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by William Boyd
From the internationally bestselling author beloved by readers everywhere, William Boyd offers his most exhilarating novel yet, following a reluctant spy drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession.
Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a fire that took his mother's life. Every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes of Europe in the grip of the Cold War. When he is offered the chance to interview Patrice Lumumba, newly elected president of the People's Republic of the Congo, he finds himself drawn into a web of duplicities and betrayals.
Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthlessly efficient MI6 handler, he becomes "her spy," unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia, and passion consuming Gabriel's new covert life, there will also be revelations closer to home that may change his own story, and the fates of those around him.
Traveling from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw, Gabriel's Moon is a remarkable accomplishment from one of our greatest storytellers.
"An electric espionage thriller that calls to mind the best of John le Carré and Len Deighton ... Boyd's prose is crisp, his dialogue zings, and the heaps of dramatic irony he places on Gabriel's stumble into spyhood buoys the narrative rather than weighing it down. Readers will hope to hear more from Gabriel soon." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Gabriel is a kind of Evelyn Waugh naif caught in a Graham Greene plot, and one of the book's pleasures is his entirely plausible resourcefulness as challenges grow more perilous. While Boyd craftily ramps up the complications for his reluctant spy, he also gives him a full life apart from intelligence errands ... A highly entertaining book ... An exceptional storyteller in fine form." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A spy story to rival Restless ... A masterly tale ... Sure-footed, comfortably managing at once to deliver all the pleasures of the genre while also subtly undercutting and questioning them ... Boyd takes such obvious, infectious pleasure in telling his story, bounding along just in front of the reader, scattering clues and red herrings. I'm not sure that there's a more reliably entertaining novelist working today." —The Guardian (UK)
"A retro-thriller ... A portrait of a vanished world ... A new William Boyd novel is always a pleasure, and this is a read that will keep you completely hooked to the very last page." —Financial Times (UK)
This information about Gabriel's Moon was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Eamonn McCabe
William Boyd has received world-wide acclaim for his novels. They are: A Good Man in Africa (1981, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize) An Ice Cream War (1982, shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize and winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Stars and Bars (1984), The New Confessions (1987), Brazzaville Beach (1990, winner of the McVitie Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) The Blue Afternoon (1993, winner of the 1993 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, 1995), Armadillo (1998) and Any Human Heart (2002, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet). His novels and stories have been published around the world and have been translated into over thirty languages. He is also the author of a collection of ...
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Link to William Boyd's Website
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