Like many things in life, it’s possible to stop thinking about the real meaning of the labels that we apply to the stuff that surrounds us – and in my case this is certainly true of the notion of the thriller novel. In my younger days I hoovered up Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins and Alistair McLean, yet somewhere along the line lost the taste for them. As a result, I forgot that a good thriller is genuinely thrilling, so I am grateful to Simon Conway for reminding me of that fact. A Loyal Spy is actually the second of his novels to feature the intelligence agent and action man Jonah Said (the first being Rage), but it’s the first I have read and it’s a fantastic cross between John Le Carre’s character-driven, introspective oeuvre and the more fanciful and action-packed output of your Frederick Forysthes and Robert Ludlums.

Jonah Said is a member of a top-secret, deniable, British government black-ops team called the Afghan Guides, whose involvement in Afghanistan predates 9/11 and goes back to the end-days of the Russian occupation. Jonah is the agent-runner for Nor, who, being of Arabic extraction, like Jonah, is trained as a spy by the Brits and then infiltrated in to the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, as a double-agent. As the ISI was instrumental in the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Nor becomes increasingly involved in the jihaddi movement, but when the Afghan Guides are pulled out of the country because of changing political priorities, Nor is cut off. Post 9/11, the country is back at the top of the agenda, and the Guides are back too – but Nor betrays them, leading them to commit a crime that will dog their careers. It’s the spectre of that event that provided the motivation for the actions of many of the protagonists in A Loyal Spy.

Taking in the blood diamond mines of Sierra Leone, the Pakistani tribal areas, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, the USA and the UK from the Scottish Highlands to the Isle of Sheppey via London, this is a complex, multi-stranded narrative following not just Jonah but his girlfriend, the tragic but incredibly resilient Miranda. The story takes in an American neo-con conspiracy and a dastardly plot to flood central London. With Jonah jetting around the world as a reluctant agent of various factions, and Miranda on the run, the whole thing builds to a wonderfully breathless climax. Conway does a great job of keeping the reader guessing about who Jonah and Miranda can trust, and the way their interwoven stories are not quite in synch is very effective in ratcheting up the tension further.

All of this would mean that A Loyal Spy could succeed as an excellent airport thriller – but what elevates it to being worthy of consideration alongside the likes of Le Carre is the characterisation, the dysfunctional-yet-tender relationship between Jonah and Miranda, the emotional baggage that they and other characters carry, and the writing, which is a cut above the standard you expect for a novel with this kind of plot. Recommended.

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