This is the first t William Boyd novel that I’ve read and I was attracted by the blurb notes and I wasn’t disappointed. Gabriel is a travel writer and sometime journalist who travels the world, returning periodically to his girlfriend and his mouse-infested flat. When he lands an interview with Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the Congo, he is told something that hardly registers with him at the time. On returning home, however, his newspaper does not publish his interview and he learns from a mysterious contact that Lumumba has been murdered. Inadvertently, Gabriel slowly becomes sucked into a story that that he can’t control and only understands in fragments.

As in other books, Boyd draws on a raft of events in the early sixties and builds a compelling story around them. The action moves from London, to Cadiz, Suffolk and also a cross-channel ferry and the story gains pace as he gets sucked in to something - but what? Who can he trust? What part is he playing in the story that is unfolding? The story seems to drift and one wonders what the author ultimately intends?

The main character is an former-public school boy, so there’s also a back story of childhood trauma, a difficult and distant brother, and old fashioned sexual/classist attitudes, as well as all the elements of a traditional spy story. A good read and somewhat old fashioned. But there are indications that it may be the first of a series of books with this character featured!
I WANT TO THANK NETGALLEY AND THE PUBLISHER FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ AN ADVANCE READING COPY IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

I don't usually read spy/espionage novels but this book gripped me from the opening flashback where the main character is a child in a burning house. I loved how the author weaved in such clever surprises and twists to the plot. It had me completely hooked and turning the pages to find out how things would end.

Another masterful novel from William Boyd. The compelling and intricate story of Gabriel Dax will keep the reader gripped throughout. Gabriel’s story is skilfully weaved around real time events and we are drawn in by a character who often seems to be buffeted along from all angles. He has drifted into a world of espionage and intrigue but unlike other spy figures he lacks curiosity and battles with his own low opinion of himself and his inability to say no to more dominant characters like his brother or Faith.

William Boyd’s writing is, as always, deft and engaging with perfectly drawn characters and an ability to make the reader feel like they are experiencing both the events and the inner turmoil of the main protagonist.

I would strongly recommend this book to any reader. I am delighted that this is only the beginning of our enjoyment of Gabriel and his world and eagerly await the next instalment!

A spy thriller set in the early 1960s, the Cold War chilling the western world. Talented travel writer Gabriel Dax unwittingly becomes a courier for an MI6 offshoot only to discover during his journeys across Europe he has been manipulated by the higher powers. I am not a fan of Cold War thrillers but the characters, period setting and sublime storytelling gripped me to the end.

"He had reached a point in his life from which there was no turning back, even if he should wish to. What had just happened had changed him in a profound way, he saw, a crucial way, and everything about him was different now."

Gabriel Dax is a travel writer who's inadvertently drawn into writing a political piece on Patrice Lumumba, a free Democratic Republic of Congo's first post-liberation leader, when he's offered a face-to-face interview with the man. The piece is never published as Lumumba is first deposed and then later, killed.

It's the early 1960s, and amid the Cold War, Gabriel is inadvertently drawn into a dark and covert world. Lumumba had foreseen his own death and now there are several parties who are looking for the tapes of Gabriel's interviews. At the same time, he's approached by MI6 to do some small jobs for them. Enamoured by the enigmatic operative Faith Green, Gabriel agrees, even as he realises that he's a cog in a wheel, though he doesn't know which way the gears are turning.

'Gabriel's Moon' is part spy thriller, part romance, part literary fiction. Gabriel is a mysterious character. Plagued by insomnia since he survived a fire as a six-year-old that killed his mother, he's looking for something ineffable to complete his life. He fixates on Faith Green, even as he's frustrated at being used by her and MI6. He's also resourceful and will eventually put all the pieces together, resulting in a shocking reveal that leaves him reeling.

William Boyd is masterful at creating a sense of pervasive, unsettled unease in the book. Gabriel is a fascinating, 'meaty' character whose self-analysis and therapy sessions draw the reader into his world. He's frustrating at times, going off the rails every now and then, but he keeps his wits about him.

A highly enjoyable novel full of machinations and suspense.

Gabriel Dax is an unwitting and, at first, unwilling spy in Gabriel's Moon. Set in the 1960s during the Cold War Dax is a travel writer with a couple of successful books to his name when he is approached by a woman, Faith Green, to purchase a painting by an artist living in Franco's Spain. It is all very cloak and dagger and there are plenty of twists and turns. The second thread of the story is about Dax's search for the truth about the fire that orphaned him when he was six years old that has caused him to suffer from insomnia ever since. Through sessions with a German psychoanalyst he finds ways to discover the truth about the fire.

