The Mole: The Cold War Memoir of Winston Bates

This lightweight, clever second novel from Warner (Lifestyle) adopts the form of memoir to tell the story of modest, unassuming Winston Bates in his unlikely career as a Canadian spy in Washington, D.C., from the 1950s to the 1980s. Bates doesn’t feel too guilty about the job; his handler assures him that he’s not really spying because “the Americans are our friends, right?” Zelig-like, he encounters a who’s who of Washington society (Roy Cohn, Walter Lippmann, and many others) in a story that seemingly encompasses every major post-WWII foreign policy and political event, including the Suez Crisis, Sputnik, the Bay of Pigs, and Wa­tergate. The result is a satirical perspective on American political life that unsurprisingly concludes that personal gain generally trumps the common good. But some readers may find the farcical conceit too large a leap of faith and wish that more comedy could have been wrung from the premise. A necessarily episodic narrative (with some clumsy flashbacks) diminishes the book’s momentum. None­theless, Warner’s prose is first-rate, and his research is prodigious, which adds credibility (14 archival photographs help). Agent: Will Lippincott, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. (Oct. 22)