THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS - Book review

Robert Wilson’s spy novel The Company of Strangers was published in 2001. It spans the period 1940 to 1991, though over two-thirds of the book is set in the 1940s.

In 1940 Andrea Aspinall has survived German bombing in London which reinforces her hate of Germans. Her mother seems cold towards her so there is no love between them either. We then leap two years to the German invasion of Russia. Captain Karl Voss is disillusioned by the incompetence of Hitler who is unwilling to admit his forces face defeat against the cannon fodder of Russia. ‘It’s as if God’s lost control of the game and the children have taken over – naughty children’ (p328). Before he can be slaughtered, he is sent home to Berlin on compassionate leave in 1943. While there he is approached by a high-ranking officer; he is to be transferred to the German Legation in Lisbon. He is to become a spy – with the intention of shortening the war by clandestinely meeting with sympathetic British agents... 

In 1944 Andrea is recruited and trained as an agent for ‘the Company’ to work in Lisbon under the name of Anne Ashworth. Despite Portugal being neutral and one of England’s oldest allies, the country was not regarded as a safe haven. Under Salazar’s quasi-fascist regime, ‘Secret police – Gestapo trained – called the PVDE. The city’s infested with bufos – informers’ (p82). ‘... what she knew about the Portuguese – they understood tragedy, it was their territory’ (p413).

Voss is entangled in the secret machinations of Operation Valkyrie – the assassination attempt on Hitler – as well as his growing relationship with Andrea. There are shifting allegiances, it seems, and nobody can be trusted. That includes the bickering Americans, Hal and Mary Couples, Andrea’s host Wilshere and his demented wife Mafalda, the SIS agents Meredith, Sutherland, Rose and Wallis and the suspected turncoat Lazard. There is also the mystery of her predecessor, the American Judy Laverne who was either deported or died in a terrible motor accident. And behind the scenes Russian spymasters are lurking.

The febrile atmosphere in Lisbon is projected realistically and the action scenes, where blood is spilt, are dramatic and exciting. From time to time the suspense is high, too. And while the plot is convoluted it remains compulsive, and despite the narrative moving across many years the reader’s interest is held for the 560+ pages.

The book title crops up at least twice. Once when strangely she suddenly harbours a fear while flying, when God might ‘let them drop from the sky and she would die in the company of strangers, unknown and unloved’ (p417) and referred to again on p542.

When writing of the tragedy of Portugal, he could have been referring to the tragedy of the main characters. Sadly, I found the ending unsatisfactory – though in all probability truthful. This is only my opinion, after all. Indeed, Wilson is a good writer and has a gift for the telling phrase and metaphor, such as these samples:

‘She gave him a smile torn from a magazine’ (126). [Like this, better than giving him an insincere smile...].

‘blistered with rust’(p203) – a good description.!

‘He stirred his tea for a long time for a man who didn’t take sugar’ (p431). [conveys disguised mental turmoil, perhaps].

‘She listened again to the settling house and painted the desktop with her torch beam’ (p202). [better than his torch lit up the desktop].

‘Cardew shifted in his seat and looked as wary as a grouse on the Glorious Twelfth’ (p95).

‘Cardew stared intently at the windscreen as if the entrails of squashed insects might lead him somewhere’ (p97).

‘... fighting his way into unconsciousness, desperate  to stop living with whatever he had in his mind’ (p118).

‘The wind was stronger out here, blowing sand across the road, which corrugated to washboard, hammering at the suspension’ (p121). [good visuals!].

The blurb refers to this book as a thriller. While there are thrilling interludes, I feel it is too sedate to be a thriller. It’s a good novel, though.

Editorial comment – for the benefit of writers:

‘the incessant chatter in the room suddenly grated on Anne’s ears like a steel butcher’s saw ripping through bone’ (p160). [Probably should be a butcher’s steel saw, since he wouldn’t be a robot?]

‘I tried to join the WRENS...’ (p181). This should be either lower case Wrens or uppercase WRNS.

So many scriptwriters do this all the time: ‘... she saw Lazard and I together in the casino...’ (p269) – Should be ‘Lazard and me’. And ‘...Rocha had seen Voss and I together in Bairro Alto’ (p330).

I feel that metaphors are sometimes best jettisoned:

‘... a voice as clipped as a shod hoof on cobbles’ (p149).

‘He searched himself for words, like a man who’s put a ticket in too safe a place’ (p163).

‘He waited for a lifetime, which in normal currency was only twenty minutes’ (p320).