No Such Thing as Duty

Donnelly (Base Notes) wows with this intimate genre-bending novella that is at once a WWI spy thriller and a supernatural alternate history pulled from true events. It stars William Somerset Maugham, the early 20th–century novelist, playwright, and spy for British intelligence during WWI, as he deteriorates from tuberculosis in Romania while at work on what seems like a throwaway mission: to recruit Carpathian nobleman Walter Roşu to the war effort. Then William actually meets the handsome, charming, and cultured Roşu, who proves a welcome distraction from both his illness and the unhappy marriage he left behind in England—but who harbors an occult secret. The novella’s impressively sustained tension comes from the certainty that something is dangerously wrong even as the men begin their affair. The result is a page-turning thrill ride that brings Maugham to vivid life. Readers will be hooked. (Apr.)