Francis Bennett's first novel Making Enemies demonstrated a remarkably sophisticated approach to the Cold War. Bennett was able to demonstrate its effect on his characters with immense understanding and psychological penetration, and the acclaim that book gleaned raised hopes for the new one. If Secret Kingdom does not initially seem as involving, the reader is nevertheless inexorably drawn into a narrative that is every bit as complex and astringent as its predecessor. Taking place in the summer and autumn of 1956, in the months leading up to the Hungarian uprising, Bobby Martineau, the SIS man who was Bennett's protagonist in the first book, is posted to Budapest to report on the crisis. But he becomes aware that London is ignoring his warnings, and his sympathy for the Hungarians (risking their lives against the Soviet oppressors) is making him desperate to galvanise his colleagues. The situation is complicated by his relationship with Eva, a woman known to both the Russian and Hungarian security forces, who has her own forceful agenda. This is only a spy story in the same sense as Le Carré uses the genre to make telling and truthful points about human nature. A more than worthy successor to an excellent debut.
