Many of the greatest
writers of espionage fiction have been fascinated by the idea of
betrayal, and the ways in which its being stock in trade for a spy
means it must necessarily become part of the personal lives of those
involved in the great game. It is the essence of John LeCarre, but he
is far from alone in building on E.M. Forster’s famous dictum
about having the courage to choose friend over country.
For starters, a spy
must keep his or her work secret, which means having secrets, lying,
to those you supposedly love. And of course, because they are
practiced liars trained in deception and, by definition, believers in
ends justifying means, it is no surprise that this paradox rears its
ugly head frequently.
But few writers have
put it at the centre of a novel quite the way Andreas Norman has in
The Silent War, which opens
with the head of Swedish intelligence in Brussels, Bente Jensen,
being passed files which reveal a British programme of torture
carried out at a secret site in the Middle East. This will put her at
odds with the Brussels station chief of MI6, Jonathan Green, and
the scene is set at an embassy reception in which quick glances and a
partner absent for just a short while begin a tale in which every
relationship is never quite what it seems.
What
makes it work is the way the personal morality gets in the way of the
larger issues of political morality, and it is odd that Norman, a
former Swedish diplomat, is most cutting in the relationship of Green
and his MI6 friend and colleague with whom he is at least nominally
competing for a deputy directorship, Like honourable schoolboys,
theirs is perhaps the most telling and coldblooded in the book.
What
doesn’t quite work is the nature of Jensen and Green’s past, of
which there are hints but no definition—it seems personal from the
start, but it doesn’t go that far. Green’s operation in Syria and
his final efforts to contain the leaked documents add action to the
story, but the real action is what takes place behind the scenes. The
book is best when it is focused on betrayal, and in the end, those
who are the best at it are the ones who gain the ultimate victory.
The
Silent War by Andreas Norman
translated
from the Swedish by Ian Giles
Riverun,
£20, ISBN 9781784293628
published
5 September 2019
NOTE: This review will also appear at Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)
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