RogerBW's Blog

Skydancer, Geoffrey Archer 31 January 2021

1987 Cold War espionage thriller. The upgrade to Polaris warheads, to get them through a new generation of Soviet defences, is one of the most closely-guarded of British secrets. Then one of the pages is found in a rubbish bin on Parliament Hill…

All right, so this isn't one of my usual genres; the closest I normally get is technothrillers that, to be honest, are often at least as much about the hardware as about the people. But I was asking about fiction writers who'd dealt with the post-WWII Royal Navy (other than John Winton and Patrick Robinson of course), and Archer's name came up. (No relation.) Shadow Hunter is apparently the very Navy one, but being me I started with his first published book.

There's a lot of stereotyping here (the one lesbian is an enemy agent, all CND members are at best unwitting tools of the Russians) but many of the people work as people; they're flawed and often unpleasant, but each one acts in a way that the reader can tell is consistent with their personality. There are the usual games of who's-the-mole, and some unfortunate failures of procedure which might be forgivable in amateurs but really aren't in professionals, but altogether this works surprisingly well, not raising my implausibility-hackles the way e.g. Mark Dawson did. (If the choice in lead characters is between perfect-at-everything and flawed-and-unpleasant but basically human, I will, reluctantly, take the latter.)

What also works well is the host of nasty little bits of detail about just how one compromises a source. It's broad-strokes stuff, but it shows how it can happen and even leaves one with a little bit of sympathy for the victim. That's a lot better than the pulp-era reliance on "some hypnotic drug untraceable by forensic tests", at which I nearly groaned aloud.

Alas, I could have done with another chapter: the espionage plot is wrapped up all right, but there are some hanging personal considerations that could really have done with being concluded rather than just abandoned. Still, surprisingly good, though of course one has to get into the mindset of the time.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
1000 Yards, Mark Dawson

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1