Seven Down by David Whitton

​    Deliciously clever and original, if at times exhausting under the weight of its own cleverness and originality, this is a very different kind of a spy novel. Structured as a series of seven long interviews/debriefings, this is a story of a failed political assassination and attempts by powers that be to understand what went wrong, how and why.
   This was an event years in the making. Seven people placed in a position as employees at an inn, programmed to wait for a verbal cue to spring into action. But people being what they are (flawed, complex bunch of weirdos) things did not quite go according to plan. In fact, they managed to go pretty wildly awry.
      This is a debut novel (although the author has had a collection of short stories published before)served as an auspicious introduction to a talented and intelligent storyteller. The tone gets immediately established from the foreword which lists three very bizarre things about international espionage that the author uncovered in course of his research. And that’s exactly the tone the novel maintains, that fine balance between sinister and absurd, the dangerous and ridiculous. Satires don’t have to be hilariously roll on the floor laughing funny to be effective, but they do have to be smart and this is a smart one. The laughs are of more a wry droll variety, which works for me.
    I’m not a fan of spy fiction, but this fun with spies version of the genre was very entertaining. The stream of consciousness narrative would have probably gotten tiresome had there been a larger number of players, but at seven it hits just right. Made for a very fun read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.