

Bizarre inasmuch as it always flirts with being a Bond parody in ways that stress how grotesque a lot of spy fictioh can be but it has a really interesting thematic core about voids and how people choose to fill them: with country, with wealth, with sex, with food. And I think more than anything this is probably a spiritual novel; about the decay of Hillier's soul, if it happens as a requirement for spycraft and if the cost, in the end, could ever be worth it. It's also just full of really smart uses of language, even in throwaway lines and moments that all add up to something that's occassionally confounding, but always really interesting. Had an enjoyably strange time with this one
Bizarre inasmuch as it always flirts with being a Bond parody in ways that stress how grotesque a lot of spy fictioh can be but it has a really interesting thematic core about voids and how people choose to fill them: with country, with wealth, with sex, with food. And I think more than anything this is probably a spiritual novel; about the decay of Hillier's soul, if it happens as a requirement for spycraft and if the cost, in the end, could ever be worth it. It's also just full of really smart uses of language, even in throwaway lines and moments that all add up to something that's occassionally confounding, but always really interesting. Had an enjoyably strange time with this one