Synopsis
This novel is a black comedy concerned with sexual perversity and moral confusion. Toby Jubb is a spy whose sanity hangs in the balance due to his previous lifestyle of drugs and decadence. It is written by the same author as "Wild About Harry" and "Perfect English".
Reviews
British journalist Pickering ( Wild About Harry ) has come up with a sharp, unnerving variation on Cold War thrillers: a suspense novel whose outcome hinges on the precarious sanity of its protagonist. In 1961, young British spy-in-training Toby Jubb is booted out of his station in France and assigned to take over a brothel in West Berlin. Jubb's mission is to create an atmosphere of bacchanal that will lure an East German officer over the border and induce him to spill secrets. But Jubb, caught in a vaguely incestuous relationship with his mother and so obsessed with the excesses of ancient Babylon that he equates bordellos with the moral climate of that legendary city, may not be the ideal choice for this mission. As he reaches an unexpected crisis point, the novel lurches forward in time, and the last third of the narrative sustains more twists than it can reasonably bear. Still, this is a deftly written, imaginative thriller with a fresh set of preoccupations at its core.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In 1960 Toby Jubb, a young British Intelligence officer in Paris, jeopardizes his career by having an affair with the ambassador's wife. His punishment posting is to pre-wall Berlin to set up the Cafe Babylon, a brothel designed to trap incautious officers from the Eastern zone. The prime target is Baron von Hollman, a former Nazi tank commander who competes with Jubb for the affections of the beautiful prostitute Magda. Years later, as Jubb languishes in a private government asylum, he is needed again to resolve a loose end from the Babylon affair. What seems to start as a straightforward espionage novel abruptly shifts emphasis in midbook to become a tangled mess of apparent symbolism rife with oscure messages. The publisher's description of the book as "a literary page turner" should be a sufficient warning and deterrent to those seeking suspense.
- John North, NorCom Enterprises, Toronto
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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