The English Spy, by Donald Smith

At this current point in time it's not hard to see why Donald Smith has chosen to write about backstabbing and intrigue in the Scottish Parliament. However, in this book, it's the 1706 Parliament, headed inevitably towards Union, but not without a struggle. Smith's depiction of this struggle makes Union seem less than inevitable, cleverly producing a tension where there really ought to be none. And Smith also smartly manoeuvres the author Daniel Defoe, here still just 'Foe', into the machinations, giving the reader a character they have at least vaguely heard of to follow. Defoe is The English Spy of the title, and actually did write Pro-Union propaganda pamphlets, as well as engaging in espionage of more unknown varieties. Defoe is far from the only intriguing character here - Smith conjures up the tumult (and confusion) of the time by telling the story from multiple viewpoints, mostly in the first person, but sometimes third. All of this economically sums up the spectrum of political feelings of the times. Smith writes in a learned and erudite way, and it's maybe a small flaw that everyone we meet in the book speaks just as eruditely, but they do have convincing eighteenth-century voices. In any case, this book packs copious amounts of intermeshed political-personal skulduggery into 173 quick-reading pages. Now just imagine an author doing that for the present parliament… [Keir Hind]