FICTION

The Predicament

William Boyd

Penguin Random House, $34.99

William Boyd is one of those writers who all manner of people will drop what they’re doing to devour as if he were Shakespeare and Ian Fleming rolled into one.

Boyd can write elegantly and he can tell a story. As a highly literate literary maestro he can discourse with accuracy about the greatness of Chekhov but beyond this, you can sometimes be left bewildered at what’s going on and why. He’s at work on a spy trilogy, and The Predicament follows on from last year’s Gabriel’s Moon and should be read after it.

The hero is Gabriel Dax, a travel writer who finds himself coerced into being a spy. Gabriel’s Moon touched on the fire of his childhood, his dealings with his analyst, the way his brother was put out of the

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