The beginning of the book with Dax interviewing Patrice Lumumba was very good but overall I found Gabriel's Moon a rather unlikely tale with some threads not fully developed. A young woman Dax meets while in Spain meets an untimely death: but Dax doesn't appear worried that she might have been murdered. He assumes who has dug up some tapes from his garden and brushes this off. The psychoanalyst sessions have little depth to them and I found their inclusion strange. The search Dax makes to find out the truth about the fire was convoluted. The lustful feelings Dax has for his Wimpy girlfriend and then Faith have no bearing on the story at all. There are a lot of characters, most of whom play only a walk on part. The ending in particular seemed rushed and what was a good concept set in a recent bygone age seemed rather wasted to me. If you want an easy read book on a cold winter's night then this will be your cup of tea. Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General Uk for the opportunity to read this book.

This is the first is a series featuring Gabriel Dax, a travel writer who rather unwittingly becomes involved with espionage. Set in 1960 Gabriel is in the Congo interviewing the president for a friend, he tapes the interview, not knowing that soon afterwards the president would be dead. Gabriel is a flawed and not particularly likeable character. He has a girlfriend but he isn’t faithful, he suffers from insomnia due to a terrible experience as a child, leaving him orphaned. I haven’t read this author before but I did find his writing very compelling, the narrative includes parts of the transcripts from Gabriel’s sessions with a psychiatrist about his insomnia.

Briefly, for a while now Gabriel has been delivering small packages for his brother, who works for the foreign office, when he’s on his travels abroad. Then he’s approached by Faith Green, an MI6 handler, and he becomes her spy. Unlike his brother Faith pays him for his time and he starts to do regular jobs at her request. However, he is becoming obsessed with Faith, clearly attracted to her and he starts following her! Alongside his travel writing and amateur spying, he’s also looking into the fire that killed his mother, always believing that the fire was his fault.

The book is set during a very precarious era in history, some of which is included in the book including the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Congo and the Cuban missile crisis. I do enjoy that the book has been written around factual events. Life just seems to happen to Gabriel and I’m looking forward to see where it leads him next.

This is the latest from William Boyd, the first in a series featuring Gabriel Dax, who we first encounter as a 6 year old, his home Yeomanswood Farm burning down in a fire, his mother dead. His discordant memories of that night persist, leaving him with mental health issues, constant nightmares and sleepless nights in the present, a situation he is pushed into trying to resolve. Dax starts seeing a German psychiatrist, who advises him to look back into what precisely happened that night. Interspersed in the narrative are extracts from the transcription of his sessions. Dax had done the odd favours, deliveries, for his older brother, inscrutable, bluff, bland Sefton, working in the Foreign Office, with whom he had little in common.

Dax does not like staying put, always being in the same place, he needs to move, see new landscapes, cities and cultures, which has led to him become a moderately successful travel writer. Dax ends in the Congo, in Leopoldsville. Asked by an old university friend, Dax agrees to taping the new President Patrice Lumumba as he gives a fascinating interview in which he states many want him dead, not long after, Lumumba is killed. Dax returns to London, but his interview is never published, but it appears many want to lay their hands on his notes and tapes, but why? Dax becomes a reluctant spy for Fern Green and the intelligence services, or as he puts it, a courier, bagman, and useful idiot, a role that is to change his life as he tries to work out exactly what is going on.

There are twists, turns, double agents, termites, and danger galore as Dax goes to Cadiz in Franco's Spain, Poland, and other locations as Dax writes his upcoming new travel book on rivers. Dax is a fascinating character, how he cannot say no to Fern, his growing and worrying obsession with her, how surprisingly malleable and predictable he is, ensuring the ease with which he can be manipulated. This is a turbulent and terrifying period of history, that include Russian ambitions in Cuba, an America determined that this will not happen, amidst the background of a fearful world. I am eagerly anticipating the next set of Dax's adventures. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This story about Gabriel Dax who, while still haunted by the memory of his mother's death, is unwittingly recruited as an MI6 go-between is both a page-turner and intelligently written. I was hooked throughout, loved the pace, and did not want the story to end. An excellent read by a brilliant story-teller.

Upfront disclosure: I've read several books by William Boyd, and I love his writing. I enjoy his books because he knows how to tell a good story, drawing you in until you have to keep turning those pages to the end.

This book was no exception. The main character is haunted by a traumatic childhood event, blaming himself for the death of his mother. As a travel writer, he is invited to do a small favor for a government organization., and being short of money and possessing a curious nature and a sense of adventure, he agrees. This is the first of the requests he gets asked and/or coerced to do.
The other characters introduced are full-faceted, and you are never quite sure who Gabriel should trust or what he should do.

In the end, the whole picture is revealed in a satisfactory manner.

It's not my favorite William Boyd book, but it was an excellent read.

I really like Mr Boyd's style of writing, his use of words and effortless dialogue in particular., and ability to capture an era.
However, and I realise I'm in the minority here, I didn't really enjoy the book, mainly due to Gabriel, the protagonist. I would like to think it was the author's intention to him as a deeply flawed and unpleasant character who made some very dubious decisions, often based on his sexual feelings towards the very few women who seemed to feature in his life, but if it wasn't then the book was worse than I thought!
I'm still looking forward to his next one though
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy of this book
3.5 stars rounded up to 4

It was so easy to empathise with Gabriel. The opening chapter told the story of his Moon lamp, the house fire he thought it caused and the death of his mother leaving him orphaned at just six This thread wove itself through the larger story of espionage. Both stories intertwined well, leaving me the reader wanting closure on both aspects Great writing, riveting story, interesting characters make for an engrossing read.

