I seem always to have struggled with Julian Rathbone’s books. He manages to come up with some great plots, but there is something about his writing that always manages to alienate me. I am certainly conscious that, as I have aged, my tolerance for books that I am not enjoying has eroded. More than thirty years ago I read Rathbone’s A Spy of the Old School, which offered a slightly different twist on the concept of a mole infiltrating the higher echelons of the establishment while working all the time for a foreign intelligence agency.

To be honest, I am not sure that I exactly enjoyed that book, but I did find the plot well-constructed, which prompted me to buy his historical novel, A Very English Agent, as a faux de mieux option when finding myself unexpectedly at Manchester Piccadilly without a book but facing a long journey, and with only a very meagre selection on offer at the station newsagent. I found that hard to get into, but having persevered through dint of necessity, I eventually found it fairly amusing, offering a humorous insight into various incidents throughout nineteenth century history.

It was the recollection of that serendipitous discovery that led me to choose this book when I found myself in similar circumstances, facing an unplanned journey without my usual emergency reading supply to hand. It had been left in the ‘book exchange’ pile at Arundel Station.

The book opens in Madrid in the 1970s, in the immediate aftermath of the death of General Franco. The ‘generalissimo’ is lying in state for a grieving public prior to his state funeral. This was a period of uncertainty for Spain: not only was it unclear whether the monarchy would be restored, but if so, would the returning monarch be Juan Carlos, or his father, Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona.

Impoverished radical bookseller, Roberto Fairrie, born and raised in Argentina, whence he fled from the agents of Juan Peron, is relieved that Franco has died, but has no confidence that the restoration of the monarchy will represent a significant improvement. He is approached by a flamboyant British journalist who has a lead on some recordings purportedly made by Peron shortly before his death. These touch on a range of subjects, including insights into Peron’s relationship with Evita (his late wife, who had been virtually canonised in their native Argentina following her early death). Even more significantly, the tapes include discussions about Martin Bormann, senior figure in Hitler’s regime, suggesting that he was alive and well in secret exile in Argentina. (I certainly remember from my boyhood that rumours of Bormann’s survival and exile in South America used to circulate widely during the 1970s.)

The journalist recognises Faiirie as one of the leading independent experts on the life of Peron, and asks him to authenticate the tapes. Fairrie is reluctant to do so, but even so finds himself suddenly at the recieiving end of unwelcome attention from members of the Spanish authorities, as well as neo-Nazis eager to ensure that secrets surrounding the fate of Bormann and his like remain secret.

This all sounds promising, and I was expecting to enjoy a high-paced thriller steeped in intrigue, with perhaps some passing references to the Hitler Diaries, and similar high-profile historical scams. Unfortunately, the book never quite developed that way. I suspect that Rathbone saw himself a ‘literary’ writer, and one who was, perhaps rather disdainful of the page-turning thriller. Unfortunately, while he was clearly capable of writing with a certain elan, he seems to have concentrated rather more on demonstrating his literary credentials, at the expense of the story itself.

Right from the start, Rathbone leaps backwards and forwards in time. There are some magnificently written passages, but unfortunately these impede, rather than assist, the flow of the story. ( )