One Man's Flag

September 28, 2015
Downing’s meandering second WWI-era spy novel finds British agent Jack McColl and American newspaper woman Caitlyn Hanley, who were lovers in 2014’s Jack of Spies, now worlds apart. McColl is working for the Crown, assigned to undermine terrorists in India, while Hanley roams Europe, reporting on the horrors of trench warfare. Hanley, however, is drawn back to Ireland, her ancestral home, for an emerging story—rumors of Germany’s possible arming of Irish revolutionaries in a classic scheme of helping the enemy of your enemy. McColl’s bosses, hearing of the plan, call him home to investigate, knowing his relationship with Hanley could work to England’s advantage. Downing provides the kind of period detail and color that distinguishes his WWII series (Zoo Station, etc.), but the plot—lacking a clear antagonist—is often dull and directionless until the final stretch, when fighting breaks out in Dublin and the lovers must choose between their professions and their romance. Agent: Charlie Viney, Viney Agency.

September 1, 2015
Against the backdrop of the first world war, a master spy's reunion with an old flame threatens to burn him to a crisp. Downing splits his narrative between two ex-lovers, with details of the breakup included piecemeal. British agent Jack McColl is spending 1915 in India brooding about the end of his affair with American journalist Caitlin Hanley and waiting for news of his brother. Caitlin is in London, monitoring the execution of her own brother, Colm, for treasonous activities with the Irish Citizen Army. Even as McColl is called into service to help locate and intercept a German arms shipment, revolutionary stirrings simmer in India. McColl is gathering intelligence on these, and their connection to the weapons, as well. Meanwhile, Caitlin's grief intensifies her affinity for her brother's extreme politics, putting her at odds with McColl. She goes to Berlin to meet her brother's associates while McColl continues to track the gun shipment.The failure of this mission leads to McColl's reassignment to London but not before an interesting encounter with Gandhi himself. Caitlin returns to Dublin after her Continental trip and visits McColl's family in Glasgow while he pursues a new assignment in France and Holland. This character-driven thriller, second in a series by the prolific Downing (Jack of Spies, 2014), has much exposition to catch the reader up in its opening chapters, but the author provides the same authentically detailed depiction of espionage in World War I that his John Russell series offers about World War II. The book builds in interest and intensity as, bolstered by nuanced historical color, the protagonists grow in complexity.

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October 1, 2015

Jack McColl returns in Downing's second volume in his World War I espionage series (after Jack of Spies). Previously a volunteer, he is now an official spy for England. Although the war is raging in 1915, unrest in India over British rule is growing and McColl is sent to thwart Bengali terrorists and their German allies. In England, Caitlin Hanley, journalist and feminist, seeks stories about both a possible Irish uprising and the war in Europe as she recovers from the betrayal that resulted in her IRA-connected brother's execution. Hanley and McColl pursue their separate agendas but, as time passes, they realize that the relationship they once forged cannot be broken by war or politics. VERDICT Downing exhibits his knowledge of world history in a wide-ranging story that takes place in India, Ireland, and Belgium. His details about how countries in the British empire were affected by the Great War are quite absorbing; however, the history lessons sometimes overshadow the slowly paced story. Not an action-packed thriller but recommended for those who enjoy their romance mixed with world events.--Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY

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Starred review from October 15, 2015
Throughout his WWII series and now, in the second volume of this WWI-era follow-up, Downing has always shown a great ability to home in on particularly rich historical moments within the larger wartime era. Here, it's spring 1915, and as the carnage on the front grows by the day, the British Empire is on ever-more-shaky ground, with revolutionaries in India and Ireland slouching toward outright rebellion. It is a sea-change moment, and Jack McColl, a newbie spy in Jack of Spies (2014) but a vet now, is starting to feel le Carrelike flashes of ambiguity, first in India, where he's charged with making sure a shipment of German guns doesn't fall into the hands of anti-British rebels, and, later, in Ireland, where his charge is to seduce his former lover, Caitlin Hanley, and in so doing identify her IRA cohorts. Unbeknownst to Jack, Caitlin has a similar charge from those same cohorts: seduce Jack, circumvent his plans, and set him up for assassination. A juicy premise, to be sure, but Downing chooses not to play it for the quasi-comedy that Richard Condon did in Prizzi's Honor (1982) but, rather, to explore, as Graham Greene did in the The Human Factor (1978), the choice to betray your country before betraying someone you love. As a spy thriller, as a love story, and as vibrant historical re-creation, this one hits on all cylinders. Thankfully, the series is still in its early days.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)