The Madness of July

Reporter Naughtie (The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency) makes his fiction debut with a nuanced, character-driven spy thriller set over six days in the late 1970s. When a clerk stumbles on a dead American in a House of Parliament cupboard, trouble ensues because on the body are the name and phone number of ex-spy Will Flemyng, now a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. During a weekend trip to his boyhood home in Scotland, Will meets with his brother Abel Grauber, a U.S. political operative who has taken their mother’s maiden name to distance his career from the careers of Will and their other brother, Mungo, who has unearthed a secret that could rip apart already strained family bonds. Copious amounts of dramatic dialogue speeds the story along. While the plot rambles at times, the slow discovery of who is trying to destroy Will—and why—is irresistible. (Oct.)