Gentleman Traitor

by Williams

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE WORLD'S MOST NOTORIOUS MASTER-SPY COMES IN FROM THE RUSSIAN COLD? After years of exile in Russia, Kim Philby has had enough. He wants out. But where can he go? He knows too much to be let loose. Above all, he knows too much about his old accomplices who still operate at the highest levels of the British Establishment, occupying top Whitehall positions. So once he sticks his nose outside his privileged Soviet lair, the old wolf's as good as dead. MI6, the KGB - above all, MI6 - will ruthlessly hunt him down. But Philby is, after all, one of the most skilful agents of all time. So he risks it. Vicious power politics in London and Moscow... murder beside the Black Sea... bloody massacres in the heart of Africa - as Philby makes his break, violent death follows him. And British Intelligence is threatened with the exposure of the greatest infamy in its history... Cold war spy fiction from the same stable as Ian Fleming's James Bond.

Genres: Espionage

Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but with a disappointing climax.

Alan Williams had as a student assisted in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and subsequently worked behind the Iron Curtain as a journalist so the scenes in the Soviet Union carry a real air of authenticity. He also assisted in smuggling Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward out of the Soviet Union!

I’m always fascinated by Philby and the Cambridge Five and so was looking forward to reading this.
The book starts off a fast rate with a style that is not James Bond, but more Harry Palmer. Despite its age (the book was written in the 1975) the narrative holds up really well.

I suppose I was hoping for a strong denouement, however I was greatly disappointed by the ending. I won’t disclose more, but the book is still worth a read and William’s skill in writing thrillers will make me try another of his works.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spy Mystery

An intriguing book and despite it's age the narrative holds up well. However, the ending was really disappointing. Still worth a read.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Williams has written a powerful, persuasive if speculative novel about the arch-traitor Kim Philby. It captures the times and the era of the cold war admirably and Philby is portrayed as the cunning, manipulative, secretive individual that he apparently was. Whose side is he really on is anybody's guess although his work for the KGB is legendary but in this novel he is wanting to come clean, shall we say, and perhaps return to England as a counter-spy, retired of course!

They say he did not mind his time in Russia but Williams portrays him as unsettled, living with his two cats, brilliantly named as Guy [Burgess] and Donald [Maclean], while still pursuing his interests in the ladies and his well-known drinking. After years of exile in Russia, Kim Philby has had enough. He decides that he will reveal all he knows about his old accomplices who still operate at the highest levels of the British Establishment, occupying top Whitehall positions. But, even though he is one of the most skilful agents of all time, how is he to accomplish it?

He needs help and he gets it in various guises from both sides,initially from a newspaper man . But are they all genuine in their attempts to get him out of his lair? He is followed everywhere he goes but, still skilful in avoiding detection, he manages to continue with his ideal plan but in the end, a dramatic end, it gets the better of him.

It is very definitely an edge of the seat thriller, real life being interwoven in the text, and it does help if one has at least a modicum of what went on when the whole spy episode exploded. The characters who inveigle themselves into his confidence are all shady characters, as one would expect and it is ironic that one of the British establishment figures who emerges in Moscow unexpectedly is named Sir Roger! And the ending, as befits the novel, is as dramatic as it comes!

[Jak60 · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a rather enigmatic and startling initial scene, Gentleman Traitor unfolds as a quite enjoyable, classical cold war espionage story. The plot seemed quite well constructed and intriguing - though the initial scene remained unexplained and disconnected from the rest, you were left with the reasonable expectation that everything would fall in its place by the end of the story.
At that point, around two thirds of the book, when you expect the author to start brining home all the lose ends, the story departs for a tangent which opens more new fronts than it closes, and which is not only is inconsistent with the rest (you are either Ian Fleming or John LeCarré, but being both in the same book ain't working) but poses serious plausibility issues: black ops in the cold war era were executed in the shadows, with as low a profile as possible trying to stay under every radar screen. Rooting a story in this climate and ending up in a kiss-kiss bang-bang type of situations becomes a counter-climax.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third volume in the Charles Pol series, Gentleman Traitor, which I kept reading to myself as Gentleman Tailor, creates a fictional account of British traitor/spy Kim Philby. Williams largely relies on known attributes about Philby as well as the history surrounding him until he fled to the Soviet Union 1963. It is after that date that Williams's contemporary story begins with journalist Barry Cayle tracking down Philby in Moscow. Soon thereafter a plot is hatched so that Philby can escape back to the West. The person directing the plot? None other than the execrable Charles Pol, behind whose jolly fat girth lies a man of greed, lies, murder, and betrayal.

