An excellent spy: Cold Sunset, by William Boyd, reviewed
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.
