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Archives of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey #3
The Spider of Sarajevo
"From the secret archives of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey. Summer 1914: Europe is on the brink. As Britain's enemies grow stronger, the Comptroller-General must confront the man with whom he has struggled for a generation - a man he knows only as the Spider. In a desperate gamble, he sends four agents out across the continent, on a mission they do not understand...The future of British intelligence - of the British Empire - is in their hands. Not all of them will return. Unique and resourceful, hunted and deceived, they have embarked on a journey that will climax in the town of Sarajevo on the 28th of June 1914."
397 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2014
7 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Robert Wilton
24 books13 followersOut now! The 'rare, clever treat' that is 'Treason's Spring'...
Robert Wilton worked in a number of British Government Departments, including a stint as Private Secretary to three successive UK Secretaries of State for Defence. He was advisor to the Prime Minister of Kosovo in the period leading to the country's independence, and now helps to run an international human rights mission in Albania. He's co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity stimulating and supporting projects in education, culture and the environment.
His new historical thriller 'Treason's Spring' is out imminently. It's a prequel to 'Treason's Tide' (hb 'The Emperor's Gold'), which was an Amazon historical fiction Number One, one of Waterstone's 'best new debut novels', and won the Historical Writers' Association/Goldsboro Crown for best debut. 'Sensational... great, intelligent, fun' (Time Out) ' and 'Literary gold... superbly satisfying...beautifully written, wonderfully clever' (Daily Telegraph), it was written in various odd bits of Europe on a computer with no functioning full-stop key, was edited in Russia and Mongolia, and was almost but mercifully not quite blown up by the British Transport Police.
His series of historical espionage thrillers drawing on the archive of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey also includes 'Traitor's Field', an epic tapestry of the British Civil Wars and 'a new benchmark for the literary historical thriller. He achieves that Holy Grail of utterly absorbing, edge-of-the-seat thriller with a book of ideas' (M.C.Scott). He launched the 'learned, beautifully written, elegant spy thriller' (The Times) 'The Spider of Sarajevo' in Sarajevo on June 28th 2014, the exact centenary of the events it re-tells.
Robert Wilton also writes on the history and culture of south-eastern Europe, works as a life coach and occasional voice artist, and translates Albanian poetry. He divides his time between the Balkans and Cornwall.
Robert Wilton worked in a number of British Government Departments, including a stint as Private Secretary to three successive UK Secretaries of State for Defence. He was advisor to the Prime Minister of Kosovo in the period leading to the country's independence, and now helps to run an international human rights mission in Albania. He's co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity stimulating and supporting projects in education, culture and the environment.
His new historical thriller 'Treason's Spring' is out imminently. It's a prequel to 'Treason's Tide' (hb 'The Emperor's Gold'), which was an Amazon historical fiction Number One, one of Waterstone's 'best new debut novels', and won the Historical Writers' Association/Goldsboro Crown for best debut. 'Sensational... great, intelligent, fun' (Time Out) ' and 'Literary gold... superbly satisfying...beautifully written, wonderfully clever' (Daily Telegraph), it was written in various odd bits of Europe on a computer with no functioning full-stop key, was edited in Russia and Mongolia, and was almost but mercifully not quite blown up by the British Transport Police.
His series of historical espionage thrillers drawing on the archive of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey also includes 'Traitor's Field', an epic tapestry of the British Civil Wars and 'a new benchmark for the literary historical thriller. He achieves that Holy Grail of utterly absorbing, edge-of-the-seat thriller with a book of ideas' (M.C.Scott). He launched the 'learned, beautifully written, elegant spy thriller' (The Times) 'The Spider of Sarajevo' in Sarajevo on June 28th 2014, the exact centenary of the events it re-tells.
