The Labyrinth Makers

Anthony Price wrote a long series of books in the seventies and eighties that are an extended meditation on the entanglemnt of past, present, and future and on loyalty in the face of ambiguity. A notional British security service is populated with a large extended cast of characters surrounding one overall protagonist, David Audley, a brilliant ex rugger player and scholar who specializes in untangling elaborate Soviet (and other) espionage schemes. Yet each book is told from the point of view of a different character. This book is the first of the series written though not the first in internal chronology. In this David meets his future wife, to be an integral part of much of the later work since she becomes an integral part of his character. In fact the nature of their relationship forms another extended meditation on marriage throughout this series. But also a Soviet opposite number, Nikolai Panin, is introduced. In the course of the series the question is continually asked if David and his activities are the moral equivalent of Panin and his. Price always brings his characters to the same answer but never stops questioning. In fact, part of the answer is in the questioning. In this first book Price had not yet gained the full mastery of plotting and handling multiple characters he later develops but it is really a splendid introduction. As usual in one of these books, some interesting sidelights of history, in this case immediate post WW2, are exposed for our enjoyment.