The Unlikely Spy
The Unlikely Spy
By: Daniel Silva
[Fulfilled ‘Book written in the 90s’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge]
I met an actual FBI agent on vacation one summer who recommended this author if I was interested in spy thrillers. So obviously, I had to read one. This is his first book, written in 1996.
It’s possible my expectations were too high based on the source of the recommendation. I felt a bit disappointed.
This book isn’t technical, but what makes it a bit hard to read are all the characters. It felt like every chapter introduced another character with a little backstory. Then most were only in the book for a short period.
Add to that I felt there wasn’t much character resolution at the end. All of a sudden a few of the main characters are just dead. Which feels abrupt when prior you were privy to some of their thoughts and actions.
The book was convoluted and long. The pace picked up in the last 100 pages or so but by then it was too late for me.
There were a few good parts and interesting themes to think about (see below) and I may try his other series but not really the book I was looking for.
Brief Summary and Characters
It’s WWII on the precipice of D-Day, the turning point in the war.
Therefore, the secret of D-Day is of utmost importance and must be protected at all costs. The Germans will do anything to know where the Allies plan to attack and they have the sleeper spies installed in the Allied Forces to obtain such information.
Here are a few of the main characters:
Sir Alfred Vicary: “a fussy, bookish little man”; leader of the task force to expose the German spies and operating a complex system of turned agents delivering false information back to Germany
Catherine Black (aka Christa Kunst aka Anna Katerina): “strikingly beautiful… she had used her looks as a weapon her entire life.”; forced to spy for the Germans to protect her father she uses her beauty and charm to seduce men for information; a traumatic childhood experience has enabled her to be the detached killer her job requires
Kurt Vogel: “he planned to steal the most closely guarded secret of the war with a woman, a cripple, a grounded paratrooper, and a British traitor”; part of the German intelligence organization who trains and runs spies
James Porter (aka Horst Neumann aka Nigel Fox): the second German spy working with Catherine to transfer her information back to Berlin; hiding in a small coastal island trying not to get caught and preparing a way for them to escape should the need arise
Jenny Colville: “she had been stripped of her childhood, her time of innocence, forced to confront the fact very early in life that the world could be an evil place”; daughter of an abusive father in Porter’s small town hideaway; becomes enamored with Porter and will be forced to reconcile the man with the truth
Peter Jordan: widowed British engineer brought on to help design the concrete harbor D-Day requires to be successful in storming the beaches of Normandy; the man Catherine Blake is tasked with seducing in order to steal information
Wilhelm Franz Canaris: part of a different section of the German intelligence operation but works closely with Vogel; both men distrust either and suspect treason
Basil Boothby: unlikable supervisor of Vicary; threatens to fire Vicary if he doesn’t deliver quick results; Vicary suspects Boothby is hiding something
SOOOO…. Catherine is working Peter Jordan for secrets and Vicary, while suspicious of his own team, is in a cat-and-mouse game with Vogel and Canaris trying to control what information gets through the spy networks at play and protect the most vital attack the Allied Forces is planning.
[If you are interested in D-Day, check out the historical fiction book All The Lights Above Us by M.B. Henry]
Historical Truth
I don’t know a whole lot about D-Day so I can’t determine how well he followed history in his story, but the historical aspect was really interesting.
Operation Fortitude was real. This was a campaign to spread false information that would convince the Germans they were planning to attack a different port and that they had more troops than they actually did. They created fake planes that appeared real from the sky, set up a whole bunch of tents, and played plane sounds from the loudspeakers. At the very least it created uncertainty.
The portable harbor was real. I had never heard of this before. What a feat in engineering! To create huge floating concrete stations that could be hauled across the channel and sunk near Normandy beach to act as a port and help deliver supplies and equipment was quite the elaborate and complex plan. It sounds like it may not have been worth the resources put into it, but hindsight is 20/20. Seems like a good contingency plan.
In a brief google search I couldn’t find much to indicate any special spy operations for this particular project other than the general secrecy of it.
It was a great historical event to shape a spy novel on! I really liked how Silva incorporated that and was able to make the reader feel the gravity and urgency of keeping such a major secret.
One question I had while reading was how much each country spent during WWII. HERE is what I found.