Note that the real Philby of course never returned to the West but remained in the Soviet Union until his death in 1988, just a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Philby was part of the Cambridge Three spy ring (which eventually became the Cambridge Four and then the Cambridge Five), which initially included Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean who both earlier fled to the USSR in 1951. Williams's imaginative version of Philby's escape manages to make Russia and Scandinavia interesting to me--I'm not much inclined for stories set in cold weather--and the tricks, turns, and deceit through which Cayle works his way back into the USSR to launch the plot locked me into reading this almost at one sitting.

One sort of new twist in this Pol novel is that it essentially breaks the story down in between two characters, Cayle and Philby. If there is a fault with it, it's that Williams seems in a rush to push things together towards a workable conclusion. And sometime cutting back and forth between the Cayle and Philby stories becomes jarring. Not to mention the interludes with Pol licking his lips over his latest murderous scheme.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another Alan Williams thriller in The Charles Pol series. It’s 1974 and Kim Philby is unhappy in the USSR. He wants out, but he knows too much about other spies in his old network to allow this to happen. Barry Cayle, an investigative journalist, knows something suspicious is going on and travels to Moscow to see Philby. Not surprisingly, Charles Pol, the enigmatic fat Frenchman, is in Moscow, and when he is around, something very illegal is about to go down. This is the first in this series that I haven’t given five stars to. It is fast paced and there is always something happening, but it is also quite disjointed. Cayle is at the center of the plot in the first third and then disappears as Philby becomes the key figure, and Pol is not really central in this novel as much as he was in the others. Still and all, it is a fun read, as are all the books in this series.

[Caroline Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally released in 1974, Gentleman Traitor has been re-released in December 2013 by Hashtag Books.

I have to say that Gentleman Traitor was an on/off/on read for me, although I did read this over the busy festive period. The very first chapter gripped me with it’s drama and violence, after what was thought to be a group of terrorists entering a busy hotel in Africa, opening fire and killing every soul there, including youngsters! This was quite horrific and at one point in particular with young girls involved, it was quite emotional and tragic.

I just had to read on and longed to find out who was behind this attack. Were the culprits terrorists with serious political issues or could there be some other explanation to this horror? However, the following chapters focused on journalist, Barry Cayle, who was set to write a book on spy and traitor, Kim Philby, who had been living in exile in Russia for the last few years with a reputation of a man who likes a drink or two. Although the initial chapters were of interest and a great basis and background for the remainder of the story, I was a little disappointed that there was no more mention of the event from the first chapter and that the pace of the book was a little slower than I had expected.

The reader follows Cayle’s journey through most of the first half of the story and we find out about Philby’s desired comeback and the story picks up again at a nice pace as Cayle gets to meet Philby. Alan Williams describes the distances that Philby (and anyone connected to him) needs to make to keep everything under wraps extremely well and clear, making it a nice read to follow at the same time as providing the reader with a more complete picture of Philby’s way of life and everything he has to consider before making a move. There are moments in Gentleman Traitor when you simply just don’t know what is going to happen and when, making it an intense read at parts.

I like Cayle’s enthusiasm and determination to acquaint himself with Philby as much as he can. Cayle knows he is in dangerous waters but he still has this drive to discover as much as he can and to be as close as he can if and when anything should happen. Philby, although a traitor, doesn’t seem to be a character the reader dislikes. He has his problems and, knowing he is a hunted man, he has to go to extremes to avoid capture or even death. These events unfold in tragic and disastrous ways for some others, which is incredibly sad and unfortunate for those involved. However, I found myself wanting him to be able to make it through all of this and be able to live the rest of his life in a more relaxed manner and completely disconnected from the British and Russian Establishments.