Robert Wilton also writes on the history and culture of south-eastern Europe, works as a life coach and occasional voice artist, and translates Albanian poetry. He divides his time between the Balkans and Cornwall.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 4, 2014
Those of you who write will be familiar with the phenomenon where you, the author, are reading a book - for pleasure - and you find yourself editing it in your head as you go. You delete paragraphs that weren't necessary. You shave off the blubber and sharpen the plot points that are hidden in flab, while dialing back the ones that have the metaphorical equivalent of a Post-It note written in capital, bold, 36 point comic sans with the exclamation points in italic cerise.
And then there are the ones where you read through from cover to cover and all you can think is, [expletive deleted], I wish I'd written this. Periodically, you intersperse with 'how the **** did you *do* that?'
Hilary Mantel is one of these. And Robert Low. And, at the peak of the new generation of writers, Robert Wilton whose mix of literate language, concept and plot makes him almost unique in the genre.
His first novel won our HWA/Goldsboro (as it was then) Debut Crown. His second made sense of the English Civil War in ways nothing else has ever done (to be honest, I'd given up on trying to understand, nor did I care: now I at least have some clue and I care far more) and now his new one THE SPIDER OF SARAJEVO opens up the origins of WWI.
It's 2014. We're going to be reading a lot of the period 1914-18 over the next year or three. Already, there are 1,000 novels due to be published this year which revisit thus greatest of Great Wars. Several of those are already really, really good (Rob Ryan's Dead Man's Land/The Dead Can Wait and The Dead Can Wait, or Letters from Skye by new writer Jessica Brockmole are two of the recent stand-outs for me) - but these are 'we're in the war, it's ghastly, this is how we coped' stories (which is fine). Nothing I have read so far has even attempted to make sense of the mess of European and global politics that actually lead us into conflict.
Let's face it, the war was a mess. And incomprehensible. Except, of course, nothing is incomprehensible if you actually understand it. But that doesn't guarantee you can make it comprehensible for the rest of us.
And if you can do both of those, THAT doesn't guarantee that you can make the resulting novel worth staying up late through the night to finish as this one does.
The plot at its most basic is this: two spymasters, one in the UK, one in continental Europe, are fighting a proxy war through their agents on the ground, with the highest of prizes as their stake: the survival of the Comptrollerate General for Scrutiny and Survey, the oldest, most venerable, and arguably the greatest, spy apparatus of all time, which is dedicated to preserving the welfare of the UK.
On the British side, four (extra) ordinary people are sourced and recruited and sent across the water, each to do what he or she does best. They range from a part-Irish wide-boy addicted to risk, through an anthropologist and a Scottish hard-nosed merchant, to Flora Hathaway, a delightfully intelligent, well educated widow with an apparent interest in medieval scripts.
These four, plus Major Valentine Knox who has the unenviable task of shepherding them on occasion, draw attention to themselves, and it is the responses to that attention that forms the core of the novel, the buffered back-and-forth threat and counter threat directed at a distance by two men who can see the broader pictures that other people miss but cannot take to the field in person.
As with all the best novels (Thomas Cromwell, anyone?), it's the people that make this matter. The four agents and those around them are living people, not ciphers. They are real for their time, or it seemed so to me: not 21st century actors dressed in period costume. They are lost, alone, afraid, confident, difficult, conflicted and we come to care deeply about their progress, cheering from the sidelines when they succeed, despairing with them when they fail.
Of course, at some level, we know what will happen: Archduke Ferdinand will die in Belgrade and the continent will lurch into war. The great skill of this novel, is that nothing feels inevitable. And everything feels right.
And then there are the ones where you read through from cover to cover and all you can think is, [expletive deleted], I wish I'd written this. Periodically, you intersperse with 'how the **** did you *do* that?'
Hilary Mantel is one of these. And Robert Low. And, at the peak of the new generation of writers, Robert Wilton whose mix of literate language, concept and plot makes him almost unique in the genre.
