Review: Spies and Other Gods by James Wolff

Spies and Other Gods by James Wolff

Blurb from Goodreads:

The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.

To make matters worse, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - the body that oversees Sir William - has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who displays smarts, tenacity and rebelliousness in unsettling measures.

Aphra seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

 This wasn't bad and certainly had a good twist.  If you like spy novels, this may feel fresh and exciting.  I think the writing was just a bit staid, and some of the plot devices felt a bit farfetched.  Still, an enjoyable read!

Spies and Other Gods comes out next week on April 14, 2026 and you can purchase HERE.  

There's something divine, something godlike about spying. No one knows what you guys are doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it. You're massively powerful yet totally unaccountable. We assume that God and spies have our best interests at heart but the evidence so far is mixed. You both work according to some sort of ethical yardstick that permits waterboarding and dead babies.