Dress Down Sunday & Book of 1975

 

LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES

 

The Sixth Directorate by Joseph Hone

published 1975
 
Sixth Directorate 2
 
 
‘Yes, take him riding, Helen.’

Guy Jackson got up and went to the dining-roomSixth Directorate window, sipping his coffee. Hair too neatly brushed, in a polka-dot Sulka dressing-gown, framed in the grand casements, he had the air of someone testing for the part Cary Grant got in the original High Society. There was something insincere in his suggestion. He looked out over the terraces of sloping lawn, past the meadow to the trees and mountains rising beyond, with too eager an expression, as if contemplating a bed and not a landscape. ‘We can swim later. Or take a picnic lunch to Flatrock.’

The twins were in the kitchen, being fed by the housekeeper. Harold Perkins had not appeared for breakfast – no reasons offered, and none needed. 

‘But I don’t ride. I’ve never ridden,’ I said, lying.


commentary: This is my book of 1975 for Rich Westwood’s Crime of the Century meme over at Past Offences.

Joseph Hone died in August, aged 79, and his obituaries described him as ‘the best spy author you have never heard of’. And on the strength of this one that’s about right. It’s an extraordinary book, more like a literary novel than a spy thriller in the writing, but with an excellent espionage plot. It’s not as funny as Len Deighton, not as silly as James Bond, not as sentimental as John Le Carre (I know that’s not a popular view, but I like JLC very much while finding him too soft-centred). This book is full of lost people searching for something – an ideal, or love – and is absolutely ferocious. It doesn’t resemble anything else I’ve ever read. One reviewer on amazon likened his writing to Ford Madox Ford, and I absolutely see what he means – and that’s a big compliment, FMF is one of my favourite writers of all time. The only other author he remotely resembles is Nicholas Mosley, whose Impossible Object is one of my best novels of all time.

The book is the 2nd in a series, and actually tells you quite a lot about the first one, The Private Sector (1971) – that doesn’t bother me, and I will certainly read it, but those who like their books in order should probably start there. Series hero Peter Marlow is sent to New York to impersonate a member of the Secret Services: the man he is pretending to be was a double agent, and he is to follow up his contacts, try to find out more about the KGB sleepers in the United States. Before he goes he realizes that his alter ego has been having a long-term affair with the wife of a contact…

So far so normal for a spy thriller, and Hone makes the most of the complications, the betrayals, the double agents, the suspects and the sleepers. He takes on board the mystery of how someone can be living a double life, what it would mean and how it would work. It is quite hard to keep track of some of the twists and turns in the book: who is working for who and who is pretending, and who knew what when.

The book takes a long time to get going in my view, with an extended opening section in the USSR, featuring some real people (Andropov and Philby): I was quite impatient by the time we got to the end of that, and I didn’t understand the business with the trains. But once the story became Marlow’s, I was hooked. The early scene where he goes to an empty flat and hears voices having a worrying conversation was an absolute masterpiece of cleverness, wit and tension – from that moment I was a lost cause.

The book was so clever and melancholy and thoughtful, and tremendously well-written. Then there would be some sudden action scene and terrible gruesome moments. The woman in the case, Helen, is terrifically well done, much more so than the women characters in Hone’s contemporaries’ books. There is a scene of marital distress taking place in a room full of child-size play houses that was both hilarious and poignant and will live on in my mind:
I tried to get out of my [toy] house to separate them but it wasn’t easy with the small door opening inwards, my pocket catching on it, and by the time I was out on the [model] street they were at it hammer and tongs.
I can’t say too much about the plot for fear of spoilers, but I kept making notes of wonderful sentences:

Country Life had been one of the most popular magazines amongst the old lags in Durham [Jail].
…[there was his horror at] what he had always seen as the epitome of dissolute bohemianism: an interest in graphics and oysters. 

He watched them disappear from the space in the trees, saw their heads bobbing up and down among the leaves further along the lane. They were like a cigarette commercial, he thought: happy but dangerous.
These are one character’s thoughts on politics:
I shouldn’t have taken it all so seriously. It could have been something you sang about when you were young, talked about in college, argued about in bars and cafés, a dream you shouted from the rooftops while the pigs were letting off gas grenades at you: kidnapping the Dean, burning the draft cards and blowing up the computer building. I could have done it that way – the way you grow out of it, like Paris in the spring, because you weren’t ever really going to see it come about, were you?
I think that is wonderful writing.

