The Following review was contributed by: John Walsh

Jonathan Stuyvesant-Smith lives with his wife, who is almost completely paralysed as a result of a car crash and who lives in a sense of rage that requires new full time nurses on a regular basis. Rich and indolent, Jonathan’s every action is commented on and swooned over by a chorus of women who flutter around continental Europe dallying with the very best of things. But who is the new nurse? Are her credentials as they appear or is she in fact a spy sent by the CIA or some more shady organisation?

From the Agency with Love is a highly mannered pair of linked novellas dealing with themes of identity, deception and politics. Recurring emblems include the assassination of John F Kennedy, car accidents and their survival and wearing animal costumes, among many others. The style will not appeal to everyone but is consistently rendered. An example from p.36:

“This slumbering limbo he presently was in was something else, and it was tearing him apart. It meant stirring out of bed beforetimes, the inevitable wavering around in his bedroom without a purpose, coming upon himself in looking glasses before he was prepared for the encounter, the cold shower, then out into the morning light, the sun yet too mild to be enjoyable, conceited voices all over the house fretting, getting another day off to a start. The clatter of breakfast trays. Food in front of him. The repeated boredom of refusal. The temptation to bite the servants, or one of the dogs.”

The author aspires, it would seem, to the Proustian, although this lofty target is not always reached. Proust would, at least, have ensured proper spelling. Abrupt plot reversals or surprises can appear, therefore, as non sequiturs. New characters are tangentially linked to those that have gone before and may even be them in different guises. Genders blur and change. Nothing is quite what it seems to be. The author himself embodies his own plot, according to the blurb accompanying the hardback version of the book, which reveals of his background that “Harking back to the Drakes of Plymouth and to the Moores of Drogheda, from the branches of his family tree have hung brigand chiefs and pirates, although here and there amongst the foliage have blossomed men of sterner principle.” It is in any case an interesting read.