A Very British Ending

November 14, 2016
Wilson’s fine fifth novel featuring spy William Catesby (after 2014’s The Whitehall Mandarin) focuses on Catesby’s career from just after WWII to the mid-1970s. Throughout this Cold War period, Catesby and a few others, including his boss, Henry Bone, take it upon themselves to guard Great Britain from its most insidious enemies: far-right elements at home and those in America who see communists under every rock. Catesby and company view politician Harold Wilson, eventually a two-time prime minister, as a Red and will consider any means to topple him, up to and including a military coup. The author replaces the violence and mayhem of a typical American spy novel with backroom skullduggery, smear campaigns, innuendo, and dirty money from dodgy sources, pulling in everything from a deal in 1947 to sell Rolls-Royce jet engines to the Russians to England’s World Cup victory in 1966, a victory the Red haters ascribe to a deal between Wilson and the Soviets. Le Carré fans will find a lot to like.