A Spy Alone
Book by Charles Beaumont (2022)
Note: This is an older review to introduce Substackers to our house style (TCTIN). A majority of the books we review will be advanced review copies (ARCs) given to our parent companies, everafterbooks.uk and theubergroup.org.
The coolest thing I noticed about Charles Beaumont's 2022 debut A Spy Alone is the well-balanced blend of thoughtful British deduction in the Sherlock Holmes tradition with American style action movie thriller pacing. It moves like a thriller and the protagonist doesn't squirm away from actually killing the bad guys - at least some of the time - but the narration reasons meticulously like a Conan Doyle The prose is evenly seasoned with a flair of British sarcasm, like a waiter finishing your dish tableside with a pitcher of jus and the whole black peppercorn grinder. You genuinely don't know where the plot is going, because Beaumont's voice and pacing doesn't firmly telegraph into which subgenre of the crime-thriller-mystery continuum he plans to land. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Some authors attempting to blend classic styles may come off muddy and indecisive, but not Beaumont. He opens with a classic spy fiction sequence about detecting and shaking off a tail, but quickly turns towards the type of extended, full-scene reasoning sessions with an assistant you'd expect to find in Holmes, and you find you're not bored in either. The protagonist, Simon, is smart as a whip, and it's fun to watch him think. After such a cerebral start, the action - and the fact that Simon is actually capable of deadly force - is unexpected but well handled. He doesn't transition into a mindless shoot-em-up-action hero, nor does he simply leave everyone who tries to kill him conveniently unconscious to wake up and try again next episode. He comes across as a more realistic version of the standard-issue crime/thriller protagonist of a middle aged ex-spy/cop/special forces guy/detective now gone grumpy, divorced, alcoholic and rogue. Simon is all those requisite things, but he is much less shallow than most of them, and at no risk of being portrayed as excessively muscular and handsome. Although Beaumont himself is former MI6, his character Simon is less James Bond and more George Smiley. And most importantly, Simon is foundationally kind and gentle, the kind of person you know has enough depth to be capable of love.
Unlike a lot of American action heroes, there is emotional complexity beyond "being hardened and mysterious whilst also suave". Simon actually processes the contributing factors of his own emotional journey with Le Carré level flashbacks alongside the Conan Doyle deduction sessions, and somehow these extended intellectual sessions manage to not become boring, as each such detour is clearly linked to the central question of "what the hell is going on here and who betrayed whom?" The dead body that raises the stakes on the central issue comes midway through and unexpectedly, unlike a standard issue murder mystery where we start with it. By the end, one genuinely doesn't know how the plot is going turn, because Beaumont steadfastly refuses to establish adherence to a particular formula. We don't know if Simon is going to be a series hero who repeatedly saves the day in each book, or if he's simply going to die tragically as a statement, as actually does happen to some Le Carré protagonists. We can't tell if he's going to get the girl (an age-appropriate peer in the intelligence world, for a refreshing change) and set off onto a series with her as co-protagonist, or lose her because he's destined to be a lone wolf forever. Even if he does win, we have no idea if it will be by turning the baddies over to the authorities or by going full vigilante.
You will be kept genuinely guessing until the very end, not just because you are playing out the typical puzzle-of-the-week format of a standard mystery, but because you actually cannot predict which ruleset Beaumont will follow. With deft setup and balanced pacing, he flexes his ability to deliver in multiple subgenres, leaving you unsure which path he will choose. You just know that everything is connected, and that he's going to do it well.
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