It's a spy thriller set in 1943 France. The British send Basil St. Florian on a mission to recover a copy of a document they believe a Soviet spy is using as a book code to conceal the identity of a mole in their operations. So Basil has to figure out to get to the copy of the document before either the Abwehr or the SS catch him.
Hunter spends 80% of the book switching between chapters focused on Basil's mission and chapters about his briefing in some underground war room typically used by Churchill. The lingering of the cigar smoke is referenced repeatedly. In both cases, it's a constant string of bait-and-switches. A Basil chapter may end with him pulling a gun on the pilot flying him across the Channel, or with the Abwehr having seemingly figured out exactly who they need to be looking for, only for those things to end up being something entirely different when we return.
Likewise, the chapters in the war room are always having Basil think his mission is to do one thing, only to be told it's actually going to be something else. No, we don't need you to find the Soviet spy in Cambridge, we know who it is. No, we don't want him eliminated, we want him to send information to Stalin. No, we don't want you to steal the document, etc. It seems meant to keep the tension up, repeatedly subverting expectations or pulling the rug from under the reader, but it gets tedious after a while.
Hunter keeps the tone of the book light. Probably too light, considering the mission's importance is described as needing to sacrifice thousands to save millions. The French Resistance is mocked, the Nazis are treated as primarily concerned with remaining in Not-Russia (as the book terms it), the occupation of France is depicted as generally no big deal to the French citizenry, ignoring that this is almost certainly not the case for anyone belonging to any of the groups the Nazis were trying to mass-murder.
Florian's written as sort of drily amused with the whole thing. Pithy comments and cool reserve at all times, the biggest issue that this is keeping him away from an affair with Vivien Leigh. One of the blurbs describes it as being a spy thriller in the vein of James Bond, but I feel like Bond flicks usually at least attempt to sell the audience on the importance of Bond succeeding in his mission. That Bond wants to succeed in between the drinking and sleeping around. It's hard to feel like Florian really gives a shit, even as far as whether he survives.
On the plus side, with the spacing and wide margins on each page, the book reads incredibly fast for 270 pages. I got through 235 pages just sitting in a hotel room waiting for Alex and his buddy to sleep off their hangovers. It's like something a college kid would try to pull to stretch the length of a term paper.
'He had gathered up his 'chute to reveal himself to be a rather shabby French businessman, stuffed all that kit into some adder bushes - he could not bury it, because a) he did not feel like it and b) he had no shovel but c) had he a shovel he still would not have felt like it.'
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