William Boyd is best known for his literary works like Any Human Heart, The New Confessions and The Romantic, in a career that has spanned over 40 years and earned wide acclaim. Amidst the higher brow novels he has frequently dipped his toes into the waters of espionage, starting with 2006’s World War II thriller, Restless. He also penned the World War I espionage caper Waiting for Sunrise in 2012 and wrote the Bond continuation novel Solo, set in the late 60s and released in 2013. After a period away, he returned to the genre with the first in his Gabriel Dax series, Gabriel’s Moon in 2024. It introduced a compelling new entry into the reluctant spy canon, the titular hero, grappling with tragic events from his childhood while slowly being dragged into the murky world of Cold War spying.
This was followed by The Predicament, which saw Gabriel return under the spell of his elusive and magnetic handler, Faith Green. The latest entry in what has been billed as a trilogy is Cold Sunset, which once again features a globe-trotting plot featuring Cold War Moscow as Gabriel is tasked with bringing a double agent back to the West from the grips of the KGB. In book two, Gabriel was tasked with feeding misinformation to the Russians, a ruse that continues in Cold Sunset and sees him put in more danger than before.
It’s not just Soviet Russia he has to keep an eye on. Foes from his past keep cropping up, such as a would-be Kennedy assassin who has Gabriel in his sights. With this being the mid-1960s, Boyd draws on real history with the spectre of Kim Philby and the Cambridge Five circling but never interrupting the plot.
One of the most impressive aspects of Boyd’s take on spycraft is how effortlessly he has shifted through different eras with this trio of novels being Cold War but having covered large swathes of the early 20th century too. Each era feels fully realised and distinct. Of course, some authors stick predominantly to one historical period or the present, so shifting as organically as he has is quite the feat. There is a heightened sense of paranoia in Cold Sunset, particularly in the Moscow sequences, but also with moles and double agents seemingly lurking behind every corner.
Gabriel continues to be an ordinary man with a penchant for a whisky and plenty of dalliances with a string of women. His cover as a travel writer researching his latest book often gets him in and out of scrapes. The relationship with Faith continues to be at the heart of what makes these novels such a success, going from flirtatious one moment to cold and abrupt the next. Faith is kept deliberately at arm’s length, coming in and out of the story but always on Gabriel’s mind.
Though billed as a trilogy, there is a sense that this is not the last we will see of Gabriel, Faith and co, Boyd leaving it somewhat open ended. With a film adaptation planned, the series will likely reach a wider audience. This feels like a fitting end to Gabriel Dax’s initial adventures, but hopefully it won’t be goodbye for good.
For some of the best contemporary espionage see Mick Herron’s Slough House series, or David McCloskey’s recent novels.
Viking
Print/Kindle/iBook
£10.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
