Having read the synopsis and with the title you can be forgiven in thinking this is an out and out spy novel, but it isn't. This is a story of relationships, emotions and philosophy. Simon Melsom who works for the foreign office is asked to provide feedback on a visit to an old school friend now living in Nice, south of France. You could say that the book is overtaken by his school friend's alcohol problem, but that is only part of it. As we progress through the story more and more is revealed of the characters, and this is the mainstay of the book, getting to know the players. The style of story is not my normal reading and therefore it all seemed fairly strange filled with intangibles. Had I known from the outset it was not a spy novel I would not have read it, was this deliberate? A more honest synopsis may be required.

This was really quite an enjoyable read, if a little far-fetched. Simon Milson works for the Foreign Office. Many years before, there was an act of treachery carried out in Indonesia by one of two possible suspects. Simon is tasked with trying to find out who the guilty man is. He goes to Nice to stay with one of them, an old school friend, to see what he can find out. It’s not really a spy story, although spying comes into it, and yes, it’s about the British establishment and treachery in high places, but at its heart it’s a character study and indeed some of the characters are quite interesting, if, on occasion, rather stereotypical. There’s also a very unlikely story-line concerning an English schoolgirl whom Simon meets and takes under his wing. That bit is actually rather creepy and these days raises a few eyebrows. However, for a gentle undemanding read it ticks all the boxes – but it’s certainly not one that benefits from close reading and analysis.

This is the second book I have read by this author in a week. The first was disappointing so it was with a sense of dread that I started on the first chapter of this one. I judge a book as I read but often do not reach a conclusion as to how many stars it merits until the day after it has been completed. This leaves time for reflection and allows an overall impression to percolate through to the surface of the brain.

The book has been labelled a thriller – it’s not. It is a novel about relationships. Willy, Priss, Charlie, Simon and Helen are thrown together at the eponymous villa in the South of France. They don’t really know each other although the three male characters were at public school together many years ago.

Simon works for the Foreign Office which, purely by chance, of course, is anxious to determine who committed an act of treason in Indonesia many years previous. There are two names in the frame – Willy and another man who is being considered for a senior government post in the USA where he will have access to all the secrets. It therefore matters.

The bulk of this novel is based in the South of France and has nothing to do with spies or killers – in fact, none exist in the whole plot. The characters are a mishmash of personalities, ages and backgrounds but are well formed and consistent throughout. In many ways, it’s a gentle book which focuses on the frailty of the human psyche. I particularly enjoyed the almost philosophical discussions which appeared throughout the story ranging from whether sexuality matters to whether God exists. These were intellectually stimulating and thought to provoke.

As I reached the final chapter my mind was firmly set on 5 stars BUT I hated the denouement. It was almost as if the author had suddenly remembered this was supposed to be a spy thriller. The book is, therefore, in my opinion, poorer for the last few pages and the characters should have been left to continue their lives after Simon’s return to London.

Despite all of the above, it is well worth reading.

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Immaculately well written, this is something of a period piece. Published in 1981 and set in Nice around 1979, it starts and ends with a spy thriller aspect. In between it delves into a lot of moral debates, ultimately focused on sex with young girls. We are meant to be fascinated with a a central character who comes across and drunk and self-centred rather than charismatic. The reading experience spiralled in on itself.

Satisfying read of old spy genre: beautiful skillful worrying, creating characters in the field who are refreshing - did someone who ran after a major breech years ago really release info that lead to cruel death? Send a friend who finds a drunken down-in-the-heel golden boy with splendid wife and friends - could he have done it? And our flawed hero gets dragged into haunted scene ... I felt in confident hands throughout for authentic read of perhaps familiar scenario. Recommendable

This story begins in the 60s when someone in the British Foreign Service in Jakarta betrayed his country and a horrific massacre resulted. Fast forward to the late 70s when one of the 2 suspected traitors is up for a top secret position. Simon Milson, who attended school with the second suspect, is asked by his Foreign Service superior to find out if that candidate is the traitor. So Simon accepts an invitation to the Villa Golitsyen in Nice where the other suspect, Willy Ludley currently lives.

Simon, a divorced man, meets Helen, a young runaway British teen on the train to Nice. He invites Helen to stay with Willy and his mate, Priss, at the Villa for a few days. Simon soon discovers that Willy is now an alcoholic drinking himself to death but still witty and charismatic. Another guest, Charlie Hope, is a school friend of both Simon and Willy.

As the story continues, we discover that Simon has fallen in love with Priss and Charlie, homosexual, has been in love with Willy since their school days. Also Helen has become enchanted with Willy, a much older man. These romantic involvements take place while Simon is trying to get an answer to the mystery of whether Willy betrayed is country when he worked in the Foreign Service in Jakarta.

