Good Reads meta-data is 276 pages, rated 4.27 by 121 litizens.
Genre: SpyFi.
DNA: Portuguese.
Verdict: Deft.
Tagline: City of Spies.
While war engulfs Europe on the far side of A Raia (The Stripe) along the Rios Mincho, Guadiana, and Douro in Iberia, life goes on. This is the border that separates Portugal from Spain. Established in 1297, it has remained unchanged since, a record of stability according to Wikipedia. Rich ex-pats have fled the war to idyllic Estoril’s Casino (Royal), where the only hardship is a shortage of champagne. Poor refuges are either herded into camps and shipped to Cape Verde from which few return or pushed back into Spain from which they are sent to Germany from which none return.
While the Portugal is awash with the spies of all nations, led by British and German, but accompanied by their Spanish, Italian, Irish, Soviet, and American counterparts, like gangsters, these spies mostly confine their attentions to each other, and leave the civilian natives alone. Usually.
Not all the spies are foreign because the Estado Novo spies on its own as it walks the tightrope of neutrality in World War II, selling Wolfram to Germany for panzer armour and landing rights on the Azores to Britain for Atlantic Ocean anti-submarine air patrols. The blind eye is turned on all the spying.
The not so secret pol-ICE cretins in the PVDE (Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado) do the regime’s dirty work out of sight and out of mind of the Philosopher-King Salazar. These expendable minions intimidate, bully, beat, torture, and murder with impunity because they are the unwritten law. (This organisation later morphed into the PIDE [Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado], following a management consultant’s advice to leave behind the bad reputation of the PVDE by a cosmetic change. It was ever thus. The easiest thing to do is next to nothing.)
Made an offer he couldn’t refuse, Hero works for PVDE but he keeps telling himself he is not like them but the longer he works for PVDE the more he begins to act like the others, the fear when he shows the badge, the deference when he asks for information, the use of a car, a salary increase, an assistant, all of this is heady. ‘You are what you do,’ so said the sage Howard K Campbell in Mother Night.
Trouble is PVDE has factions and faction members have guns and each is more interested in dominating the other factions than tangling with German or English spies (who very likely have bigger and better guns). Accordingly, PVDE is preoccupied with its interminable and incomprehensible internal conflicts, like the Labo(u)r Party where ideological distinctions mask personal ambition. Hero discovers that he has been recruited by one faction to distract a rival faction, or so it seems, making him a pawn in someone else’s game.
The plot thickens with some very clever re-writing of history, a Jewish refugee, a kidnapped child, and more. Well worth the price of admission
Should anyone wonder why I am so cynical about consultants’ reports, I once saw one, five pages long — double spaced with ample margins, costing over $100,000. No onsite visits, no interviews, no data, no review of literature. Recommendations unencumbered by facts, explanations, or justifications. Was this the influence of Cicero who dismissed facts as confusing. A desk report it was labeled. This apostle of McKinsey management sat down and wrote it in three hours, part of that time must have included drinking coffee. Ai Claude would do a better job today. P.S. it is a sure bet that this consultant was not familiar with Cicero’s adages. Of that is exactly what the client wanted, quick and simple.