Declare

A secret history of unfathomable powers during the Cold War

Up until this book, The Stress of Her Regard was my favorite Powers novel. But Declare is magnificent, absolutely marvelous, and as time goes by I’m less and less sure it is a matter of mood but rather a definitive taking of that title for Declare, a Secret History of West v. East spygames which posits Britain and Russia with top-echelon secret agencies keeping tabs on powerful, powerfully ancient, and unfathomable forces. The narrative structure is also compelling, with a “current” timeline set during the Cold War, as a long-dormant agent Andrew Hale is pulled out of his comfortable academic retirement to revisit his greatest failure as an agent of operation Declare, a horrific incident on Mt. Ararat. Threaded through this is a deep and fantastic backstory of Hale’s actions in WW2 occupied France as a double agent for Russia, ostensibly then allies against Germany but each with their own aims and secrets, continuing forward through additional assignments and culminating in the disaster at Ararat, just as Hale in the “current” timeline is making another go of finishing the mission that has haunted him for so long. Prebble’s narration is wonderful, handling djinns, Russians, Turks, all manner of British accents, and granting a rich timbre to a simply fantastic book.