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The Spider of Sarajevo by Robert Wilton (view source)
Revision as of 11:37, 20 September 2020
, 11:37, 20 September 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=The Spider of Sarajevo
|sort=Spider of Sarajevo
|isbn=978-1782391913
|website=http://www.robertwilton.com/
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Four enterprising free -thinking people are invited to speak to the military in London: James Cade (fiercely independent business manbusinessman), David Duval (ladies' man and occasional cad), Fiona Hathaway (a young woman too intelligent to squander in marriage) and Ronald Ballentyne (anthropologist and Balkans expert). It's spring 1914 and their military hosts are actually recruiting spies on behalf of the Comptroller General for Scrutiny and Survey. The four think that they're serving their country and they are, but not in the way they think: they're bait. They are the flies that the high-ups hope will lead British intelligence to the anonymous phantom figure that is the Spider of Sarajevo.
If anyone ever tells you that high level civil servants are boring, point them towards [[:Category:Robert Wilton|Robert Wilton]]. My favourite former Private-Secretary-to-the-Secretary-of-State-for-Defence has delved once again into the files of the defunct government department of the Comptroller General for Scrutiny and Survey and has once again proven his unboringness with panache.
The four rookie spies are all historical figures and, between them, conveniently relate the pre-war state of Europe to us from varying locations. Miss Hathaway shows us the German attitude as she stays with a feisty lass who also happens to be an aristocratic engineer with a penchant for important house guests. Ballentyne goes to the Balkans which (in common with the author) is an area he knows and loves. Duval has a roaming brief (to match his eye!) that will eventually take him to Russia and, meanwhile, Cade is doing business in Turkey.
All four totally disparate individuals are overseen by the deliciously eccentric and just as real Valentine Knox. Indeed, Knox is the kind of Englishman who, even out of uniform, could (if he wanted to) take on the world armed only with an umbrella and a rolled -up copy of the Times, not to mention a great sense of humour.
We know that Franz Ferdinand will die as a result of a student's bullet and a driver who didn't realise the official route had changed. However, this novel tries to unpick the conspiracies that were flying around at the time and does so with style. We're not only fascinated by the information, we become involved enough to be swept towards the climax accompanied by our accelerating heart rates and nails that become more ragged by the minute.
Thank you so much, Corvus, for providing us with a copy for review.
Further Reading: If you've enjoyed this you'll also enjoy Robert's delve back into the files from the English Civil War in [[Traitor's Field by Robert Wilton|Traitor's Field]]. If you would rather continue reading about the Great War, we recommend [[No Man's Land: Writings From A World At War by Pete Ayrton (editor)]], an anthology of short stories centered on that particular conflict. You might also enjoy [[The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis]].
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