I Spy

Really I was looking for a spy story. This book begins with Holly failing an interview with MI5 so you know it’s not going to be the kind of secret service spy novel I thought I was looking for. The story then shows you a slightly older version of Holly, now working in hospital administration, falling in love with a dashing doctor. It occurs to me now that that is the prototypical Mills & Boon plot (though maybe not the MI5-reject bit). And then another version of Holly appears, now calling herself Helen, from another couple of years into the future, clearly in hiding after a disastrous end to that relationship. And slowly it becomes clear that it’s not just teasing at being a spy story after all.

I enjoy thrillers but I’m never quite sure if I actually like them, and I definitely wouldn’t want every book I read to be this fast paced. I find myself turning the pages because of a frantic need to resolve the plot rather than savouring my time with the characters or appreciating the writing. But I did think the characters were well drawn here, and they developed beyond archetypes as the book went on. I’m not going to spoil the ending of the book here - I’d imagine a lot of readers wouldn’t be happy with it though and I might be in their number - but I think the author made it make sense for the characters. Maybe.

Is the plot implausible? Probably. But I think the only thing more implausible than fictional spy stories is real life ones. I think you need to suspend quite a lot of disbelief in any spy story and I was happy to do so for the most part. I liked the settings which switched between Cornwall and Bath mostly and anchored it in the real world for me. There are definitely, if not actual gaping holes in the plot, then at least several places where the fabric of the story wears thin, and it would be easy to slate the book based on those, but I’d be doing it a disservice because on the whole I enjoyed the read.