His first novel won our HWA/Goldsboro (as it was then) Debut Crown. His second made sense of the English Civil War in ways nothing else has ever done (to be honest, I'd given up on trying to understand, nor did I care: now I at least have some clue and I care far more) and now his new one THE SPIDER OF SARAJEVO opens up the origins of WWI.
It's 2014. We're going to be reading a lot of the period 1914-18 over the next year or three. Already, there are 1,000 novels due to be published this year which revisit thus greatest of Great Wars. Several of those are already really, really good (Rob Ryan's Dead Man's Land/The Dead Can Wait and The Dead Can Wait, or Letters from Skye by new writer Jessica Brockmole are two of the recent stand-outs for me) - but these are 'we're in the war, it's ghastly, this is how we coped' stories (which is fine). Nothing I have read so far has even attempted to make sense of the mess of European and global politics that actually lead us into conflict.
Let's face it, the war was a mess. And incomprehensible. Except, of course, nothing is incomprehensible if you actually understand it. But that doesn't guarantee you can make it comprehensible for the rest of us.
And if you can do both of those, THAT doesn't guarantee that you can make the resulting novel worth staying up late through the night to finish as this one does.
The plot at its most basic is this: two spymasters, one in the UK, one in continental Europe, are fighting a proxy war through their agents on the ground, with the highest of prizes as their stake: the survival of the Comptrollerate General for Scrutiny and Survey, the oldest, most venerable, and arguably the greatest, spy apparatus of all time, which is dedicated to preserving the welfare of the UK.
On the British side, four (extra) ordinary people are sourced and recruited and sent across the water, each to do what he or she does best. They range from a part-Irish wide-boy addicted to risk, through an anthropologist and a Scottish hard-nosed merchant, to Flora Hathaway, a delightfully intelligent, well educated widow with an apparent interest in medieval scripts.
These four, plus Major Valentine Knox who has the unenviable task of shepherding them on occasion, draw attention to themselves, and it is the responses to that attention that forms the core of the novel, the buffered back-and-forth threat and counter threat directed at a distance by two men who can see the broader pictures that other people miss but cannot take to the field in person.
As with all the best novels (Thomas Cromwell, anyone?), it's the people that make this matter. The four agents and those around them are living people, not ciphers. They are real for their time, or it seemed so to me: not 21st century actors dressed in period costume. They are lost, alone, afraid, confident, difficult, conflicted and we come to care deeply about their progress, cheering from the sidelines when they succeed, despairing with them when they fail.
Of course, at some level, we know what will happen: Archduke Ferdinand will die in Belgrade and the continent will lurch into war. The great skill of this novel, is that nothing feels inevitable. And everything feels right.
October 6, 2016
I found the story a bit difficult to follow at first, but, gradually, the author drew together the threads of this tale of espionage on the eve of World War I and it turned into a thrilling read. Four British intelligence agents - 3 of them first timers - are sent out across Europe by the Comptroller-General for Scrutiny and Survey, the man in overall charge of an organisation within Britain's secret services which, it is said, has existed for centuries. In actual fact, the Comptroller-General is using these 4 "agents" in a bid to discover the identity of a man he knows only as the Spider - his opposite number who has strong links with Germany's intelligence network and is also responsible for fomenting acts of terrorism and insurrection throughout the world. The author blends in various documents from the archive of the Comptrollerate-General with the actions of the his agents as they criss-cross Europe on various missions - all of which are part of events in the weeks leading up to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28th, 1914; the final spark which ignited the flames of war. At this point, the organizations that would later become Britain's main intelligence services - MI5 and MI6 - were in their infancy and the Comptroller-General has to take their sometimes muddled approach into account as he endeavours to draw out his enemy. The story is more than a rattling good spy yarn and gives some insight into different attitudes within British secret services as to what their role in the lead-up to a war should be and whether they can ever keep to some sort of moral code which marks them out from those actions taken by their enemies.
