Philip Roth (who let's face it is entitled to an opinion) called it 'the best English novel since the war'. Certainly I think it a perfectly constructed work which escapes the perceived confines of its genre - one most certainly need not like spy thrillers to admire this book. If I were teaching creative writing this is the book I would make them read as an example of good practice.
Like yesterday's choice this one sits in Anglesey - I first read it here when on holiday and I associate it with happy, summer days which just goes to prove that good writing can even blind one to the privations of the Welsh summer.
Lights had come on, ambulances were racing on the spot without apparently knowing where the spot was, police and plain-clothes men were falling over each other and the fools on the roof were shouting at the fools in the square and England was being saved from things it didn't know were threatening it. But Jack Brotherhood was standing to attention like a dead centurion at his post, and everyone was watching a dignified little lady in a dressing gown coming down the steps of the house.
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