A Spy Alone - Charles Beaumont

 Charles Beaumont is a former MI6 operative.   This, his debut novel, set in 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, bristles with up-to-the-minute insider knowledge.   His protagonist, Simon Sharman, is also a former spy, in his case not with either of the MIs but with The Pole, the third service, the Joint Intelligence Directorate.   He was briefly celebrated for having recruited a prominent Russian operative back in the Nineties.   But these things pass.   It was decided by those further up the Pole, the number-crunchers, the typical Oxbridge graduates, that Simon's source was not producing anything worthwhile.   Simon resigned in a huff, his agent, codename COSSACK, retires covered with medals to become a minor oligarch.   Simon sets up a private sector agency which, by 2022, he is running from his flat.

Then, out of the blue, he is recruited to do due diligence on another oligarch, Georgy Sidorov, who wants to make a significant donation to Oxford University.   His recruitment is not accidental.   The client is also an ex-Pole man gone private.   And Simon, despite his humble origins, is also an Oxford grad.   He needs the money, everyone knows that, and he was a decent enough fieldman in his day.

A quarter-century ago, when Simon was an undergrad, he was vaguely in the circle of the notorious rightwing academic, Professor Peter Mackenzie.   It was understood that despite his borderline fascism Mackenzie had a lot of contacts in British Intelligence.   Indeed, lots of his former pupils went on to have distinguished careers in Intelligence.   Simon had rather hoped to get a recommendation from the Professor, until an unfortunate traumatic encounter meant he had to make his own way.

Early intelligence, mainly from the internet, suggests that Sidorov often visited Oxford but for no apparent reason.   Simon the fieldman who knows the territory retraces the Russian's route and finds that he always passed beneath the window of Mackenzie's rooms.   Simon knows all about burst transmissions - that's how he trapped COSSACK.   The great unaswered question of Twentieth Century spycraft has always been, why only a Cambridge Ring?   Who no Oxford Ring?   Has Simon unconvered one?   Is this his chance to salvage his reputation?

Beaumont writes really well.   He easily manages the transitions in time from the early Nineties to 2022.   Obviously his technical know-how convinces.   But he has quite a gift for characterisation - Simon, in particular, is someone we want to follow further, and Beaumont cleverly leaves the door open for more.   I especially enjoyed the scabrous take on politics of the Johnson era which must have been written as it all fell apart.   A fantastic debut, then.   I look forward to Beaumont's next.

Ancient Light - John Banville

 I've read Banville's Quirke novels, written under the name Benjamin Black.   I've read his Philip Marlowe take, again as Black.   I've read his other crime novel, Snow, written under his real name.   bBut Ancient Lights is my first proper Banville novel.

Ancient Lights is the third in his third trilogy, the concluding part of the story of Alexander Cleave and his only daughter Cass.   This only features Alexander, Cass having committed suicide in Italy.   Cleave is a stage actor, called out of semi-retirement to play the part of the notorious fraud 'Axel Vander' who assumed the identity of the real Vander who died during World War II.   This will be Alex's first film role.   He is drawn into the project because it seems the fake Vander was the same village in Italy as Cass when she killed herself.   Alex's co-star in the movie is the fragile star Dawn Devonport (again, not her real name) who suffers a breakdown during filming, then accompanies Alex to Italy to see if he can find anything that might explain Cass's death.   This is not a later-life affair with the much younger Dawn.   Alex somewhat takes on the part of her recently deceased father, and she, in turn, becomes a daughter he can protect from her demons.

All the while he is reliving his first affair, as a fifteen year old in Ireland, with the mother of his best friend, Billy Gray.   He uses his movie fee to pay the film's scout, a woman called Billie Stryker, to try and track down Mrs Gray, only to discover his memories have been playing him false.

There's a fascinating interconnectedness to the twin storylines, which Banville plays like the master he is.   His prose is brilliantly crafted, the main characters drawn in profound depth.   The only character I thought I didn't get enough information on is Alex's wife Lydia, but I guess she plays a bigger part in the earlier novels, Eclipse and Shroud.   I certainly intend to find out.   I shall be reading a lot more Banville this coming year.

The Island Pharisees - John Galsworthy

 Galsworthy is best known for his Forsyte Saga.   It is often forgotten that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was also a very successful, sometimes controversial dramatist.   The Island Pharisees is a novel from 1904, two years before The Man of Property began the saga.   It is a gentle satire of middle class Edwardian English pride and hypocrisy.   Dick Shelton, a half-hearted, well-off trainee barrister, has become engaged to the beautiful daughter of wealthy landowner Algernon Dennant.   Her mother comes from the aristocracy and Antonia is regarded as a fine catch.

