The Midnight Swimmer

Starred review from March 12, 2012
Set in early 1960s Berlin and Cuba, Wilson’s outstanding third novel featuring the conflicted, disaffected British spy William Catesby (after 2011’s The Darkling Spy) offers a provocative look at the cold war era. Catesby has come into possession of a letter proving the Soviet Union’s missile program is far behind what the American CIA is declaring. He and his boss, Henry Bone, decide that this information would encourage first strike advocates in the U.S. military, thus involving Britain in a devastating nuclear conflict, and decline to pass the letter along to their American allies. Catesby goes to Cuba, where he has long talks with a charming Che Guevara and sleeps with a KGB officer’s wife. The American spy, Kit Fournier, Catesby’s former friend and enemy in the previous book, complicates Catesby’s attempts to piece together a puzzle of immense complexity. Wilson is a master at working the history of the period—the Cuban missile crisis in particular—into his intricate tale of high political drama and deadly action.