Moscow Exile: A Joe Wilderness Novel

Lawton’s disappointing fourth Joe Wilderness novel opens in 1969 on the Glienicke Bridge (aka the bridge of spies) that connected East and West Berlin during the Cold War, but the payoff for that scene, in which British agents have a covert midnight rendezvous with Russians who never show, comes late in the book. The first half meanders through the overlong backstories of Charlotte Mawer-Churchill, an unpleasant social-climber, and the louche Charlie Leigh-Hunt. Both are British; both end up in Washington, D.C., during and after WWII; and both spy for Russia—though why they turned against their country is never satisfactorily explained. Lawton draws on his deep knowledge of the geopolitical and social history of the era, but there’s too little of the former and too much of the latter. More seriously, there’s barely a whiff of suspense or danger until Joe, an MI6 agent, appears halfway through, and readers will have trouble connecting the dots between Charlotte, Charlie, and Joe in a convoluted plot that leads to Joe being shot and trapped in Russia. This one’s for die-hard fans only. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (U.K.). (Apr.)