Simon A’s Review: The Private Sector, by Joseph Hone
Anyone curious enough to consult Wikipedia about the author Joseph Hone would be sagely informed that all of his work is out of print – but thanks to the magic of print-on-demand, this is no longer the case. Hone is one of many previously critically acclaimed and / or bestselling authors whose long-unavailable works have been resurrected by the Faber Finds project, in which Faber have brought back many long-lost titles from their own list as well as acquiring the rights to forgotten gems from many other publishing houses. The Finds project is not new – I worked on the website for it back in Summer of 2008 – but this is the first Finds title I have read, and it’s a fantastic advertisement for the whole undertaking.
This is the first of Joseph Hone’s spy novels featuring the intelligence agent Philip Marlow. As a long-time fan of John Le Carre, I found much to enjoy in The Private Sector: Hone does not try to glamourise the spying profession, nor its proponents, who are very ordinary, flawed beings. He sees the espionage trade as a dirty, stressful occupation that makes great demands on its practitioners:
And I thought with clarity, the idea standing out sharply as none other did: this is what it’s really like. The game. This is how it touches you – in everything, each detail of life, not just the job itself which by comparison I could see becoming a source of release, as something quite prosaic. I had come into a narrow world suddenly, made up of secrets and deceits, traversed by long and careful lies, defended everywhere against trust. And I would have to remember this each time I said anything or looked at anyone in the future. I would be reminded of it everywhere, as an endlessly repeated feeling of nausea.
The setting for The Private Sector is Egypt in 1967, in the run up to the Six Day War. There can be few more potent symbols of Britain’s decline than Egypt – not just as a former British-run territory, at that time within the Soviet sphere of influence, but also as the scene of the Suez debacle that cost so much British prestige and underlined the fact that it could no longer throw its weight around. Philip Marlow, previously a minor and inconsequential field agent in Cairo, and subsequently a desk man in British Intelligence’s Middle East section, is sent out to his old stomping grounds to look for a friend and fellow agent who has gone off the radar. It is clear his defection is feared.
Things are more complicated than they appear: the British, Egyptian, Russian and Israeli intelligence services are all extremely active in Cairo, and many of the players in the drama Marlow is caught up in serve more than one master. It’s complicated but not really confusing – and Marlow shows a previously unsuspected ability to keep his head and work out what’s going on – despite the presence of his bewitching ex-wife, Bridget, in the deadly game taking place within Cairo.
The Private Sector starts out slowly, gently, almost meditatively, letting us get to know Marlow and understand his history in Cairo, especially his failed marriage to Bridget. It’s time well spent, and really very well written – and then, without warning, Hone ratchets up the tension as the British operation in Cairo starts to unravel. With well-judged switches between Marlow’s first person account and third-person segments focusing on other key characters, we always know enough about what’s going on, but the end result is never a foregone conclusion, and we share Marlow’s fears and doubts. None captures the paranoia and doubt affecting the British as a result of Suez and the discovery of the treachery of Maclean, Burgess and Philby, and the result is a compelling read.
Thanks to Faber Finds, it’s great that new readers have the chance to discover Joseph Hone – and there are more adventures of Philip Marlow available too. I look forward to reading them.
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