Bill Dyer reviews Banquos’s Ghosts, the first novel by Rich Lowry and Keith Korman, and finds it weak on writing and strong on moral clarity. Having read so many spy novels with the opposite mix, he’s anxiously awaiting the sequel in hopes they get a better editor.
It’s been some time since I’ve found the time and energy for reading fiction, so most of my recent encounters with the spy genre have been on film. I must say that I’ve gotten quite tired of the CIA as bad guy and the villain-as-sympathetic-character tropes. Both were novel plot twists a quarter century ago and made for more three-dimensional characters. Now, though, they’ve become formulaic and, given we’re in the midst of two wars, a bit demoralizing. I’m not sure we need to go back to the entertaining but propagandistic films of John Wayne’s heyday but a couple steps back in that direction would be welcome.
Not, I hasten to add, at the cost of good writing.
