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Mr. Barrett's Secret
Kinglsey Amis was knighted in 1990, but in one respect he's also the king -- of the art of good storytelling. It's an art that has become rare in contemporary writing. In this volume of short stories, Amis also uses variety to entertain us. We discover why Mr. Barrett worries about his daughter's association with the poet Browning, and we share a bizarre incident with a timid literary agent who becomes a hostage. In another, more eerie story, a parson meets an identical twin he didn't know he had, with unnerving results. "The triumphant work of a writer at the top of his form." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
185 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
24 people want to read
About the author
Kingsley Amis
214 books555 followersBest known novels of British writer Sir Kingsley William Amis include
Lucky Jim
(1954) and
The Old Devils
(1986).
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 3, 2025
Boris And The Colonel by Zen Master Kingsley Amis author of All The Blood Within Me http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/a... and other brilliant short stories
10 out of 10
Boris and The Colonel is a short story that has a spying theme, we have had SF drink, military, amusing stories and now we are treated to a tale wherein we have an agent of the enemy, colonel Orion Procope, up to no good, which is to be expected from somebody with Soviet sympathies – and Russian ones for that matter, just look at what the Monster in the Kremlin is doing to Ukraine and Europe at large…there was an article in The Economist in which they were estimating that tens of thousands or more will die on the continent because of the high energy prices caused by the invasion, which many old and unprivileged people will not be able to afford and hence will be freezing to death…
Edward Saxton is the Fellow and Director of Studies in English at a small college in Cambridge, he has an interest in poets of the eighteenth century, precursors of the Romantic movement…he is forty five years old and widowed, works with a niece of his dead wife, Lucy Masterman, who comes to befit from his experience and authority in literary matters, when one day, she brings to his attention a lost poem.
Supposedly, some work of Thomas Gray, famous for The Elegy, has been found, given to a newspaper and then printed, the near twenty years old niece is asking Edward Saxton if he had seen it and when the answer is no, she gives the pages to him and then we are all curious – readers and the young woman – to see what he thinks.
The scholar has more than doubts, but he thinks of a reason for this apparent forgery, and thus we have a detective and spy story developing, with Lucy and Edward collaborating to find who was the author and what would be the motive – incidentally, the name Edward brought to mind the Monty Python sketch, in which John Cleese is a talk show host and he has a guest played by Graham Chapman.
The latter plays a man called Sir Edward Percy (maybe) and Cleese is addressing him with pomp and circumstance to begin with, only to ask if he may use Edward, when he is allowed, moves on to Eddie, if this is permitted, but he is not satisfied with the new acceptance and then starts on…Eddie Baby.
Sir Edward Percy is not at all happy with this strange, bold, rude move and stands ready to leave the set, only to be brought back by the renewal of the politeness game (would you come back Sir Edward) but then Cleese is up to new tricks, using sugar puss, cheeky plum or things like that, which show a total disregard for the guest and are…hilarious!
Edward Saxton speculates that Colonel Procope must have inserted the forgery into the newspaper, knowing that his pal, Mr. Green, would read this wherever he is (presumably somewhere in the Soviet union, the place where some traitors found refuge, once they have been unmasked) given that this was a publication available around the world at the time, and that Green was a man with literary interest…
Therefore hidden in the poem there will be a message, and given that the professor had had work with MI5, which they call The Company within that select circle of collaborators and employees, he is very observant and can see that the colonel might be trying to have Green come over, but it is Lucy that takes the initiative, and brings Boris, her horse named after Boris Godunov, just like a mare had been called Virginia from Virginia Wolf, to see the surroundings of the abode of the presumed villain and find more.
The suspect had had a clash with a poor young fellow, who is kind of slow, when the boy lost his way on the Procope land, the latter had been very harsh and incredibly angry, which is what he is when Lucy comes by, pretending she wants some water for her horse (in retrospect, she sees that the ruse was more than suspect, for there is a river right by) the colonel does not recognize his guest and shouts and puffs.
Lucy does manage to see before she has to confront the enemy that in a shed, there is a trench, which she then understands could be used as a grave, perhaps to bury Green, once he made his way to the premises…when she talks with Eddie Baby, he protests that this is too much of a coincidence, having decided to walk to the lion’s or hyena’s den, to just arrive at the very moment when Green is there, ready for slaughter.
