Birdcage is about the machinations of a British intelligence agency, referred to as "Birdcage" because its offices are in Birdcage Walk in London. There is very little oversight of this covert security group and the agents are generally amoral, although they believe that their mission is important to the welfare of the country. In reality, the higher ups are just trying to protect the government in question which they serve blindly.
This story is set in Portugal, Gloucester, and London. A young nun leaves her Portuguese monastery, feeling that she has betrayed her vows. She attempts to drown herself in the sea but by some miracle is rescued at the last minute. The man who rescues her is a regular guy, easygoing and not ambitious.
We soon find out that the nun's real name is Sarah Branton, daughter of Lady Jean Branton, a former agent for the Birdcage group. Lady Jean is dead, but the Birdcage agents are keeping an eye on Sarah to make sure that she doesn't have damaging information about their group.
This is the fifth book in a very loose series about the Birdcage group. Especially in the first few books in the series, it is hard to see any connections between the books; there are no repeating characters for example. The tone is the same, and the department is unnamed in the early books. But as the series continues some of the agents feature in multiple books. However, my point here is that though I may be reading them as a series, they easily can be read as standalone books.
It only recently occurred to me that this series often has a psychological / romantic suspense plot running through it. In fitting with the espionage aspects of the story, the outcome of these romantic plots are entirely unpredictable; sometimes there is a happy, optimistic ending ... sometimes not. This one is even more obviously of that type, since Sarah Branton and the man who rescues her quickly develop a bond and a growing attraction to each other.
I enjoy the glimpses of nature, and especially birds, running through all the stories. The sense of place is very prominent. I think this might be distracting to some readers, but it is one of the elements that keeps me coming back for more. The stories in this series can be very dark.
Victor Canning is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a lot of books starting in the 1930s and through the 1980s, some general fiction, some children's fiction and some spy fiction. I have stuck with his spy fiction or mystery novels so far, but I want to try some of his general fiction too.
Today I was reading about Canning's life, and discovered that he was friends with Eric Ambler, another espionage author whose books I enjoy. This information was in a book by John Higgins, A Birdcage Companion. Per Higgins' website:
In 1940 he enlisted in the Army, and was sent for training with the Royal Artillery in Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales, where he trained alongside his friend Eric Ambler. Both were commissioned as second lieutenants in 1941. We get a glimpse of Canning in those years from Eric Ambler's autobiography, Here Lies Eric Ambler.
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Publisher: Heinemann, 1978
Length: 233 pages
Format: Hardcover
Series: Birdcage books #3
Setting: Portugal and the UK
Genre: Espionage fiction
Source: Purchased in December, 2023.
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