A Spy at Twilight by Bryan Forbes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is little doubt that with the thriller, A Spy at Twilight, Bryan Forbes is trying to become a contemporary of Forsyth. Sadly, he fails. See, the secret to Forsyth’s success is his enormous dedication to research, details, and planning, as well as intricate story telling. Forbes shares none of these traits. He spins a decent yarn, yes, but not nearly as well as Forsyth.

In this book, a booby trapped corpse explodes when investigated by a couple of British cops, killing both, and setting off a massive investigation. England is “ruled” by a socialist prime minister who it’s hard to pin down and I attribute that to the author — the prime minister is clearly influenced by the head of the secret service — MI6 — who in this novel is called “Control,” which just seems so wrong. What seems even more wrong is the hero of all of the James Bond novels and countless Forsyth novels, “Control” is a Russian plant working to overthrow Britain for Russian rule. That’s literally unthinkable to me. And he seems, at times, to have the prime minister working alongside him, and at other times, the prime minister doesn’t seem to have a clue about what’s going on. It’s very confusing.

Another part of the plot involves a former British spy, Hillsden, who has defected to the Russians, who was forced to by the prime minister and Control and who now, just to survive, works for the GRU. And he’s bitter. He writes his memoirs and attempts to get them back to a colleague in Britain, but it only leads to various deaths.

Meanwhile, the protagonist, Waddington, is a former MI6 spy, now working for a security company who has been seduced by a mysterious rich hottie who is working for Control, although he of course doesn’t know it. And to my total shock, the author kills him off about 80% of the way through the book. So now what? Well, there are secondary characters who now take over, but it’s very confusing. You expect to make it through the whole book with the protagonist, don’t you? Generally? Perhaps it’s post-modern…. I didn’t like it though.

Another thing I didn’t like was small details like the following: the author several times referred to revolver “magazines.” Um, revolvers don’t have magazines. I know. I have one. I also have semiautomatic handguns. Those do have magazines. Get it right. The author is also extremely obsessed with AIDS. Now I know this book was published in the middle of the AIDS epidemic in 1989, so I can empathize, but come on. We get it. We are So.Very.Happy.You.Did.Not.Get.AIDS. God, go on and on about it, dude! Additionally, the terrorist known as “The Fat Boy” is not fat. He forces some type of cyanide pill down the throat of the woman who has seduced Waddington by kissing her, which seems a little unlikely. And Keating seems to good to be true, as spy turned movie producer turned good guy.

This isn’t really a bad book. It’s just not really a good one either. It could have done with some polishing, a little rewriting, some editing, some adjustments. That would have upped my rating to four stars. As it is, it’s three stars and uneasily recommended if you can’t find any other thrillers to read.

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