Indeed, it would take preparations, many days for Green to pack up and travel from the Soviet Union all the way to the village of his comrade in arms, and to have this happen right at the time when Lucy is there appears incredible – nevertheless, things happen in reality that seem impossible (take the case of Trump, would you believe it if a movie proposed such a preposterous plot, the most ridiculous, narcissistic, idiotic con man rising all the way to the top of the world…well, there is the comedy Idiocracy)
In his superb Adventures in The Screen Trade http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/a... William Goldman touches on the idea that there are events that took place and audiences would just stand up and leave the cinema theater, where writers to propose them in their motion pictures…take the case of a heavily guarded palace, where some fellow just finds a way in, walks around, enters a room to confront the top lady in the place, guards had gone missing, and everything is in place for the confrontation between this stranger and the Royal Highness…
For indeed, we are talking about her late majesty, the queen, and this really happened, as we could see in The Crown http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/03/s... not that they keep to the facts in the series…to return to Boris and The Colonel, this is another proof of the mastery of Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, who has the skill to offer readers a wondrous plot, in a very short format, where we have mystery and humor combined
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
10 out of 10
Boris and The Colonel is a short story that has a spying theme, we have had SF drink, military, amusing stories and now we are treated to a tale wherein we have an agent of the enemy, colonel Orion Procope, up to no good, which is to be expected from somebody with Soviet sympathies – and Russian ones for that matter, just look at what the Monster in the Kremlin is doing to Ukraine and Europe at large…there was an article in The Economist in which they were estimating that tens of thousands or more will die on the continent because of the high energy prices caused by the invasion, which many old and unprivileged people will not be able to afford and hence will be freezing to death…
Edward Saxton is the Fellow and Director of Studies in English at a small college in Cambridge, he has an interest in poets of the eighteenth century, precursors of the Romantic movement…he is forty five years old and widowed, works with a niece of his dead wife, Lucy Masterman, who comes to befit from his experience and authority in literary matters, when one day, she brings to his attention a lost poem.
Supposedly, some work of Thomas Gray, famous for The Elegy, has been found, given to a newspaper and then printed, the near twenty years old niece is asking Edward Saxton if he had seen it and when the answer is no, she gives the pages to him and then we are all curious – readers and the young woman – to see what he thinks.
The scholar has more than doubts, but he thinks of a reason for this apparent forgery, and thus we have a detective and spy story developing, with Lucy and Edward collaborating to find who was the author and what would be the motive – incidentally, the name Edward brought to mind the Monty Python sketch, in which John Cleese is a talk show host and he has a guest played by Graham Chapman.
The latter plays a man called Sir Edward Percy (maybe) and Cleese is addressing him with pomp and circumstance to begin with, only to ask if he may use Edward, when he is allowed, moves on to Eddie, if this is permitted, but he is not satisfied with the new acceptance and then starts on…Eddie Baby.
Sir Edward Percy is not at all happy with this strange, bold, rude move and stands ready to leave the set, only to be brought back by the renewal of the politeness game (would you come back Sir Edward) but then Cleese is up to new tricks, using sugar puss, cheeky plum or things like that, which show a total disregard for the guest and are…hilarious!
Edward Saxton speculates that Colonel Procope must have inserted the forgery into the newspaper, knowing that his pal, Mr. Green, would read this wherever he is (presumably somewhere in the Soviet union, the place where some traitors found refuge, once they have been unmasked) given that this was a publication available around the world at the time, and that Green was a man with literary interest…
Therefore hidden in the poem there will be a message, and given that the professor had had work with MI5, which they call The Company within that select circle of collaborators and employees, he is very observant and can see that the colonel might be trying to have Green come over, but it is Lucy that takes the initiative, and brings Boris, her horse named after Boris Godunov, just like a mare had been called Virginia from Virginia Wolf, to see the surroundings of the abode of the presumed villain and find more.
The suspect had had a clash with a poor young fellow, who is kind of slow, when the boy lost his way on the Procope land, the latter had been very harsh and incredibly angry, which is what he is when Lucy comes by, pretending she wants some water for her horse (in retrospect, she sees that the ruse was more than suspect, for there is a river right by) the colonel does not recognize his guest and shouts and puffs.
Lucy does manage to see before she has to confront the enemy that in a shed, there is a trench, which she then understands could be used as a grave, perhaps to bury Green, once he made his way to the premises…when she talks with Eddie Baby, he protests that this is too much of a coincidence, having decided to walk to the lion’s or hyena’s den, to just arrive at the very moment when Green is there, ready for slaughter.
Indeed, it would take preparations, many days for Green to pack up and travel from the Soviet Union all the way to the village of his comrade in arms, and to have this happen right at the time when Lucy is there appears incredible – nevertheless, things happen in reality that seem impossible (take the case of Trump, would you believe it if a movie proposed such a preposterous plot, the most ridiculous, narcissistic, idiotic con man rising all the way to the top of the world…well, there is the comedy Idiocracy)
In his superb Adventures in The Screen Trade http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/a... William Goldman touches on the idea that there are events that took place and audiences would just stand up and leave the cinema theater, where writers to propose them in their motion pictures…take the case of a heavily guarded palace, where some fellow just finds a way in, walks around, enters a room to confront the top lady in the place, guards had gone missing, and everything is in place for the confrontation between this stranger and the Royal Highness…
For indeed, we are talking about her late majesty, the queen, and this really happened, as we could see in The Crown http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/03/s... not that they keep to the facts in the series…to return to Boris and The Colonel, this is another proof of the mastery of Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, who has the skill to offer readers a wondrous plot, in a very short format, where we have mystery and humor combined
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
August 20, 2018
Disappointing. None of the stories were very good or interesting, no theme to hold them together.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews