Reviewed by Arthur Kerns

In the world of spies and counterspies, uncertainty is a constant: a cause of sleepless nights for some practitioners, an aphrodisiac for others. For Robert Littell it is grist for his latest espionage novel.

Littell’s “what if” premise supposes that Harold Adrian Russell Philby — nicknamed Kim after Kipling’s fictional spy — was not the person we have been led to believe. Members of the intelligence community rank Kim Philby as one of the most notorious double agents in history, responsible for countless leaks of classified information and an unknown number of agents’ deaths. Because Philby’s betrayal rests on ideology, most place the British spy on a different level from Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the two infamous U.S. turncoats who betrayed their country for filthy lucre. The author of this novel teases us with the question, was Philby’s motive solely ideological or was he all along simply striving for the approval of his father, the legendary eccentric Arabist, Harry St. John Bridger Philby?

Most historians believe the NKVD, as the Soviet intelligence service was known, recruited Philby in the 1930s. Sometime later, through the old boy network, Philby and four classmates, coined the Cambridge Five by the press, were invited to join the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Acting as a double agent for the Soviets, Philby became head of a critical SIS department during the 1940s, and after the war served as British intelligence liaison to the CIA and the FBI. Finally outed in 1951, Philby eventually fled to the Soviet Union in 1963 where he spent the remainder of his years.

To unravel the mystery surrounding Philby, Robert Littell takes the reader back to a fictionalized world when Philby was in his formative years. Chapter by chapter he presents the points of view of twelve people who knew the subject. The narrators and their world come to life as they provide insight into a person they also find elusive and enigmatic. Each narrator — lovers, classmates, agent handlers, Soviet counterintelligence analysts, members of the British intelligence service, Kim’s father — offers a different perspective on Philby’s persona: together they build a fascinating story.

And what a cast of characters! The outrageous Guy Burgess, one of the Cambridge Five who uses his drunken debauchery to facilitate his spying for the Soviets, gives insight into Philby’s character and philosophical leanings. The fetching Litzi Friedman, Communist and Soviet agent from Vienna, seduces the young, naïve Philby who has traveled to Vienna to participate in the people’s revolution in 1933. Later she sponsors him to her handlers as a prospective Soviet spy.

Then there is the young Soviet NKVD analyst, a Chekist true believer working inside Moscow’s dreaded Lubyanka prison, who has her doubts about Philby’s bona fides as a Soviet agent, citing his privileged background and ties to the British establishment. She plays the devil’s advocate for the reader. The Canadian film actress, Frances Doble, who Philby beds while he works as a journalist covering Franco’s side during the Spanish Civil War, learns there is a dark unreachable side to her lover. It must be admitted that at times these narrators distract us from the search for the real Kim Philby, but it’s an entertaining diversion.

The author succeeds in forcing the reader to question who Kim Philby really was. While sketching his portrait of the man, Littell uses suspense, humor, sex, and adventure to present a supporting cast that dominates the novel. However, despite the vivid characterizations of these narrators, it is Philby lurking in the background who we want to understand. Littell tempts us to like the young Kim just out of university, but over time we start to keep our distance from this chameleon. Despite the insight provided into Philby’s character, these narrators and the reader still wonder, who is this man Kim Philby? Just a handsome, talented, gifted charmer who seduces his way through life? Someone whose life is a consistent inconsistency?

Those who enjoy cold war espionage, spy tradecraft, World War II history, or plain old-fashioned good writing will appreciate this novel. Could the notorious double agent Kim Philby really have been a triple agent, as the author suggests in the Coda? Instead of being a spy against Great Britain, was he actually working against the Soviet Union? As one character in the novel says to Philby’s father, “What you are suggesting, St. John, is out of the realm of possibility.”

This reviewer must agree, but then again . . .

Arthur Kerns is a retired FBI special agent. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, and his espionage thriller novel, The Riviera Contract, will be published in Spring 2013.