I do recommend the book, and I will most certainly be reading more by him.
H/T to my friend Col (of the Criminal Library), who found this book in one of his tubs recently. It was a cracking week’s cataloguing, as it goes, because he also mentioned Jed Mercurio’s American Adulterer the same week – I bought both books and loved both of them.




















Comments

  1. From what you've shared, Moira, Hone really was a skilled writer. And it's rare that you have an espionage plot that works as such, but at the same time also have solid character development and all the rest of it. How interesting! I must admit I've not read him before, but it's clear I've been missing out. I wonder how it is that some authors are like that: they're brilliant and talented...but you never hear of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, it's strange isn't it? Because he seems really great. Am waiting for someone familiar with him to pop up!

      Delete
  2. This sound wonderful! I love the old lags and Country Life. He sound like my kind of writer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you'd enjoy Chrissie - he does have these perfect low-key one-liners, and a great plot...

      Delete
  3. Moira: What a beautiful dressing gown with the polka dots. I found a contemporary image in purple:
    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/46/91/cb/4691cbfe62bb1d2bfcec50562d9726a7.jpg

    What was most striking was the man with shirt and tie and pants still on beneath the gown. All modern images have bare legs or pyjamas.

    Did Cary Grant have a separate dressing gown when he was actually getting ready for bed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, and that modern one is lovely! If only Mr Clothes in Books could be persuaded to wear such smart items, but alas he likes something ancient and comfortable.
      Good catch on the tie - perhaps it was something more like a long smoking jacket? I recently bought for myself an item calling a lounging wrap, which you are meant to put on over your clothes in the evening for extra warmth.

      Delete
    2. I look forward to the photo of you lounging at your country estate.

      Delete
    3. As soon as I get one I will be right on it.

      Delete
  4. I like the sound of a lounging wrap. What is it made of?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Feels like very soft felted wool, though actually polyester! M&S, here http://www.marksandspencer.com/reversible-wrap-dressing-gown/p/p22475579?prevPage=plp&pdpredirect (nicer and less dressing-gowny than it looks in pic, and I removed belt instantly.) Very cosy, but you could answer the door and receive visitors in it! I think the most comfortable and comforting item I've bought in a long time, and just the thing for winter in a draughty Victorian house.

      Delete
    2. Was tempted by this in M & S myself! Perhaps I will succumb.

      Delete
    3. There's 2, one is more soft furry dressing gown material, it's lovely, but the felted one is better for downstairs! (I would say, a strange thing to be discussing here, but it is clothes. And perhaps you can put Katie in one in a future book!)

      Delete
  5. The original of "High Society" is "The Philadephia Story." It's as though he wanted the image of Cary Grant but with the swankier title of "High Society."

    I adore John LeCarré. But I know I have squishy middle and am completely unapologetic about it.

    This sounds more appealing to me than James Bond (not a fan), and the excerpts above are wonderful. That's why I read...as much as for the plot and characters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well this is the book for you Paula! But good catch on High Society - I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't notice that, I know perfectly well...

      Delete
  6. Wonderful review, Moira. "The best spy author (I) have never heard of" is right and I'd certainly like to read Joseph Hone in near future. I liked your description of the other spy writers and there I agree with your assessment of John Le Carre as "sentimental." He has this knack of pricking the reader's conscience.

    I also like the spy novels of the late Welsh author Craig Thomas who was known for the Mitchell Gant and Kenneth Aubrey series. Aubrey, in particular, is a wise and seasoned officer in British Intelligence. I found his character quite endearing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh that's a new name for me to try as well, Prashant, I don't know those books but will look them up. Thanks!

      Delete
  7. Totally new author to me. I will definitely have to look for the first book in the series. I would complain about not wanting to find another good author to read, but it is only 4 books in the series.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Definitely worth a try for you Tracy, I think you will really like the spying content. I am amazed that I had never heard of him before, and no fans have come to comment yet!

      Delete

Post a Comment