William Boyd is a prolific and well-known novelist, having written 17 novels and numerous collections of stories and screenplays. Gabriel’s Moon, his latest, has been described as his most exhilarating novel yet. And justly so. Boyd is a master craftsman at storytelling. There are no narrative experiments here, just a riveting unputdownable tale.
Gabriel Dax, a 30-something successful travel writer living in London, suffers from chronic insomnia caused by recurring dreams of the fire that ravaged his childhood home, causing the death of his mother. At 10 years old, he managed to narrowly escape but the trauma continues to haunt him. His life takes a dramatic turn when he unwittingly becomes caught up in the world of espionage, double agents, deception and perfidy. Increasingly coming under the spell of Faith Green, the mysterious MI6 agent who inveigles him into taking on ever more bewildering and dangerous assignments, even while resenting his role as a ‘useful idiot’, he can’t resist the allure of the enigmas into which he’s drawn.
Reminiscent of novels by Graham Greene or John le Carré, the story is set against the menacing backdrop of the Cold War and set in locations as diverse as 60s London, Cádiz, Madrid, Warsaw and the Congo. It’s true escapist fiction and will have you enthralled from first page to last.
Reviewed by Anne Green
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Accra, Ghana, in 1952, Boyd grew up there and in Nigeria.
His many screenwriting credits include Stars and Bars (1987, dir. Pat O’Connor), Mr Johnson (1990, dir. Bruce Beresford), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1990, dir. Jon Amiel), Chaplin (1992, dir. Richard Attenborough) A Good Man in Africa (1993, dir. Bruce Beresford), The Trench (1999, which Boyd also directed) and Man to Man (2005, dir. Régis Wargnier). He adapted Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop for television (1988) and also Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy (2001). His own three-part adaptation of his novel Armadillo was screened on BBC 1 in 2001 as was his adaptation of his novel Restless (2012). His film about Shakespeare and his sonnets – A Waste of Shame – was made in 2005 for BBC 4. His 5-hour adaptation of his novel Any Human Heart (Channel 4 2010 won the BAFTA for ‘Best Series’. He has written two original TV films about boarding-school life in England – Good and Bad at Games (1983) and Dutch Girls (1985).
Boyd also writes for the theatre. His first play was SIX PARTIES that premiered at the Cottesloe Theatre as part of the National Theatre’s New Connections series in 2009. This was followed by LONGING, in 2013, on the main stage at Hampstead Theatre, an adaptation of two short stories by Anton Chekhov. LONGING is currently playing in repertoire in St Petersburg, Russia, and in Tallinn, Estonia. THE ARGUMENT, a dark comedy, is his first play with a wholly contemporary setting. It was premiered at Hampstead Downstairs(2016) and has recently had a new production at the Theatre Royal Bath.
He is married and divides his time between London and South West France.
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