The novel, The Box, by Dan Wheatcroft, which I reviewed the other day, turned out to be a continuation of an existing series of two books about British counterespionage in decades past. I was intrigued enough to pick up the first novel, The Summer of 66, whose hero (he only appears briefly in The Box) is agent John Gallagher.

The story begins with young Gallagher, formerly of Special Branch, being transferred to the Home Office Statistical Unit, a suitably dull cover for an intelligence operation. In contrast to our ingrained images of James Bond’s world, Gallagher’s new workplace is notably dull. It looks like a slightly shopworn small business operation, not very well funded. (The not very well-funded part, at least, is true. When John eventually gets outfitted with a weapon, it’s no state of the art armament from Q, but a standard revolver. The budget is too tight to allocate him as many cartridges as he’d like.)

The first operation John is involved in concerns the problem of a suspicious number of cryptologists involved in a certain secret project having recently committed suicide. Do the Russians have a method for inducing depression and despair? The group’s investigations uncover a ring of ruthless deep-cover agents.

I’m not entirely sure why I enjoy these books as much as I do. They have noticeable weaknesses. The prose isn’t top-shelf (misplaced modifiers are sometimes among the problems). I can only describe the plotting as dense – we’re bombarded with information, and it’s often difficult to follow the many story threads.

But I think it’s that very denseness that makes the books compelling – for me. There’s an authentic sense of real life here – the way I myself feel when multiple stimuli threaten to overwhelm me. (Author Wheatcroft confesses in his bio to being on the autism scale. Since I believe I’m low-level autistic myself, that may be what attracts me.)

A genuflection is made to the altar of gay rights in this book, but the author demonstrated himself un-Woke in The Box, so I let that go by.

I’m not sure if normal readers will enjoy The Summer of 66 as much as I did. But I certainly did enjoy it.