Getting in deep
International tale of Cold War intrigue is an opera of a spy novel

If you’re thinking of writing a book, want to be a better writer or want to do justice to your own obituary, you’ll want to read William Boyd’s new book by Atlantic Monthly Press, “Gabriel’s Moon.”

Boyd is a consummate writer with 17 novels, five collections of short stories, three non-fiction books and four plays. He was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, grew up in Nigeria and now divides his time between London and southwest France. 

I’m telling you Boyd’s background, because we have always enjoyed good, robust writing from southern and western Africa, in the cast of J.M. Coetzee, Karen Blixen and Beryl Markham, to mention a few. Now, we’re seeing some very interesting literary crime fiction from these countries as well. 

Many of the superb African noir authors have been reviewed here, and what they all have beautifully in mind and on the page is Africa and being African. Their writing is bold; their stories hardened. They wear their history on their sleeve. But Boyd is cut from different cloth.

“Gabriel’s Moon,” and I suspect all of Boyd’s writing, is weightless and without the mark of Africa. His writing is on the easy-listening side and, at the same time, leaning toward perfection. He’s sent me to the dictionary a few dozen times, which I relish.

The second-best part of Boyd’s new book is the plot, which being at the dawning of the 1960s. Gabriel Dax is a thirtysomething British travel writer who snags an assignment from a British newspaper to fly to Léopoldville, in the newly independent republic of the Congo, to interview Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. On the flight there, he is seated mysteriously in first class, and on the trip back to his lux seat from the Lilliputian toilet before takeoff, he sees an alluring woman reading one of his books. And that begins the manipulation of Dax into the secretive world of international spying.

Dax is cast perfectly for the job of travel writer: unmarried, occupationally curious and, I guess you’d say, a typical dweeb. He drinks, he’s professionally pliable and wonderstruck, juvenescent, carefree and befogged. And now, in his gifted seat in first-class, Dax will start a new life of intrigue that he won’t even notice until he’s in too deep.

Dax gets his interview with a very nervous Lumumba who is afraid he’s being plotted against and is giving the interview to alert the world to unrest in his country. Lumumba insists the interview be recorded, which is of course standard practice. Dax concludes his interview, glad-hands everybody within reach and is accompanied back to the airport. Lumumba is secreted away from what he fears is a crowd wanting to assassinate him while Dax is admiring the landscape, fine weather and the fee he’ll get for his long trip and easy interview.

The day after Dax gets back to London, he sees the woman from the plane crossing the street where he lives. He runs after her, but she’s lost to the crowd. After that fleeting glimpse comes phone calls with no voices, small displacements of things in his flat, paranoia that he’s being followed and finally news that his interview with Lumumba is being cancelled.  

Boyd builds only one-alarm tension until the woman on the plane appears where Gabriel can approach her. They meet in a café. She asks if he would do her the great favor of delivering a painting to someone in Brussels. He demurs with a hand wave and gets back to the seduction he’s been so successful with around the world. She slowly blinks her soft, glistening eyes and leisurely passes a large sum of money in a bulging envelope across the table and asks again if he would be kind enough to do this one eensy-weensy favor, since she knows nobody else who can be as dependable as he shows himself to be with his travel writing. Her ingratiation hits Dax’s soft spot, as do her curves and coquettish gaze. He accepts the assignment for the money and hopes it will lead to a more intimate affair.

The favor Dax does for Faith Green is only the first. And Green, of course, is far more than what she seems to be.

Boyd goes on to write a spy mystery that begs for music. “Gabriel’s Moon” is an opera that you, the reader, will supply music for. You’re going to love this book. And it comes in a civilized hardback, and don’t forget to ask Maria’s Bookshop for your 15% Murder Ink discount.