Read of the week: The Predicament

William Boyd Viking/Penguin Random

With some exciting action scenes peppered with tension and Boyd’s crafted prose, this second instalment of the Gabriel Dax trilogy does not disappoint.

It not only avoids that common middle-book slump, but if anything, Boyd is more confident and comfortable in the 1960s British period and his protagonist’s skin. Without giving away spoilers, Boyd re-joins travel writer Gabriel Dax in his recently purchased rose cottage.

He is finishing a book about rivers and pretending his life is normal. It isn’t. His profession makes him inconveniently useful to the intelligence services. They have somehow coerced him into becoming a reluctant MI6 asset.

The advantage is that it provides ample funding to fashion a comfortable lifestyle. Another is that he is in a complicated relationship of sorts with his handler, Faith Green, who is messing with his mind.

So much so that he uses an expensive therapist in search of help. (Do men really feel that obsessed with women?) Reading between the lines, it is clear that Boyd has enormous fun placing Dax in the thick of Cold War hotspots such as Léopoldville, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Gabriel’s Moon.

Using real historical tensions as a backdrop, Boyd keeps the focus firmly on Dax’s human anxieties. This time, Boyd takes Dax to Guatemala and West Berlin. Having visited the former, I wallowed in his vivid descriptions of the colourful country’s lifestyle, the heat and unease of paranoia as he blends political reality with fictional intrigue.

The tone is intelligent, stylish, entertaining, and absorbing without being heavy. It’s also nostalgic without tipping into satire. Fans of le Carré will feel at home, but Boyd brings enough warmth and wry humour to make this distinctly his own. There’s plenty of tension and interesting supporting characters to make this a four-star read. It made me keen to see where Gabriel Dax’s increasingly complicated life takes him next.