The story has several surprising twist and the ending is also not what the reader would expect. However the story did keep this reader interested as it showed what life was like for wealthy expats living on the Riviera in the 70s. There are also many references to the British class system and gives many examples of the differences between wealthy heirs and those in the lower classes.

At the beginning the story seems to be a war crime investigation from the imperial period of the British history, when a British gentleman tries to find a secret in France. But it becomes a holiday-love story, where English guys are going around the town’s tourist attractions and fighting with their personal problems.

The book has a holiday mood: the main character is divorced, he is free from any bounds except his work, and he goes to a three-week holiday in his schoolmate’s villa in South France. His secret task to find out if his friend were the traitor during the war. But he finds a young school-girl on the train, and takes her to the villa, where he starts loving the host’s wife, so the book becomes a love story between them. There’s a gay man in the villa as well, who is in love with actually the host, whose wife nor seem to mind that relationship too…

They are visiting together the city’s famous tourist-attractions one by one: the hills, a temple, they are going to sail on the sea, eating in restaurants, etc. During that they try to solve their many personal difficulties, like the host’s alcoholism, different love affections, philosophical and moral problems, and at last the treason in the Asian jungle as well.

The book was first published in 1981, and their problems and questions are mirroring that period, I don’t see much lesson for these days. But the story is moody and tense all the way to the end, what is a little weird in France, but in England is clear and clever – so after all it’s worth a try, maybe during a holiday…

Private Sins
In the early days of Malaysian independence a platoon of Gurkha soldiers and their Scottish officer are captured by Indonesian communists, tortured and killed. They were acting on information given by a British traitor in the embassy at Jakarta. There are only two suspects but neither can be proved to be the guilty man. One, the upper class Will Ludley, abandons his post and lives a life of exile in Nice. The other, a grammar school Yorkshire man, is many years later in line for a significant promotion to the embassy in Washington. It becomes important to know which was the spy, before the promotion goes through. An old friend of Ludley is sent to his villa in Nice to find out the truth. When he arrives there, he discovers his friend to be a chronic alcoholic, filled with guilt for an unspecified event in his past.
Read plays with the conventions of the spy thriller, but his novel is much more concerned with crimes within the family and private shame. Like Greek Tragedy, what happens within the household is as damaging and dangerous as public wrong-doing. Despite its urbane, educated, essentially middle-class English tone, this novel packs some tremendous shocks. We all like to keep our skeletons in the cupboard, whether politicians, civil servants or members of a family. Nevertheless there are times, when to reveal all our dirty washing can not only be moral, but also expedient.
I think this novel could only have been written in the 1970s or 80s. It is not some sort of retro read, but a genuine product of its time. It features incest, child sex, and a central tone of amorality, all recounted in a quiet, understated narrative. The characters are all unpleasant, conflicted, yet human too, the horror very much of their own making, the conclusion, even if a moral one, deeply cynical.

Piers Paul Read's books passed me by the first time around so I was glad to have an opportunity to try one, but although The Villa Golitsyn began rather well, I wasn't very keen overall.

First published in 1981 and set in 1979, the book begins with a good espionage thriller set-up as Simon Milson, a middle-ranking civil servant in the Foreign Service is sent to Nice to stay with Willy, an old school friend whom he has not seen for years, in order to determine whether the friend was responsible for passing secrets to the enemy fifteen years ago. From here on, it is largely a novel of character as the various, slightly oddly assorted, guests interact with Willy and, to some extent, each other. There is a convincing picture of an intelligent, charismatic man disintegrating in alcoholism, with some interesting, if a little clunky, discussions of morals, ethics and so on.

It's decently written and competently enough done, but I found that things flagged badly by half-way and the second half became something of a slog. There is a lot of description of the area, an awful lot of detailed (often quoted) political writing which may have influenced Willy and so on, which eventually seemed designed to show off how much research Read had done rather than to enhance the book. I wasn't convinced by the motivations or relationships which developed, there is some rather lazy stereotyping of an American visitor (and some unpleasantly misogynistic writing about her body which seemed to me to come from the author, not just his characters), a somewhat implausible climax and so on.

Also, given some of the content, have to question the taste of reissuing this book after Savile, Operation Yew Tree and all that has emerged in the last decade. I fully accept that books are of their time and I wouldn't wish to suppress it in any way, but I do wonder about the decision actively to revive and market it.

So, a disappointment for me, I'm afraid, and I won't be returning to Piers Paul Read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)