Let me tell you about Gabriel Dax. He's a Cold War-era travel writer who goes all over the world. That nicely positions him to also be a British secret agent. But he also gets envelopes of cash from ...

Over the course of his career, William Boyd has excelled at two types of novel. There are comic romps in which hapless protagonists—such as the British diplomat Morgan Leafy of “A Good Man in Africa” ...