Ashenden: or, The British Agent

For the spy novel aficionado from a grandfather of literary spy works, a collection of stories, each with intrigue, mystery, complex characters and an observant British agent.

For aficionados of literary spy novels, this book is a must read. Maugham’s work inspired writers like le Carré and Furst, to name only two. The writing is brilliant. On every page there is a phrase to underline. There are no cheap thrills, like those you find in Clancy and Fleming novels, no “shaken not stirred” stuff.

There is suspense, of course, as Ashenden always manages to find himself in a pickle. But he never does so without an astute observation about his fellow man: “Though he had both esteem and admiration for the sensibility of the human race, he had little respect for their intelligence: man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table.” The book moves through a series of episodes, each introducing complex characters with whom Ashenden has been instructed to interact by his handler, R. In Geneva, the first episode, the reader gets to know Ashenden. In one scene, he muses in his bath, recollecting the two policeman who had visited him, followed by the clumsy spy, Bernard, and then the large sales woman in the market place who pulled a secret note from between her “voluminous breasts” and handed it to him with his change for the butter he was purchasing. Perhaps, Winston Churchill, known for working from his bath tub, was inspired by this scene. And then there was a wonderful character, Miss King, a governess for “two fat princesses,” who asked for Ashenden after she’d had a stroke in the middle of the night and then managed to speak to him only one word. Next comes an episode in Italy with the “Hairless Mexican,” a man meant to be Ashenden’s collaborator but managed to stumble his way, comically, through a number of endeavors to a disastrous result. Several episodes of the same ilk follow, with engaging characters and stories: Giulia Lazzari, the mistress of a man wanted for espionage, the Caypor’s, a German couple, and the British ambassador, Sir Herbert Witherspoon, to name a few. The final one, and perhaps the best, takes place in Russia with the unforgettable American Mr. Harrington and Anastasia Alexandrovna, a flamboyant member of the Russian intelligentsia. It’s concluding scene is like the final volley of rockets in a fireworks display.

Like all of Maugham’s novels, the plot and character development in Ashenden show a human side to the spy’s world. It is what makes a spy story literary, and is also found in le Carré’s Smiley novels and Furst’s Night Soldier series. These literary spy novels use life as the grist for the plot that is baked. And what of a spy’s work? For the most part it is monotonous, and it’s adventures are ordinarily pointless, even if at times briefly mysterious and dangerous. In Maugham’s words, the storyteller must take a spy’s ordinary life and “make it coherent, dramatic and probably.” This is what separates the literary spy novel from the others. And it is why a spy novel aficionado enjoys Maugham, le Carré and Furst.

Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer and Author