Interesting Themes
There were a couple themes in the book that were interesting to think about. Vicary, a professor at a university reflects on patriotism:
“Patriotism. During his lifetime of study he had concluded it was the most destructive force on the planet. but now he felt the stirring of patriotism in his own chest and did not feel ashamed. We are good and they are evil. our nationalism is justified.”
These days being a patriot is basically an abomination.
It seems to take a major war or tragedy to create unity towards one cause. But he makes a good point. Patriotism becomes destructive when it creates an us vs them system. Painting good and evil with broad strokes. It also becomes destructive when it attempts to elevate one country above another by merit.
There is no perfect country, no perfect culture, no perfect political system. There are definitely some that are better than others in pretty major ways, but what’s most important is people.
However, you look at WWII and you look at the ways patriotism inspired people to do some pretty heroic things. Patriotism is a complex label.
Second:
“Vicary liked the character studies in mysteries and often found parallels to his own work— why good people sometimes did wicked things.”
I guess the complicated part of this sentence is how you define ‘good.’ But WWII is an unending pile of psychological material in how far someone will go when pushed to their mental limits or faced with harm.
What leads people to do wicked things? They don’t just wake up one day and decide to kill someone. What progression happens to make a good person do a bad thing. That’s the simple question but there are many layers and depths to this theme.
In regards to the book Vicary is probably the primary character study in this thing. After all, people who give certain orders, though they aren’t holding the gun, are indirectly responsible for death and destruction.
There are also the two spies who are required to kill to obtain secrets or conceal their real identities. The age-old question- is sacrificing one life for the good of many just?
War changes people. It awakens self-preservation in a dangerous way. And it changes their perspective on what’s important.
After a few years working in espionage Vicary has a realization:
“When he stood back and looked at his life objectively, it was missing something: laughter, tenderness, a little noise and disorder sometimes. It was half a life, he realized. Half a life, half a home, ultimately half a man.”
[If you like to explore the psychology of morality and ethical dilemmas check out books by Steven James (thrillers) or Randy Singer (legal thrillers)]
Grosvenor House
Fun Fact: the Grosvenor House mentioned in this book is a hotel right by Hyde Park. I had the privilege of staying there for a week in 2015 so that was pretty cool. Here’s a very non-professional Shutterfly collage of it:
What I Didn’t Like
What colored my reading of this book and makes me question whether to read more from him are mostly the sexual content and the f-words.
Because of the nature of Catherine’s plan of seduction there are several sexual encounters that are detailed, some more than others, but are fairly graphic (especially one somewhat kinky one). Some of these occur in the present time and some of them are flashbacks to Catherine’s past.
It seemed like all the female characters were only in the book for sex. They all seemed vapid and content to be call girls, taking pride in it. We see some resistance to that, but it’s a far cry from all the WWII novels that depict the women heroes of the time and their desire to be more than their looks.
There are also several homosexual characters in the book, which seems odd for a book from the 90s? But they are called sexual deviants so it’s not completely progressive.
The other main issue I had with the book was the introduction of so many characters that kind of fall off the grid in the end.
For example, we seem to be gradually getting a fuller picture of who Catherine is and what made her into what she is, but I didn’t feel like we got any sort of resolution with her.
Same with Peter Jordan. In the beginning we see his life with his wife and then her car accident. But in the end I don’t feel like I got to see the full arc of his character.
Vicary and Boothby have a conversation in the end that acts as an epilogue of sorts but that wasn’t a very satisfying way to wrap things up and explain.
If the book primarily followed Vicary this would make more sense, but since we spend so much time being with other characters I think Silva should have finished all the storylines better.
Recommendation
I’m not sure how to recommend this one.
I asked some other readers about this author. Daniel Silva has written a series (starting with The Kill Artist) surrounding a character named Gabriel Allon who is an Israeli operative and art restorer. I’m thinking I might give Silva another try eventually and go with this series. With a series we will see more character development and I’m intrigued by the art aspect as well.
Maybe my recommendation for you, if you’ve never read Silva, would be to start there instead of The Unlikely Spy.
If you already know you like Daniel Silva, you’ve either already this book or you’ll probably like it, but I have absolutely nothing else to compare it to so what do I know?
[Content Advisory: lots of f-words, some graphic sexual encounters as mentioned above]
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