I am a longtime fan of William Boyd, so I was pleased and intrigued to find this new paperback, not quite so hefty as most of his other volumes. There is a new hero, if that is the right word for him, Gabriel Dax and I found him both interesting and appealing. Chelsea, London, is Gabriel’s home and neighbourhood and so it is William Boyd’s. He has lived there for very many years and I felt this intimate knowledge and familiarity was employed to very good effect in the story. Chelsea is a hugely rich area of the city but as with anywhere there is always a poor, deprived underbelly. The author shows he is very aware of this societal split and the difficulties it causes.
We are sitting firmly in the sixties in this story and I found that several times this made me smile. We learn more about Gabriel’s character from the details of his living in the London of the ‘swinging sixties.’ William Boyd -and I- were young then!
Gabriel is a travel writer living in a very comfortable flat. He likes his life and the freedom and variety it offers him. By agreeing to do a simple favour he finds himself gradually sucked into espionage and soon he is an accidental spy. Anyone who has read thrillers will know that there is no way out of this situation. You cannot just say ‘I quit.’
Added to this tricky, shadowy, state of affairs, Gabriel has problems from way back in his childhood. There was a fire and his mother died. Was it his fault? It seems there is no way of him finding out the truth until he is offered time with a rather unconventional therapist.
Reading about this book, I found that the reviews were quite mixed. I liked it, in fact I liked it a lot. I was thus delighted to find out that William Boyd is planning a trilogy about Gabriel Dax. I will look out for books two and three.