Book Review: Too Many Spies Spoil the Case

Reviewed By: Luke Croll - RAM

[3 stars]

Too Many Spies Spoil the Case Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Miles Archer
Class/Genre: Mystery
Novelbooks, 2002, 216 pages

‘Too Many Spies Spoil The Case’ stars Doug McCool, a process server working in San Francisco in the Seventies. He has rather an uneventful life until one day, a warrant he serves leads to his embroilment in a case where the government of Iran, the CIA, the FBI and many other people turn out to be players. McCool’s own life is soon in danger. Can he survive?

Archer has clearly read a great deal of hardboiled fiction and decided to emulate it as much as possible, putting his hero in a world of drugs, violence and sex, often including scenes of drug taking and sex as matter of fact events. McCool thinks nothing of having a line of cocaine the morning. Still, if it was good enough for Sherlock Holmes, why not McCool?

The main problem with ‘Too Many Spies Spoil The Case’ is that there are too many spies. Archer includes so many characters double -crossing and disappearing that the reader will need to draw a diagram to keep them all straight. It would have been easier to have just a simple set of characters, but numerous plot twists. Nevertheless, Archer spends a lot of time on character description and his first-person narration adds humour to the book, even if it, at times, McCool is a hard character to understand. For example, when confronted by FBI agents, he is as obstructive and unpleasant as possible, when it would be a simple matter to give them help and they have done nothing to him.

‘Too Many Spies Spoil The Case’ is strong in places and weak in others. Archer’s humour and dialogue is a success, but his plot and its development could still do with some work, which leaves the whole book somewhat rough around the edges. If you like the seamier side of life, then it is worth trying this book.

Luke Croll - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Luke Croll - RAM

Luke Croll - Conference interpreter and translator
http://lukecroll.translatorscafe.com