Good News, Bad News
- Book Review,
by David Wolstencroft
From Publishers Weekly
Wolstencroft takes a spy novel convention—the wrongly accused agent on the run from his own agency—and gives it a clever twist in this quirky, literate book: two British spies, each ordered to kill the other, go on the run together. Charlie Millar and George Shaw work in a tiny, two-man photo-developing station—but unbeknownst to the other, both work for the Secret Service. After George and Charlie save each other from being killed, though, the two cop to their real jobs, and shortly thereafter, each receives orders to kill the other. Thinking this must be another mistake, they attempt to straighten it out with their bosses and just miss getting blown up by a missile-firing motorcyclist. They flee London and, after many close escapes and twists and turns of the plot, eventually end up in Canada. Back at the Secret Service home office, upper-level manager Rose Willets and the mysterious agent Latham are involved in a secret mission called the Project, which relates to the Charlie and George imbroglio. Wolstencroft leaves his final pages open-ended, but readers will be so enthralled with his intelligence and breezy, amusing style they'll hardly notice a few minor ragged edges and inconsistencies. FYI:Wolstencroft is the award-winning creator of the British TV spy series Spooks, known to American A&E viewers as MI-5. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Award-winning writer and creator of the A&E spy drama MI-5, Wolstencroft offers a smart, witty homage to past spy masters like John le Carré. With his intelligent, amusing style, Wolstencroft adds some tantalizing twists to the genre. His two main characters speak in pitch-perfect dialogue and leave readers in suspense about their motives. A few ragged edges and plot inconsistencies may put off true espionage obsessives. But, overall, Good News, Bad News is an impressive first novel.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From Booklist
Charlie and George work together in a small metro station photo kiosk, but neither man is whom he appears to be. Both are spies for the British government, working undercover at the kiosk, something they discover about each other when Charlie becomes suspicious of a woman who comes to the photo booth regularly. Sharing their secret draws young, somber Charlie and reflective, middle-aged George into an unlikely friendship, until both of the men, who have decided to leave the service, discover that their final assignments are to kill each other. After a tense standoff, Charlie and George realize a major mistake has been made; they were mistakenly assigned to the same post, for they were clearly never supposed to meet. In hopes of surviving and finding out who wants them dead and why, Charlie and George go on the lam, fleeing a deadly agent determined to track them down. The conclusion doesn't quite live up to the novel's intriguing premise, but this debut novel is smart and inventive. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
There are two ways out of the spy game. Heads you run. Tails you die. It starts and ends with a coin flip. In between, Good News, Bad News turns the rules of the spy game upside down with a story of intrigue and suspense that is chock-full of delicious surprises right up until the final spin. First, there’s the good news: George and Charlie are on their last posting for the Agency before retiring from the spy game. But in this business, the bad news is never far away. And in this case, the bad news could not be worse. In the blink of an eye, these two friends become lethal enemies—until it occurs to them that some orders just aren’t meant to be followed. The two are catapulted into a gauntlet of international espionage to uncover secrets that lie in the heart of the Agency—secrets that no one wants them to find. Using their spy tools against their old masters, George and Charlie live on their wits, fight for answers—and soon realize that the only people they can trust are each other. But in a world where no one is to be trusted, how much can you trust a fellow spy? Offering surprises on every page, pitch-perfect dialogue, and two unforgettable heroes, Good News, Bad News heralds the coming of the next great spy writer in David Wolstencroft.
About the Author
David Wolstencroft is the multi-award-winning writer and creator of the BBC spy drama Spooks, which airs on the A&E network as MI-5. Good News, Bad News is his first book.
Excerpted from Good News, Bad News by David Wolstencroft. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One Heads, tails, heads, tails. It was an ordinary coin. Worth ten ordinary British pence. Enough for half a phone call. Enough for a peppermint patty or two, a finger of fudge. The two men watching it spin through the air knew better than this. The value of this particular monetary unit was more than anyone at the Royal Mint could have imagined. The difference between heads and tails . . . well, it was a lot. The first man flipped the coin expertly onto his right wrist, burying it under a sweaty left hand. A passerby, hearing the audible click of metal against wedding ring, shot them a glance over her glasses and was gone. She had been to the deli on the corner, the men noticed. The bulge in the side of her shoulder bag suggested she had bought a baguette to eat for lunch. The take-out coffee she was holding was from a different chain store, however, and this led them both to deduce that she was a very picky consumer who was prepared to shop around. The two men regarded each other for a second. Behind them, London’s rush hour ritual evolved. Buses belched past, motors churning, exhausts disgorging into the chill evening air. Commuters sighed back into stations. Collars were up and mouths blew vapor trails, the cold draining all color from their faces. All of them unaware of the coin. All uninformed of its importance. All unconcerned that whatever the result, heads or tails, one of these men was going to die. All that mattered now was who. "Good luck," said the first man. "And you," replied the second, who wasn’t wearing a ring. But a closer look would have shown a faint scar on the finger that could have worn one. The men smiled briefly and turned their eyes downward. Queen Elizabeth the Second flicked a sidelong glance back up at them. Scarfinger nodded and unconsciously began cracking his knuckles. "Right, then," he muttered, venturing a thin smile. But when he tried to swallow he found his throat was dry. "Sorry," said Wedding Ring. Scarfinger shrugged, feigning the diffidence of a Parisian waiter. Don’t worry about it, he seemed to be saying. People die every day. The phone booth was innocuous enough. Dirty, rusting, sulking in the center of a deserted square. As Wedding Ring lifted the receiver and began dialing the number that would change everything, he found himself having a thought, an unconnected conceit that had shoved its way to the front of his brain and demanded he deal with it. You’d enjoyed that thriller, the thought was saying to him, the one you’d read recently. It was really good. He kept dialing the number, but the thought would not go away. Strangely reassuring, the thought continued. Because despite all the unknowables, all the twists and turns, all the while there was always the absolute certainty that you could skip ahead a few pages just to see how everything turned out. The number connected. A small conversation ensued, nothing fancy, a functional exchange, a curt verbal handshake. A voice told him to stay on the line. So he did. Another noise soon distracted him. A Yamaha motorcycle roared out of a nearby alleyway. Two seconds later its wheels were smoking in a half-turn. A second after that, it hove broadside alongside the booth. At that point, the thought, which had previously left the building, was back. Very different from now, it went. Because now, anything is possible, this is real life, and when you’re dangling from the cliff, there’s no skipping ahead. The only way you’ll know how it all turns out is by going through it alone, one second at a time. The motorcyclist pulled the portable rocket launcher from his side bag, shouldering it quickly in one smooth move. What a tragedy, went the thought in finale, to feel there’s a final twist needed in your life. And it never comes. The rocket grenade hissssssssssssssed angrily from the gaping mouth of the barrel, the impact flashing white hot and hellfire, incinerating the booth, smelting the coin slots, liquefying the pavement down to the sewage pipes and mushrooming a plume of flame and smoke high into the London sky. By the time the dust had settled, there was nothing on the street but rubble. Tears. The distant sound of sirens.
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