The Predicament
A Gabriel Dax Novel
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4.3 • 44 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Boyd is one of my favorite authors.”—Kate Atkinson
From the internationally bestselling author, a thrilling novel starring the travel writer-turned-reluctant spy Gabriel Dax, who finds himself implicated in a dangerous conspiracy with global consequences
1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, with a presidential election looming and a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader predicted to win. United Fruits, a giant American corporation responsible for a large percentage of the country’s GNP, meanwhile, is not pleased by this prospect. Neither is the CIA. Amid the uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the fallout from the election.
Upon arrival, Gabriel meets Frank Sartorius, the local CIA agent. Despite Sartorius’s genial manner, Gabriel suspects something untrustworthy brewing under the surface. Soon, a political assassination with suspicions of Mafia involvement leads to riots, and Dax escapes to Europe, thinking he will finally return to his normal life as a travel writer. But when Green compels him to investigate some shady characters in West Berlin, it becomes clear that an even greater danger is afoot as the magnetic young President Kennedy prepares to arrive for a state visit. A gripping novel of politics and spy craft with dramatic twists and turns, The Predicament shows Boyd to be one of our most masterful contemporary storytellers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mistake-prone amateur spy Gabriel Dax romps through two minor international crises of the early 1960s in Boyd's shrewd latest espionage tale (after Gabriel's Moon). A professional travel writer with no training in spycraft, Dax works for MI6 unofficially, under the auspices of his sometime-girlfriend, agent Faith Green. Though he'd prefer to withdraw to his cottage in East Sussex and continue working on his new book about the great rivers of the world, Dax is sent to Guatemala in March 1963 to check on the political rise of a labor leader trying to unseat the country's CIA-backed military government. Things quickly get hairy: Dax is threatened, then stabbed, by thugs who oppose his sniffing around. He recovers in England before Faith sends him to Berlin to check out reports that assassins may be targeting President John F. Kennedy during a weeklong visit. Dax bumbles his way through that mission, helping thwart disaster via a string of accidentally heroic acts inspired by his instincts as a writer. Readers will be charmed by Dax's tendency to fail upward, and Boyd smoothly incorporates real history into his wildly entertaining plot. This is a treat.
