SPIES AND OTHER GODS
by James Wolff
A series of murders begets this quirky spy thriller.
As the narrator points out, this is a murder story before it’s a spy story. Nine critics of the Iranian regime have been assassinated over several years, and British Intelligence must find the killer code-named CASPIAN and stop a hostile state from murdering innocent people on European soil. Expert parliamentary researcher Aphra McQueen is brought in to investigate an anonymous complaint of gross negligence in the Intelligence Service’s handling of the issue. In her interview, she says, “Let me speak directly to God.” “But my dear, you already are,” replies Sir William Rentoul, who as Head of the Service runs an organization with “decades upon decades of experience in frustrating outsiders intent on getting to the bottom of things.” In six months, he faces retirement, which he expects will be “a slow decline offset by sudokus and fish oil.” Lacking sufficient security clearance to be on her own in headquarters, Aphra needs Susan, a resentful escort, to take her to her desk. Poor Susan once aspired to global covert action but has advanced no further than building escort, a job likened to something a plumber would find when unblocking a toilet. She plants a classified file in Aphra’s bag, hoping to get the more successful woman fired. The omniscient narrator has a jaded view of the characters. He tells the reader, “I’d rather you didn’t believe that I’m the spirit of spying, to be honest. That would suit me just fine.” A lowercase-g god he is, though, as he pries into the lives of other oddball characters. Zak, a dentist, volunteers to be a spy, as he’s learned a lot from library books on the subject. When he meets Aphra, he asks, “Do you have a badge or something?” “A badge?” “To identify you as—you know, as a spy.” Later he explains, “There’s something divine, something godlike about spying.” As for fiction, though, he thinks, “Anyone who chooses writing spy novels over spying itself can’t have been much good in the first place.”
A cynical, funny spin on spycraft.