Visibility by Boris Starling - Aug 2006

HarperCollins, Aug 2006. Paperback. With the vast majority of novels set in London published lately being set in Victorian London (and the author of this one just happens to be the brother of the author of The Journal of Dora Damage - a superb case in point) refreshing it is to read one set in the 1950s. So instead of a London of steam and squalor and secret sexuality, we here have a London covered in a noxious blanket of lung-coating fog and still recovering from the physical and social impacts of the Second World War. The picture of the period is well painted and the author covers all points from the Burgess and Maclean spy scandal to the Derek Bentley case, from the Queen's coronation to the start of the cold war. In fact the only criticism I'd make is that sometimes Mr S seems to be trying to fit too much in, and then having to do lots of explaining. But this is carping - this is an impressive and compulsive thriller staring ex-MI5 Murder Squad Detective Inspector Herbert Smith, as he investigates a murder that takes him back to his spying past, and reveals copious murky connections. Our hero is a believable and grumpily solitary figure, so that this book at times seems to be as much about loneliness as it is about intrigue and murder. A treat for readers who like their thrillers dense and involving, rather than flashy and nasty.