Antonia's parents insist on a period of separation, to make sure the young people really love each other.   During this time Dick knocks about town country, visiting old friends and society contacts.   His journey is dogged by a young French bohemian he meets in Chapter One.   Ferrand is something of an anarchist, on the tramp around Europe.   Dick casually gives him a few pounds to help out.   They keep meeting through the novel.   They correspond and Dick writes to Antonia about his odd acquaintance.   Ultimately, of course, they come together at Holm Oaks near Oxford, the family seat of the Dennants.   Ferrand does his level best to behave but ultimately he has to go.   Antonia recognises that something has changed in Dick since he fell under the influence of Ferrand.   He seems to question the norms of society...

It is beautifully done, Galsworthy showing the better qualities of his characters as well as the worst.   The broadest satire is reserved for the most pompous and opinionated - a bunch of Oxford dons at Shelton's old college.   I was particularly struck by the way the Dennant family are more tolerant of Ferrand, who is of course not one of them, than their neighbouring landowner who is shacked up with a married woman.   Many excellent writers do not win the Nobel Prize.   What makes an excellent writer into a great one, worthy of the Prize, is humanity, which Galsworthy dispenses here in spades. 

Marthe - J K Huysmans

 Marthe is the debut novel of Huysmans, the ultimate novelist of French decadence at the end of the nineteenth century, so bad, so obscene that no British publisher dared issue a translation.   Actually, one publisher, Kegan Paul, did dare, but only the late 'Catholic' novels and only when he was at death's door and it didn't matter any more.

Pompous bluestockings are always on the lookout for something to ban.   The fact is Huysmans was a realist.   He was enthused by Zola's pseudo-scientific theories of experimental realism but he, in practice, led the way with Marthe.   Zola blatantly copies Marthe in Nana but does not dare to go as far as Huysmans.   Zola's heroine starts off in the theatre and rises from there.   Marthe is first seen in the theatre but that is the highpoint of her career.   She is and remains a whore.   Her young lover finds normalcy after leaving her.   Her elderly actor lover ends up on the mortuary table after she dumps him.   Inbetween Marthe is the kept mistress of a married man she cares so little about that his name is never mentioned.

Huysmans had to self-publish Marthe in Belgium.   Imports were banned in France, any copies seized and destroyed as obscene.   The truth is, the characters are immoral but there is no obscenity.   We are given reality, sordid, sad, but ultra real, even down to the details.  The actor beats Marthe, showing off to his drunken mates.   The married man who keeps her wears pink silk tights.

It sounds grubby and depressing.   It might be a shortcoming on my part, but I found it fascinating, thrilling and restorative.   I enjoyed it more than the better known Down There (reviewed here in 2021) because the core subject (unsuitable passion, the degradation of poverty, and indeed debased theatricals) are themes I have encountered and witnessed.   I bought the book for a research project, started reading as a chore, only to be swept away by Huysman's brilliant technique.   I have become a Zola fan over recent years but Huysmans intrigues me more.

Downriver - Iain Sinclair

 I emerge from another protracted read.   Downriver is in some ways future fiction.   Sinclair envisages London dominated by the Widow (obviously Margaret Thatcher), whose rule is absolute and who "accepts the advice" of those who suggest she builds an enormous memorial to her late husband in Docklands.   Sinclair and his mates decide to investigate.   Meanwhile, some of them are pitching a project to the BBC's late night arts programme (under the absolute rule of Yentob) about David Rodinsky, a real-life Whitechapel mystery who was thought at the time to have disappeared, leaving behind a room above the synagogue devoted to his studies in various languages and the Kabbalah.   Sinclair himself had written a book about him with Rachel Lichtenstein, who first uncovered the story.   It later transpired (and is reported in Downriver) that Rodinsky had actually been sectioned in a mental hospital where he died.

The story, such as it ever is with Sinclair, is told in twelve instalments, as Sinclair gets further and further away from his usual East End stamping ground.   The style varies between instalments.   Sinclair is at the centre of each until we come to the last, which he asks his friend the sculptor Joblard to write because he, Sinclair, has somehow lost his voice.   It is still Joblard and Sinclair, however, as they both come to end of the line, the Isle of Sheppey, where the Thames joins the North Sea.

It is all thoroughly enjoyable but I didn't find it as intriguing as Landor's Tower or White Chappell, partly because the Thatcher trope has dated so badly since the novel came out in 1991.   Also, I am really not interested in the wastelands of Essex which I have seen for myself, thanks (I largely share Sinclair's view of it).   Because the two main premises don't grab my interest I found the book too long, though Sinclair is never boring.   As I say, I enjoyed the Rodinsky section and the Joblard switch at the end.