Every Spy a Traitor (The Double Agent series, 1)
It is 1937, and Britain is being drawn into a cold war which its badly prepared intelligence services are losing. Infiltrated by a high-level communist traitor and threatened by Fascism, the British have formed the Annexe, an agency that falls between Special Branch, MI5 and MI6 to attempt to redress the balance, and which is desperate to find the traitor. Caught up in this maelstrom is Charles Cooper, a writer and a classic diffident Englishman. Through a mixture of naivety and a desire to research his novel, Cooper stumbles into becoming a double agent of sorts. Desperate to keep his secret, Cooper digs himself ever deeper into the abyss, while around him seismic changes at home and abroad are toppling his world.
The novel is vintage Alex Gerlis, with all the elements we have come to expect from his work: painstaking research, carefully drawn characters and a labyrinthine plot. The style and atmosphere effortlessly convey the 1930s, but with the edge of a modern spy thriller. There is also a gin-dry humour that underpins the novel. In places it is almost a homage to Eric Ambler and Evelyn Waugh. It could have been easy to develop this into a full-blown comedy. In places it almost feels as though the novel descends into farce, but Gerlis keeps the narrative pitch-perfect with the ever-menacing threat of Stalin’s agents, who come out of the shadows to spoil the fun and remind the reader just how high the stakes are.
