Paris Spring

Starred review from November 7, 2016
Fans of John le Carré and Len Deighton will welcome Naughtie's superior spy thriller, a prequel to 2014's The Madness of July. The characters' struggles between personal and public responsibilities play out against a background rarely used in espionage fictionâthe growing unrest in Paris in April 1968. The city is "on the brink of an eruption," as an author's note explains, after Charles de Gaulle's government proves to be unprepared for France's "cauldron of youthful anti-establishment unrest." British operative Will Flemyng, who appeared in the previous book as a government minister, is approached by a German man calling himself Kristof, who quickly gets Will's attention by promising to reveal something very interesting about Will's younger brother, Abel. Kristof's suggestion that Abel is working against the West puts Will in a tough place, as he tries to do his duty to both his country and his kin. Will's juggling act becomes trickier after the body of an American reporter, Grace Quincey, turns up in the Père Lachaise cemetery. Naughtie draws on his experience as a political correspondent for the Washington Post and Britain's the Guardian to make the story's dramatic developments plausible. Agent: Amanda Ridout, Head of Zeus (U.K.).