The Private Sector

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Originally published in 1971, The Private Sector is the first in a series by Joseph Hone, who I regard as one of the great spy novelists of the twentieth century. In the last few decades Hone’s standing in the field has been somewhat eclipsed by the likes of John le Carré and Len Deighton, but in his day he was widely seen as their equal. Newsweek featured a full-page review of this book, and hailed it as the best spy novel since Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin.

The idiosyncrasies of public taste are often unfathomable, but I sometimes wonder if more people don’t know of Hone’s work simply because it was neither fish nor fowl in the genre — rather, a less easily marketed combination. Spy fiction can be divided, very roughly, into two camps: ‘Field’ and ‘Desk’. James Bond is a field agent — we follow his adventures, not those of his superior M. In John le Carré’s novels, on the other hand, the focus tends to be on those back at headquarters — George Smiley is a senior officer at the Circus (he later, briefly, becomes head of it).

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