<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2VJynf_0ugMUIxD00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2VJynf_0ugMUIxD00" width="1300" height="1949" >BOOK REVIEW: A Jewel in the Crown: The Secret Churchill FilesReviewed by: Mark DavidsonThe Reviewer — Mark Davidson is a Cipher Brief Expert and a retired CIA operations officer with multiple tours as Chief of Station and field leader. Mark writes the Chalk Marks column for The Cipher Brief, an exploration of the intersection of espionage, intelligence and popular culture. Mark currently serves as the Director of Business Resilience and Intelligence and Executive Protection for The Starbucks Coffee Company. He and his family live in Bellevue, Washington and Durango, Colorado. Mark can be reached at [email protected]REVIEW — A Jewel in The Crown, the debut novel by British screenwriter and filmmaker David Lewis, is going to find an audience, and it’s going to be enthusiastic, but I can’t say for certain who that audience will be. I expect its biggest fans will be located in the UK or be self-professed Anglophiles, as A Jewel in The Crown is a decidedly English endeavor. The publishing house describes the novel’s heroine Caitrin Collins, “as James Bond meets Maisie Dobbs” which is entirely accurate, to the good and the bad. For those readers who aren’t familiar with Maisie Dobbs, and I anticipate this is all of you, Ms. Dobbs is the protagonist of a British mystery series by Jacqueline Winspear, set in early 1900s England. It’s mostly unknown in the U.S. but has an adoring if limited following in the UK.A Jewel in the Crown is a historical novel in the same fashion as the Dobbs series. As such it’s going to be a winner for readers of English mysteries and historical novels that use the byzantine landscape of English social class and royal traditions as settings for the adventures of quirky but charming heroes who both poke fun at the fox hunting crowd while themselves keeping a stiff upper lip and upright posture in the face of all adversity. It’s the James Bond part I question. I’m not sure fans of the thrills and extravagance of that series and the espionage-thriller genre in general aren’t going to be a bit baffled by where they’ve landed. There is some espionage in A Jewel in The Crown, but it’s mostly on the periphery, and it’s the least developed part of the novel. What the novel has in spades is history, historical caricature (Churchill himself is a leading character), social commentary, suffrage politics, and romance (of the proper and repressed English sort), and fans of all these genres are going to find things they like. Any surprise I had at the direction of the novel is partially my fault. The promotional tagline for the novel reads “a gifted young socialist-turned counterespionage spy who must team up with an aristocratic special agent for an action-filled mission of a lifetime.” It’s all there if you read closely, but in hindsight I think the publishers probably should have bolded “socialist,” “aristocratic,” and “mission of a lifetime” to highlight the true bones of the story.Subscriber+Members have a higher level of access to Cipher Brief Expert Perspectives and get exclusive access to The Dead Drop, the best national security gossip publication, if we do say so ourselves. Find out what you’re missing. Upgrade your access to Subscriber+ now.Caitrin, the daughter of a coalminer, starts the novel as the newest recruit of a secret counterespionage program using only women to identify spies and traitors amidst the chaos of the blitz of London and World War II. Before too long she comes to the attention of Sir Winston Churchill, who admires Caitrin’s pluck and teams her up with Lord Marlton, Hector Neville-Percy (Hecky to his friends…) on a mission that is part heist, part road trip, part buddy comedy and part deconstruction of the British elite, all in the name of saving Britain and its Crown Jewels just in front of the anticipated 1940 German Invasion. Churchill and his real bodyguard Walter Thompson are significant characters in the novel, and I am very curious what historians and informed readers of Churchill will make of these figures. This is not the Churchill of popular imagination and stoic confidence – he apparently had a real penchant for baths and his own nakedness – and if I was skeptical of this informal portrayal, I think it will prove a charm for many readers. Lewis is using the big sweeps of historical record to tell more local tales – pro-Nazi sympathizers among the upper classes, the protection of the Crown Jewels, patriotism among the working class – and pleasure can be found in the smaller details, from the proper name of pints in village pubs to the named local fish and chips shops that populate every chapter. Lewis’ writing feels more like a screenplay than a novel, with abrupt transitions and multiple cut scenes, and that’s not surprising for a first novel by a screenplay writer. Lewis can craft a good sentence and shape some good paragraphs, but it’s not the language or writing that will keep you turning pages. The goal of A Jewel in The Crown is to entertain, and perhaps serve as a bit of a primer on British class conflict, and it does both reasonably well. Storytelling happens more via the progression of set pieces than character development or plot, and that may in part also reflect Lewis and the publisher’s plan for a multi-novel series. There is just no way our socialist spy heroine and her aristocratic secret agent partner are going to sort out that relationship (or World War II) in just one novel (we barely get to know ol’ Hecky), and readers will see the signposts for future adventures ahead early on.If you love World War II history, Churchill,PBS period dramas, class consciousness and contrarian heroes, you are going to enjoy A Jewel in The Crowd. If you prefer your heists hard-boiled and your spies sipping martinis in St. Barts, know going in this is going to be a bit different and the reading pleasure is found in the fun Lewis is having with the local landscape and readers who are already well familiar with it.The Cipher Brief participates in the Amazon Affiliate program and may make a small commission from purchases made via links.Interested in submitting a book review? Send an email to [email protected] with your idea.Sign up for our free Undercover newsletter to make sure you stay on top of all of the new releases and expert reviews.Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business.</div></body>

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BOOK REVIEW: A Jewel in the Crown: The Secret Churchill Files. The Reviewer — Mark Davidson is a Cipher Brief Expert and a retired CIA operations officer with multiple tours as Chief of Station and field leader. Mark writes the Chalk Marks column for The Cipher Brief, an exploration of the intersection of espionage, intelligence and popular culture. Mark currently serves as the Director of Business Resilience and Intelligence and Executive Protection for The Starbucks Coffee Company. He and his family live in Bellevue, Washington and Durango, Colorado. Mark can be reached at [email protected]