecent eagerness.”
Sometimes, you can get what you want. Barely a year after the publication of Gabriel’s Moon, a sharp sequel, The Predicament, has appeared, and it offers most of the earlier book’s strengths and drawbacks—plus a couple of other minor frustrations. The year is 1963, and Dax is having a merry old time in his treble life as respectable author, duplicitous KGB mole (or “termite,” in Boyd’s evocative term), and semi-reluctant MI6 asset, pressed into service by the aloof Faith whenever the circumstance demands. Unfortunate for him, then, that he is sent firstly to Guatemala on the pretext of interviewing the charismatic presidential candidate Padre Tiago, and then later ends up in West Berlin on June 26 that year, the same day that another charismatic presidential figure—this time elected—in the form of John F. Kennedy makes his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. Needless to say, on both occasions, nefariousness is afoot, and Gabriel must work with allies, nemeses, and the morally dubious to determine what on earth is going on.
The main strength of Gabriel’s Moon was the way in which Boyd married his fully realized literary protagonist, living in bohemian ’60s Chelsea and worrying about ideas for his next book, with the shadowy, uncertain world of postwar espionage, in which nobody can be trusted and in which East and West alike are bent on international dominance. This is repeated here, just as enjoyably and vividly, but the major problem with The Predicament, unavoidably, is that it is the middle installment in a projected trilogy and that it does not feel like a wholly standalone novel, nor is it intended to. Although Boyd does a fine job of contextualizing character and detail, I can’t imagine anyone reading this by itself, so reliant is it on callbacks and allusions to the earlier book. One of Gabriel’s Moon’s most interesting characters, the triple agent Christopher “Kit” Caldwell, is referred to here, living in self-imposed exile in Moscow, but the novel ends before he is reintroduced. That will be a treat for the next book, presumably to be published next year. Still, the absence of such a charismatic and fascinating figure is greatly missed.
We have plenty of Faith Green, though, and the dynamic between her and Gabriel is the novel’s most intriguing feature. They flirt, intrigue, spar, and apparently fall in love; yet, as Boyd writes at the close of one of the book’s sections, “‘Gabriel,’ she shouted after him, ‘Don’t be stupid! Nothing is what it seems.’” Of such twists and turns are espionage tales made, but the tale ends with Faith’s faithfulness, or otherwise, still up for debate. Still, one thing that isn’t is Gabriel’s remarkable attractiveness to women. He seduces (or is seduced by) two over the course of the novel, gallantly turns down the affections of another (a CIA agent named Parker Baumgarten, no less), and inspires what appears to be a frisson in a Scottish MI6 operative and even his psychiatrist. Not bad for a humble scribe-cum-spook: Not even James Bond, who Boyd wrote a typically superb novel about, Solo, was so irresistible to the opposite sex.
The novel’s greatest flaw, unfortunately, is that it can feel rushed, as if Boyd is marking time between his curtain-raiser and what will undoubtedly be a grand denouement. It is a swift read, but unusually I could have done with another hundred pages or so for breathing space. The pleasures of spy craft—so carefully established in the preceding book—are played down, and Gabriel often finds himself in the right place at the right time (or wrong place at wrong time) rather than operating at the peak of his intellectual powers. But there is still time for an apparent dead-end subplot about an older writer who accuses Gabriel of plagiarism, entertaining but inconsequential diversions in which Gabriel is taught avoidance techniques and weaponry, and cooing descriptions of food and alcohol. In fact, the protagonist eats and drinks so much throughout the novel that I began to think his greatest foes were gout and indigestion, rather than a seductive double agent or two.
Perhaps I am being harsh. Boyd is in a league of his own compared with his rivals, and this is a fun, fizzy, and thoroughly addictive read. I ended it desperate to see how the whole saga wraps itself up, and I suspect that, should the eventual resolution be as satisfying and elegant as Boyd’s conclusions invariably are, this novel will appreciate rather than diminish in the recollection. As it is, one hopes that this prolific, endlessly captivating novelist should get himself back to new territory once the trilogy is concluded, and produce another epoch-defining masterpiece. Until then, however, the adventures of Gabriel Dax—spy, lover, and belt-threatening gourmand—will do very nicely indeed.
The Predicament: A Gabriel Dax Novel
by William Boyd
Grove, 258 pp., $28
Alexander Larman is a journalist, historian, and author, most recently, of Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty (St. Martin’s Press).
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