Saving the Queen

William F. Buckley Jr. showed he had a talent for fiction, as well as non-fiction writing, with this enjoyable espionage novel, the first of his Blackford Oakes adventures. Buckley unashamedly brings his old-boy background to bear in creating an Oakes who plausibly finds his way from Yale to Windsor Castle within a few months. Buckley, who served as his fictional Oakes does in the CIA of the early 1950s, has me now wondering how much of this is autobiographical. A World War II ace graduating from Yale in the early 1950s, Oakes joins the CIA. He establishes a deep cover identity as a wealthy American postgrad doing engineering research in London, where his mother and English stepfather live. The Americans suspect secret hydrogen bomb research is leaking to the Russians from a source embarrassingly close to the fictional Queen Caroline. It is so close that the affair must never be known beyond a tiny and non-English group. The CIA finds Oakes its best option, and orders him to climb socially and root out the palace spy. Buckley's detail on life among the British royals is one strong suit of the book. . You get the feeling he himself has probably been a royal guest at one time or another. (All in the name of literary research!) He delightfully characterizes Caroline - beautiful, married, lively and suddenly acceding to the throne in one of those accidental-death scenarios political novelists rely upon. Caroline is more of a Di than an Elizabeth. Oakes, of course, is merely serving his country in, uh, getting as close to her as his mission requires. With Buckley's own spook background you don't know what he's making up. His allusions to the mysterious Rufus, the veteran spy called in to fix the leak, are tantalizing enough to make me wonder if such a character truly existed. His backstory here includes having been charged with deceiving the Germans that the D-Day invasion would take place at Calais rather than Normandy. Was there a man to whom Eisenhower actually gave his own dog tags in gratitude? And who wouldn't take calls from Ike or Winston Churchill? Buckley's climax is a bit over the top but his resolution of the main characters' moral dilemmas, flies.

Saving the Queen is the best of the Blackford Oakes spy novels. It's the only one that is light hearted and totaly unlike Buckley's columns. Blacky is at his best in this fun and exciting spy caper. What a shame this delightful book is out of print.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best spy novels (and series) that one can and will ever read. Mr. Buckley creates Blackford, a most wonderfully swave and gorgeous character, who makes the book a joy to read. I am a big James Bond fan, but I found that while the movies are great, the books are mostly dull. If a Blackford Oakes book is this great, I can only speculate how spectacular a movie would be. I have now finished all the books in the series, and would definately recomend them, regardless Democrat or Republican. I actually cried after reading one (The Story of Henri Todd), but please, dear reader, wait and read them in order, they are even more enjoyable that way.

Blackford Oakes, CIA operative, is sent to Great Britian to track down a spy who is passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets. It's his first mission, and it's definitely an unusual one (OK, all of Blacky's missions are unusual). I've read all of Buckley's Blackford Oakes series and each is fun and entertaining. Each details an interesting theory/fantasy into a particular piece of history; each seems fairly plausible. I recommend all of WFB's spy novels. Read one and you'll find that you're hooked.

Being a fan of Buckley's columns, I decided to give his spy novels a try. This is his first and the only one I've read so far, but I plan on reading more. Its plot is nothing to write home about, but it is never boring, occasionally humorous, and always interesting. And of course, Buckley's incredible use of the English language is ever present. But don't worry about having to pull out your dictionary every few minutes to understand what's going on, although it can help.