October 9, 2017
This is an excellent and original novel that maintained my interest from beginning to end. Set during the months leading up to the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914, this tale of conspiracy, espionage, and dering-do is a masterpiece of story-telling which rivals that of John Buchan.
Short snatches of prose allow the reader to follow many parallel stories, each of which charts the activities of a wide range of well-depicted realistic characters. Wilton weaves a complex tapestry of exciting exploits that covers most of Europe from Russia to Ireland, and from France to Albania (about which the author is very knowledgeable).
The book becomes so exciting that one must be careful not to read too fast lest important details are missed. I will not outline the plot because that would risk spoiling your enjoyment.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This brief review cannot possibly do sufficient justice to the ingenuity of both the plot and the author's superb writing style. His characterisations and dialogues are frighteningly realistic. His sense of timing promotes an inescapable atmosphere of suspense. This is a book that is difficult to set down while reading it.
If you have even only the slightest interest in history and espionage, this book is unmissable.
Short snatches of prose allow the reader to follow many parallel stories, each of which charts the activities of a wide range of well-depicted realistic characters. Wilton weaves a complex tapestry of exciting exploits that covers most of Europe from Russia to Ireland, and from France to Albania (about which the author is very knowledgeable).
The book becomes so exciting that one must be careful not to read too fast lest important details are missed. I will not outline the plot because that would risk spoiling your enjoyment.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This brief review cannot possibly do sufficient justice to the ingenuity of both the plot and the author's superb writing style. His characterisations and dialogues are frighteningly realistic. His sense of timing promotes an inescapable atmosphere of suspense. This is a book that is difficult to set down while reading it.
If you have even only the slightest interest in history and espionage, this book is unmissable.
January 3, 2018
This is such a clever read, just as you'd expect from the author of the superb Traitor's Field. This time, the historical spy thriller moves its focus to the months immediately preceding the outbreak of World War 1. Ingenious, witty and surprising throughout.
March 7, 2023
A few weeks ago, I wrote in a review that I expected Beryl Bainbridge’s ‘every man for himself’ to be the best book I read in 2023. I was wrong. Not only have I read a better book in ‘the spider of Sarajevo’ but also discovered an author – Robert Wilton - who has published quite a few other books that I’m now very keen to get my teeth into.
This is a spy story, but not the stuff of Bond. It’s complex, it’s not always an easy read, and for many pages it’s not clear what it is that is being sought.
It is set on the eve of World War one. Four British agents are sent across Europe by the Comptroller-General for Scrutiny and Security (I think we might call this person ‘M’ now). The mission of the agents is to flush out the identity of a man known only as ‘the spider’, the C-G’s opposite number in Germany and an equally shadowy figure.
This is a long-ish book at just under 400 pages, but it rattles along, and I read most of it in a state of anxiety, keen to find out what happens next.
Beyond the immediate story is the background – the rival powers and shifting coalitions – Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria, as well as others. The new technologies of the forthcoming war – Dreadnought warships, military aircraft and the rapidly emerging craft of espionage and intelligence gathering.
The British agents are inexperienced but astonishingly brave and resourceful and even while they have no clear idea of their absolute purpose, they continue to place themselves in difficult and potentially compromising positions.
Of course, the events leading to the start of World War 1 are well known and provide the backdrop for this book, but it’s bravery, ambiguity and the sheer complexity of intelligence gathering that provides the driving narrative, all told in an incredibly engaging and authoritative style. Fabulous.
This is a spy story, but not the stuff of Bond. It’s complex, it’s not always an easy read, and for many pages it’s not clear what it is that is being sought.
It is set on the eve of World War one. Four British agents are sent across Europe by the Comptroller-General for Scrutiny and Security (I think we might call this person ‘M’ now). The mission of the agents is to flush out the identity of a man known only as ‘the spider’, the C-G’s opposite number in Germany and an equally shadowy figure.
This is a long-ish book at just under 400 pages, but it rattles along, and I read most of it in a state of anxiety, keen to find out what happens next.
