The Double Game

The Double Game by Dan Fesperman rates 4.5 stars. It's a cleverly written homage to all espionage novels. Our hero, Bill Cage, grew up with a father who not only worked in the secret service but was a collector of spy novels. After interviewing a retired spy, Bill is lead on a chase throughout Europe with clues from spy novels that now fit real life. Not only is the premise and its execution good, but there is an appendix in the back that is the most complete I have seen of spy novels. Worth having on your bookshelf for that alone.

Here's the thing- I love spy stories and mysteries. I've read a lot of them and I sort of like Fesperman, but to my mind they all have the same flaw- too many characters of whom we know little and too many red herrings. Sometimes I think he wants you to be as confused as the protagonist, but that can get annoying. So, for a while I was annoyed. I stuck with it, however, and wasn't sorry I read it, but be warned of the style.

Recall every espionage novel you have ever read; chance are, it will be cited here, or quoted, or used as part of a code. An amateur is recruited into a Cold War mystery that has lingered for decades. Will he be able to solve what professional operatives could not? Will he be able to overcome a personal defeat that forced him to become an amoral public relations flack rather than a respected journalist? Every character has a back story and frequently that means that the hero cannot trust them. So he's thrust upon relying on his own book-learned spying skills and moves from Vienna to Prague and on to Budapest seeking answers to whether the author he loves the most was, in fact, a genuine double agent working for both the CIA and KGB. He show more might have even been a "double cubed," that is, a double-double. It is overly complicated and there is far to much cerebral assessment and far too few moral choices. Fesperman has read all the sources but he does not have their skill in combining both the heart and mind to create genuine passion--as well as making the reader fidgety with anxiety. show less

The first half of this audacious book was entertaining and intriguing. I didn't find the second half quite as charming, but I was still happy to see how it all played out. Fesperman gave himself quite the writing challenge, and I appreciate how cleverly he tried to meet it.

Spying, and particularly, Cold War spying is one of my favourite sub-genres within fiction and this book, by a favourite writer, fits into my likes almost perfectly.
It is an extraordinary clever piece of work, weaving elements from the entire history of espionage fiction, into a "quest".
Fesperman's books are normally quite somber, but this is more of an "entertainment".
If I have one criticism it is that a reader not so well steeped as I in Le Carre, Hall, Deighton, McCarry etc, might find this all a bit difficult to follow, but I hope there are enough people like me to really enjoy it.

Having read all of the old spy thrillers I could lay my hands on, I looked forward to reading this book. In the beginning, I so much enjoyed the references to my old friends, Bernie Sampson, Smiley. I liked the movement around Europe. I liked the spy craft. I liked the MC 's father. But it went on too long. I finished because I still liked the basic plot but the story itself was lost. I will try other books by this author.

Interesting and entertaining in parts but overall, the attempt to intertwine actual novels within a novel and to create reality from fiction doesn't work in this book. It just seems contrived and nerdy - like the spy novel equivalent of a dungeons and dragons convention. Not a bad book but just not well executed in plot and approach.