Gabriel Dax, the hero of William Boyd’s latest spy thriller, is one of literature’s reluctant spies: good, solitary men who would happily continue pursuing their hobbies if only their beastly handlers would let them. In Dax’s case, his day job is as a travel writer – which allows Boyd to regularly indulge his evident affection for the florid turn of phrase. On the very first page of Cold Sunset, the third novel in the series, Dax describes the Pacific, admired from 1960s Santa Monica, as ‘slate-grey, mouse-grey, dirty dishwater-grey’, and even ‘zinc, ash, pewter’.
To Boyd’s credit, the novel can be read as a standalone, but it’s probably best enjoyed after books one and two. Those explored Dax’s sad past (dead mother, killed in a fire), and his descent into the murky world of spycraft. At this point, Dax is working both for MI6 and an oddly credulous KGB, and his mission, as set out by his ineffably sexy spy-boss Faith Green, is to exfiltrate a secret agent from Moscow before the Russians realise they have a rat in their midst. Along the way, Dax is hunted by an assassin with a justified grudge, recruits a nice local girl to keep his Sussex cottage spruce and finds time for a tryst with an alluring American.
