The novel tells the life story of an Englishwoman named Alexandra Wickham (called "Alex" throughout the novel) from age 18 (in 1934) to age 84. The first part of the book (up to page 158) deals with her experience as a spy during World War Two for a secret organization called SOE (Special Operations Executive). During the war she meets and falls in love with a young pilot named Richard, but she is not allowed to let him know (for the next 20 years) that she is a spy for the government. After the war, SOE is disbanded. Alex and Richard marry, and he becomes a diplomat assigned to live in foreign countries for around four years per country -- first to India, later Pakistan, then Hong Kong, Moscow, and finally (during the LBJ years) as the British ambassador in Washington, D.C. Alex accompanies him in all of these countries, sharing his sense of adventure during their travels. Historical events of the time are depicted, but in a somewhat superficial or simplistic way (e.g., "Nehru spoke to her of the end of British rule, and the importance of independence for India.")
MI6 had asked Alex to secretly report to them all of her activities during her stays in these countries (who she met, what they said), without telling her husband. This middle part of the book (pages 167-314) is less interesting when it comes to action and intrigue than the first part was, since it doesn't involve much in the way of espionage. (In fact, it seemed to me that some of the stuff she was reporting back to MI6 would have already been known by reading the newspapers of the time.) Only a few times during the foreign-diplomat years is there a sense of danger about her spying activities, but those concerns are quickly over with before anything bad can happen. (In fact, Alex seemed to be in more danger giving birth to her children, during this part of the book.)
The final two chapters of the novel (pages 320-347) cover the twilight years of their lives in a rapid (perhaps too rapid) fashion. For example, on page 304, we are told that Alex is 50 years old, and Richard is 58. On page 327, Alex is now 74, Richard is 82. By page 328, Richard is 90 years old, and 91 years old on the next page. On page 330, Alex is 83, and by page 341, she is 84. Those sudden jumps in their ages were a bit disorienting, even a little disturbing. There's a bittersweet feeling to the quick passage of the years, as Alex and Richard grow old, and their daughter becomes an adult and has children of her own, and they in turn become adults and get married. There's a nice line near the end where a character says about their children, "They are who they are, in spite of us, not because of us" (page 342). As the years pass, some things have a parallel in previous events, such as when Alex's daughter leaves her parents to live in another country, just as Alex had done to her own mother by being an ambassador's wife. Another irony I noticed is during her time in Moscow, the American ambassador warns them of the KGB bugging the premises, saying "It's an entire nation of people taught to spy and report on each other. It's quite sad really," (page 291), when this is in fact what Alex has herself been doing for MI6 the past several chapters.
Although this is the first book by Danielle Steel that I've ever read, I had read the opening pages of a few of her other novels before, and was turned off by the info-dump style of her writing. It reminded me of the time I took a Creative Writing class where we were encouraged to get to know our characters before writing about them and were instructed to write what clothes would be in their closet, what was their routine in the morning, what was their family history, and so forth. None of that material was intended to appear in the finished story, but was rather intended to help crystalize who these characters were in the writer's mind. It almost looked to me like Steel's info-dump writing was the result of actually using all of that irrelevant background material in the finished product -- material that the reader didn't need to know. So, her writing looked like it would be a bit of a chore to plow through.
However, I sometimes think that one may be more receptive to a work based on one's mindset, and that if I could simply accept that this was Steel's unique style, that I might be able to enjoy it more. Also, I think a reader's attitude towards a book may be influenced in comparison to the last book they read -- which, for me, was a thin YA novel written in a very simple style that had a lot of repetition of sentences for emphasis. Going from that slim book to this Steel novel made for a more welcome transition than if I had just finished reading an exciting, cleverly-written book and then started reading this one. So, perhaps my expectations were lower when I started reading Spy, and therefore was less annoyed by the writing style than I otherwise would have been.
There's no getting around the fact that Steel's writing sometimes sounds more like a Wikipedia summary of the novel's plot than the novel itself. There are several instances where a dramatic event occurs, but Steel for some reason fails to dramatize it. An example that stands out for me is on page 149, when Alex is behind enemy lines, waiting for a plane to rescue her. But the plane is shot down, killing the pilots aboard, and Alex has to flee into the night to avoid capture. Here is how Steel depicts that dramatic scene, in its entirety:
"She went to the meeting place for the plane that was due to pick her up. She was precisely on time, and heard the engines purring in the distance, and when the plane got close enough to land, an anti-aircraft gun behind her ripped through it, the plane crashed, and the pilot and gunner were killed. She disappeared into the brush and headed for some distant hills before going back to her contact."
I know that they say one shouldn't review a book that the writer didn't write, but to me the failure of Steel to effectively dramatize such a scene is a clearly missed opportunity, and demonstrates the shortcomings of her prose. Another writer might have taken several pages to depict that horrific event -- heck, they might have even used it to open the novel, to suck the reader in -- but Steel reduces it to the level of a basic plot summary. The lack of dramatization makes the writing look at times like a laundry list of events -- this happened, then this happened, and then this happened -- without presenting a reason why the reader should care about any of the things that are happening. As I was reading Spy -- and enjoying it for the most part, I must admit, because I liked the main character Alex and the 1940s time period that much of the book takes place in -- I wondered where the story was going. What was the point of all this? The arc of the plot -- the point of the story -- doesn't become apparent until the very end, when one of Alex's granddaughters ends up following in her footsteps as a spy. "A-ha!" I thought. That is why any of this matters: so we can see that her espionage career inspires her granddaughter. I wish there had been a hint of that prior to page 341, though, so that I'd have a better understanding of where the story was going, what its purpose was. Because for long stretches there in the last half of the book I was wondering what the point was, why this story was being told.
I also wondered if any of the characters that Alex had encountered as a spy behind enemy lines during World War Two would show up again after the war, or if their fates would be revealed. Perhaps someone would recognize her from her wartime spying, putting her in jeopardy of being exposed later, after the war? But nope, that doesn't happen. Those earlier events might have seemed more meaningful to the reader if they were brought back into the storyline later on. In other words, if they were shown to have mattered. So, that was another missed opportunity on Steel's part to make the story more engaging.
Another problem with Steel's writing style is how repetitive it can be. For example, on page 177, Steel informs the reader that "From now on, MI5 would be overseeing any intelligence missions domestically, and MI6 would handle anything international." Ten pages later, on page 187, Steel has a character explain: "MI5 keeps track of national security domestically, and MI6 is the foreign branch." When it comes to how much Alex is paid to be a spy, we are informed four times (by my count) that the pay is intentionally low in order not to attract attention (see pages 40, 116, 190 and 316).
The back of this paperback edition (pages 353-382) contains the first chapter of another Steel novel, All That Glitters, which suffers from some of the same problems. Steel informs the reader on page 359 that "Sam was a year older than Coco," even though Steel already told us on the previous page that "he was a year older and a grade above her." Did she think we forgot? Anyway, the first chapter of that book begins with a massive info-dump, again making me wonder why I should care about any of these people and their family histories, until Steel finally brings some drama to the story by having Coco's parents killed in a terrorist attack in Paris. I do wonder from this preview how Sam and Coco's story turns out, but perhaps not enough to have to wade through 300+ pages of info-dumping text.
Although the review above may sound harsh, I'm still rating Spy 3 (out of 5) stars. It was a quick read for me, despite the plot-summary prose style, and I enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would. (Admittedly my expectations weren't high, however.)
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