I must admit a little more speed would have been welcomed during the first section but I must hand it to Alan Williams that he has written this novel well. With a great deal of politics continuing in the background of the main plot, involving the USSR’s KGB and the British MI5 and MI6 and also the geographical scope covering Europe and Africa mostly, one cannot doubt that Alan had extensive knowledge in this area. (I have later came to realise that Alan was in fact a great journalist himself, corresponding from across the globe, and at times when tensions must have been high, in Vietnam, for example.) It was also quite exciting to discover that Kim Philby was a real-life spy who did live in Russia. A character I am sure Alan Williams met once, briefly in Beirut. If so, this explains the storyline of Cayle and Philby, i.e. Cayle is possibly a fictional character based on Williams himself.

After hoping for a little more action in the first half, I did find the latter chapters somewhat fast moving and exciting in comparison. This half of the book certainly goes into the details of Philby’s ‘escape’ from Russia. From hijacking planes, travelling through Scandinavia, keeping an extremely low profile and maintaining an alias this second half becomes quite tense and gripping at times! Without wanting to spoil the ending, I have to say that I was surprised at the ending but found it interesting and liked it a great deal. For me, it was left open with a chance to write a sequel, however, I do like the idea that the reader can still ask questions and perhaps make up their own ending. This is not to say that on the most part stories weren’t wrapped up, because in many respects they were. The story truly came full circle.

Once I realised that Gentleman Traitor was written in 1974, before I began to read the book, I did consider how I would find the language of the era and questioned whether or not this would be a difficult story to follow. But, as I mentioned above Williams has written this thriller well. It is easy to follow, informative of some political views of the day and well explained. As I was born a good eight years after the original novel, my knowledge of the political states of the countries involved and the espionage that went along with it is very little. For instance, I was aware of the KGB in the USSR but only as I was an avid fan of the fictional tv series ’The Professionals’ CI5 (the re-runs in the late 1990′s). Many of the episodes focused on foreign politics and MI5/6 and the KGB and more. Gentleman Traitor has made me more interested in the politics of the 1970′s, even if just to gain a small background knowledge.

Gentleman Traitor was received gratefully by publisher, Hashtag Books, in return for an honest and fair review.

[David Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

A taut and cerebral counterfactual account of what might happen if Kim Philby got bored with his mundane life as a Hero of the Soviet Union and itched to return to the fray and betray a few more of his mates. Could he live safely under an assumed name in some far-flung outpost of Empire and, if so, how could he be smuggled out of the USSR? Needless to say it’s very complicated and Deightonesque in the double-dealing and brief shocking acts of extreme violence.
Also turned out to be suspiciously close to the mark in terms of the identity of the 4th and 5th men.

[Wendy Cartmell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gentleman Traitor by Alan Williams is a spy novel mixing the styles of Ian Fleming and John le Carre. Always a sucker for this type of book, I was intrigued and looking forward to the read. I was not disappointed. Mr Williams creates an explosive opening to the book with a massacre in South Africa. However, the reader has to keep reading to find out the relevance of this attack within the plot.
The story centres around the legendary spy Kim Philby, in exile in Russia and wanting to come in out of the cold, as it were. The book examines Philby’s relationship with journalist Barry Cayle who wants to write a book about Philby. But Philby is more interested in using Cayle to explain to the British public his thoughts and reasoning behind his defection. Philby’s ace card is that he knows the names of high ranking officials within the British establishment who are also Russian spies. Philby is described in somewhat sympathetic terms so much so that the reader actually begins to feel sorry for the old spy. It examines his daily life in Russia, the things he misses from England and the power he has in Russia, being a high ranking officer in the KGB.
Throughout the story is the additional thread of the British Intelligence contingent who are more than a little jittery about Cayle’s involvement with Philby. There is a great deal of politics in the book, but that doesn’t make it a dry read. If anything the examination of the figures in MI5 and MI6 help build an understanding of the attitudes and ideas of the day, greatly enhancing the plot.
There are many twists and turns, with the pace in keeping with the setting, the 1970’s. This is not a high octane read, but a complex plot, with the emphasis on strategy rather than violence, with character always at its heart.
Mr Williams has done a fine job with this novel and clearly writes from a position of knowledge and firsthand experience, making it a powerful read.