Beyond the immediate story is the background – the rival powers and shifting coalitions – Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria, as well as others. The new technologies of the forthcoming war – Dreadnought warships, military aircraft and the rapidly emerging craft of espionage and intelligence gathering.
The British agents are inexperienced but astonishingly brave and resourceful and even while they have no clear idea of their absolute purpose, they continue to place themselves in difficult and potentially compromising positions.
Of course, the events leading to the start of World War 1 are well known and provide the backdrop for this book, but it’s bravery, ambiguity and the sheer complexity of intelligence gathering that provides the driving narrative, all told in an incredibly engaging and authoritative style. Fabulous.
September 22, 2022
I love historic fiction and the origins of the WWI have been of interest to me for some time. I picked the novel for this reason (and who doesn’t love a spy thriller?!)
I have to say, I lost the thread after the first 50 pages. The snippets from the four agents travelling through Europe as ordinary people, though, give a magnificent opportunity to see the life at the brink of the war hundred years ago. Paris, Belgrade, Vienna, Kiel, Constantinople, even St Peterburg. Southern Europe which later broke in a number of states. Mountain Tribes of Albania, Austrian-Hungarian empire at its final hour… all of this through a prism of four characters playing an unknown to them but very important role in preserving the British Intelligence Service and, possibly, defining the outcome of the war which is yet to begin.
All names, facts and even secret correspondence is real, obtained from the British archives just recently. The author made a great job of pulling it together into a story of the human lives. Although at times I didn’t know what the characters were saying or what was the meaning of this or that letter, I enjoyed it as a part of a bigger plot. A battle between two masterminds, each one in the country to become enemies within a month: Britain and Germany.
As always with historic fiction, fabulous to dive into details of the early 20 century life: clothes, food, transport, mode of correspondence and travel. Battleships grandeur for their time which would look antique now. Splendid to have a 50/50 hindsight.
I have to say, I lost the thread after the first 50 pages. The snippets from the four agents travelling through Europe as ordinary people, though, give a magnificent opportunity to see the life at the brink of the war hundred years ago. Paris, Belgrade, Vienna, Kiel, Constantinople, even St Peterburg. Southern Europe which later broke in a number of states. Mountain Tribes of Albania, Austrian-Hungarian empire at its final hour… all of this through a prism of four characters playing an unknown to them but very important role in preserving the British Intelligence Service and, possibly, defining the outcome of the war which is yet to begin.
All names, facts and even secret correspondence is real, obtained from the British archives just recently. The author made a great job of pulling it together into a story of the human lives. Although at times I didn’t know what the characters were saying or what was the meaning of this or that letter, I enjoyed it as a part of a bigger plot. A battle between two masterminds, each one in the country to become enemies within a month: Britain and Germany.
As always with historic fiction, fabulous to dive into details of the early 20 century life: clothes, food, transport, mode of correspondence and travel. Battleships grandeur for their time which would look antique now. Splendid to have a 50/50 hindsight.
January 17, 2017
Wow! Really exciting. Very subtle, and really intellectually challenging. I hope I didn't miss any of the plot. I loved how you got the feeling it could all really have happened.
If you like the style of Wolf Hall, you will like the vivid and impressionistic way of describing the action - and there is a lot of it! Rather Bond-ish with (I guess) House of Cards elements. I had not read the first 2 - so will be on the lookout for them.
If you like the style of Wolf Hall, you will like the vivid and impressionistic way of describing the action - and there is a lot of it! Rather Bond-ish with (I guess) House of Cards elements. I had not read the first 2 - so will be on the lookout for them.
June 15, 2016
Slightly disorienting with its rapid changes of focus but still most captivating with a full complements of twists and turns and that marvellously understated ending..
September 10, 2016
The third in Mr Wilton's series and the third I have read with great enjoyment. Perhaps a modern day Buchan?
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews