The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming

Published by St. Martin's Press on November 25, 2008

Alec Milius, who made his debut in A Spy By Nature, returns to action in The Spanish Game. Six years have passed since the events described in A Spy by Nature and Milius is still worried that the CIA and the SIS are out to get him. After bouncing around the world, Milius has come to an uneasy rest in Madrid where he does freelance intelligence work for a private British bank. His boss, Julian Church, sends him to San Sebastián to determine whether Basque unrest will have an impact on business development in the region. Julian puts Milius in touch with an old friend there, a Basque politician named Mikel Arenaza. When Arenaza goes missing after arranging to meet Milius again in Madrid, Milius is drawn back into the world of espionage while investigating his disappearance.

I suspect some readers won't like this novel because they won't like Milius. He is self-centered, obsessively paranoid (perhaps with reason, but that makes him no less unlikable) and a bit amoral (even sleezy). None of that bothered me. I don't need to like the characters in order to enjoy a novel, so long as the characters and story are interesting. If you're looking for a morally pure or likable hero, however, you should probably pass this one by. Having said that, it's only fair to point out that at the end of this novel, as was true in A Spy By Nature, Milius shows himself capable of remorse, if not change.
Other readers won't like this novel because they're looking for more action or less ambiguity. You don't get thrilling chases, gunplay, explosions, high tech weaponry, or nonstop action in a Cumming novel. You don't get larger than life, morally pure good guys or cartoonishly evil bad guys. Instead, Cumming gives you an intelligent, credible plot and interesting, ethically challenged characters. That's not to say that the novels are dull or that they lack action. In The Spanish Game, the story develops slowly, piece by piece. The pace begins to quicken at the novel's midway point as the pieces begin to cohere, and there's quite a bit of action by the end, but Milius spends more time thinking than fighting. The novel has some elements of a mystery as the reader, along with Milius, tries to understand the relationship between the major players. As in any good mystery, the ending came as a complete surprise to me, and a very satisfying one.

The Spanish Game departs from the conventions of the typical spy novel by centering the conflict around Basque terrorists (or liberationists, as you prefer), about whom I knew little before reading the novel. I was drawn into the story and even started to feel a bit of sympathy for Milius. Cumming writes well, bringing a literary quality to his prose that, while falling short of Le Carre, is a pleasure to read. This is a better novel than A Spy By Nature, although not quite as good as his second novel, The Hidden Man (an espionage novel that doesn't feature Milius).

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Game Control by Lionel Shriver

First published in 1994

Living in "a state of near-permanent shame" and ever fearful of being a burden, Eleanor Merritt tries to please everyone, which of course pleases no one. Wracked with guilt at the poverty she sees in Kenya, Eleanor is a soft touch for anyone who wants to take advantage of her -- and nearly everyone does. Eleanor lives in Nairobi, representing an organization that seeks to empower women through birth control -- an ironic choice given that Eleanor feels no empowerment of her own. At a population control conference she encounters Calvin Piper, with whom she once had a fling. Piper, the former director of the USAID's Population Division, now advocates rather extreme methods of controlling population growth (he sees high levels of infant mortality as a good thing). Eleanor also meets Wallace Threadgill, a former advocate of population control who now argues that population expansion is economically beneficial for underdeveloped countries. To Eleanor's dismay, both men are celibate. Eleanor starts spending most of her free time with Calvin and, despite their celibacy, they fight as lovers do (she cares only about feelings, he cares only about facts). When Eleanor learns the nature of Calvin's plan to control the world's population, she can't decide whether to call the police or join the cause.

Although you wouldn't know it from that synopsis, Game Control is a very funny book. Shriver's characters are memorable. Eleanor, 38, childless, and undergoing a midlife crisis that seems to have started in her childhood, could be a cliché, but Shriver makes her fresh. Habitually striving to be kind, Eleanor nonetheless has a biting sense of humor, as when she observes: "I'm quite tired of listening to men describe how they've turned into emotional fence posts as if it's some kind of achievement."

Shriver has great fun with the influence of funding on statistics: her epidemiologists want rates of HIV infection in Africa to be high while her demographers want those rates to be too low to affect population growth; each group produces statistics that will support their fundraising. In materials appended to the 2007 P.S. edition of the novel (the novel was first published in 1994), Shriver explains that she was motivated to write the book by her discovery of the relationship between research and funding.

My biggest issue with Game Control is that the novel doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. The tone is too lighthearted for the book to succeed as drama; Calvin's rather extreme plan to control population growth can't be taken seriously, leaving Eleanor's desire to get laid as the only source of dramatic tension. The novel doesn't fully succeed as a comedy; despite some very funny moments, Shriver's attempt to grapple with serious issues in a serious way undercuts the story's comedic appeal. The novel works best as social commentary but ultimately I was left asking wondering what its thesis was, what point Shriver was trying to make. If her point is that people don't solve problems by attending endless conferences, fair enough, but that leaves us wondering whether people should be doing something else, perhaps something less drastic than Calvin had in mind, but Shriver offers no effective alternatives to the methods that she vilifies. Finally, although the ending is satisfying, Eleanor's lack of personal growth is not. At times it seems she's making progress in her quest to become something other than a doormat, but by the end little about her has changed. That's disappointing given that she is such a likable character. Of course, the novel might simply reflect a disagreeable reality: it is difficult to change one's personality in middle age. That fact makes it no less frustrating to read about a character who doesn't internalize the lessons she seems to be learning.

Despite those reservations, I recommend the novel. It isn't perfect but it's worth reading just for the chance to chuckle while getting to know the characters.

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The Perfectionists by Gail Godwin

First published in 1970

This beautifully written, insightful novel focuses on a woman's struggle to understand herself and her marriage during a two week vacation in Majorca. Dane, a journalist, has been married to John, a psychotherapist, for less than a year. Dane describes their marriage as "difficult" in the sense of "challenging." Indeed, it would be a challenge to be married to John, or even to be his friend, for John is constantly analyzing his life and the lives of others. John is given to badgering Dane for "a moment of shared truth" and saying things like "Don't attack the tender shoots of me." John wants Dane to know all of him while Dane wants John to display his attractive qualities while keeping the inner mess to himself (John thinks of the mess as "the natural disorder that precedes growth"). John intellectualizes life until he drains it of vitality, even as he complains that Dane isn't fully experiencing their shared moments. Dane thinks of her marriage as a spaceship carrying them to a destination she cannot yet envision and sometimes she feels that way, while most of the time she feels frustrated with her genius husband. She relies on fantasy and her own resources to have a satisfying time with him in bed.

Joining them on vacation are John's obstinately silent son Robin, the product of a failed relationship with a doctor who broke up with John soon after giving birth, and Penelope, one of John's patients. Dane has the same conflicted feelings about Robin that she has about John. Sometimes she sees him as an all-knowing, mysterious wonder; other times she harbors malevolent thoughts about him and fantasizes about abusing him.

Godwin's writing style is precise, her characters are unique, and her ideas are powerful. This novel deserves a wider audience.

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Most Secret by Nevil Shute

First published in 1945

Nevil Shute is one of my favorite writers. Although he's best known for two fine novels -- A Town Like Alice and On the Beach -- he produced a number of other gems during his prolific career. Most Secret is one of them.

War plays a role, large or small, in many of Shute's novels. Most Secret was first published in 1945; the action begins in 1941. Bombs are raining down on London and England is fully engaged in the war. Three of the four main characters are in the Royal Navy. They devise and carry out an ingenious plan to attack a German ship off the coast of France. But while Most Secret can be accurately categorized as a war story, it's much more than that. Shute is one of the few writers who successfully blended character-oriented fiction with a plot-driven story. Ultimately, he wrote about people; not just their actions, but the impact those actions had on their lives. War has tragic consequences; death and sorrow are usually present in Shute's novels. It's difficult to read them with dry eyes. That's certainly true of Most Secret.

I don't need to like the characters in order to enjoy a novel, but that's never an issue with Nevil Shute. He nearly always wrote about decent, likable people who cope with catastrophe with their dignity intact. Most Secret introduces the reader to Oliver Boden, the carefree son of a wool-spinner, who marries his childhood sweetheart shortly before joining the Navy, the natural outgrowth of his love of sailing. Boden teams with Michael Rhodes, a shy, awkward young chemist whose best friend before joining the Navy and falling in love with a Leading Wren is a misbehaving dog. The Labrador makes only a brief appearance, albeit a pivotal one in Rhodes' character development. The third actor in the plot against the Germans is Charles Simon, a young British citizen whose mother was French and who is working as an engineer for a French concrete manufacturer when the war starts. As a civilian, Simon provides vital intelligence to the British about the German occupation of a French harbor before he's rewarded with a commission to the Royal Engineers. A former rum-runner named John Colvin signs onto the mission as navigator. Their joint venture is narrated by Commander Martin, who oversees the mission but generally stays in the background.

Most Secret has something for every reader: a wartime adventure that eventually develops the pace and tension of a thriller; a story of blossoming love and another of a love left behind; a series of character studies; a spy story; a survival adventure; an exploration of differing philosophies of life and war; an inspirational saga of courage and self-sacrifice. It has tenderness and tragedy and unforgettable characters. Most of all, it is a powerful, moving, heart-felt tale told in the quiet, unassuming prose that marked Shute's style. Most Secret is just as compelling now as it was when Shute wrote it.

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Blood on the Forge by William Attaway

First published in 1941

Blood on the Forge tells the story of three brothers: Melody, who finds the music in every place and situation; Chinatown, who finds the humor; and Big Mat, a relentless worker who studies the Bible and tries to find an elusive inner peace. They work as sharecroppers in Kentucky, accustomed to poverty and racism, until circumstances brought on by Big Mat's quick temper compel their move to Pennsylvania, where they take jobs in a steel mill. Poverty is replaced by dangerous grueling labor that leaves them too exhausted to spend their wages on anything except alcohol, gambling, and whores. Racism is replaced by class division as black steelworkers join new immigrants from Ireland and Italy and Middle Europe, all viewed with disdain by those who inhabit the big houses overlooking the mill. By the novel's end, that conflict is defined by the workers' attempt to organize a union and by the owners' resort to violence to suppress that effort -- leaving the brothers caught in the middle of the conflict, and to some extent divided by it.

Although racism and class struggle are important themes in the novel, the story is about much more than that. If is fundamentally the story of three very different brothers, bonded by family ties and shared lives, but torn apart by their unique experiences. Chinatown must cope with injuries inflicted by hot steel, leaving him feeling less than whole. Big Mat must cope with his own feelings of inadequacy, his inability to give the Mexican woman who moves in with him the moneyed lifestyle that she craves, a feeling he can only overcome with the sense of power he derives from violent behavior. As he struggles to find his music, Melody must cope with the desire he feels for the woman who is living with Big Mat, and with the secret he learns about her.

Attaway tells the story from the perspectives of the brothers, using language that is eloquent in its simplicity. The story is powerful, sad and moving, unforgettable. At the end of the fast moving novel I literally said "Wow."

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