Some are born spies, some achieve spyness and some have spyness thrust upon them. Travel writer Gabriel Drax is in the latter category. Outwardly, Gabriel has a great life, a steady girlfriend, his own home in London, and an exciting job travelling to exotic places and writing about them. Admittedly he doesn’t sleep very well, because he has nightmares about the fire that engulfed his home twenty-five years ago, when he was six, killing his mother and leaving him an orphan. The cause of the fire was recorded as his moon shaped nightlight, which contained a candle. He has an older brother, Sefton, who works for the Foreign Office and an elderly uncle, Aldous, who runs a small gallery. Now and again, Sefton asks him to drop off little packages when he’s abroad, which he does without worrying about why.
In 1960, the Belgian Congo was freed from its colonial master and Patrice Lumumba became the first elected President of the Republic of Congo. Gabriel has gone to write about the country and its tourist potential, but is invited to record an interview with Lumumba. Flying back to London, Gabriel is pleased to see a woman reading one of his books, but doesn’t speak to her. He sells an article based on the interview to a newspaper, but, before it’s published, a military coup overthrows the Congolese government and Lumumba is imprisoned. The story is spiked but he still has the tapes. Shortly after, he meets Faith Green, the woman from the plane, who tells him that Lumumba has been killed by a firing squad, a fact he cannot verify because no one knows. Faith is a member of an MI6 group and persuades him to carry out a small task for her in Spain, rather like Sefton has had him do, although not for brotherly love but for £200 (about £2500 today). And so, as other little tasks turn up, Gabriel becomes a spy; and others worry about the tapes!
Woven in with the spy-story we have Gabriel’s work as a travel writer, his sex-life, and his attempt to discover, through psychoanalysis, what really caused the fire. None of these are completely resolved at the end, but I suspect there may be a sequel. The writing, as you would expect from Boyd, is very strong, with good descriptive text about the places Gabriel visits. However, the plot is a bit linear and touches most of the ‘spy-story’ tropes without any surprises. The historical details are accurate (I remember them) and do invoke the paranoia of the early sixties, which might surprise younger readers. I enjoyed the book but didn’t really empathise with any of the characters, which meant I didn’t care that much about the outcome.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

As as long term reader and fan of William Boyd I was delighted to read Gabriel’s Moon. This is a thoroughly entertaining spy novel based in the 60s. Gabriel Dax is a successful travel writer with a tragic past which overshadows his life. At a crossroads in his life he is reluctantly dragged into some work for the secret services which seems to neatly dovetail with his new job for a glamorous political magazine.
As he travels through Spain and Warsaw at the behest of the glamorous Faith Green he finds himself more and more involved in something much bigger and frightening than he realised.
A cast of fabulous larger than life characters and the charming and often bewildered Gabriel make this an extremely likeable book which romps along at pace. It made me laugh out loud in places and it’s certainly not William Boyd’s most serious book but it fully commits to its 60s setting and the political world of the time. A delightful and entertaining novel.

We start in the past with a very young Gabriel Dax on the worst night of his young life, when a tragedy, a house fire, took the life of his mother. Back in the present, we catch up with him as a young man who is still haunted by memories of that night. He is now a travel writer specialising in the Cold War countries. He is offered, by a friend, the chance to interview a prominent political figure, Patrice Lumumba, the newly elected PM of Congo, and it is this interview that sets his life off on yet another path. It appears to have brought him to the attention of the security services and they, under the supervision of Faith Green, want him to undertake a small mission, to go and buy a picture from a famous artist. Meanwhile, in his personal life, he is trying to come to terms with his past by way of seeing a therapist...
I do have a few of this author's books on my tbr, but I am ashamed that they have never quite made it to the top. After reading, devouring, and absolutely loving this book, I am definitely going to make a concerted effort to bump them up.
Gabriel is a wonderful character, very much shaped by his past, and also his relationship with his brother, Sefton, through whom he has already tasted the life of a spy! I took to him from the off, something about him resonated with me and that relationship only grew as the book progressed and I got to know him better. As for the plot - oh my days, what a tangled web that author has indeed woven. I really had to have my wits about me whilst reading and I still didn't cotton on to everything! Brilliant. It's a bit of a slow burn initially bu there are quite a few pieces to put into place before the whole picture starts to emerge. Which means that the pacing adds to the interest and intrigue and it draws you in slowly but surely.
And the ending - wow... Brilliant. In fact the only thin bad about it was having to say goodbye to Gabriel. I wonder if (hope that) we will meet again...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

William Boyd has written some of my favourite reads, and I am always very keen to read his latest book. “Gabriel’s Moon” is another excellent read, a spy thriller with an accidental spy as well as more traditional, career “spooks”. The main protagonist, Gabriel, the accidental spy, is a not especially likeable travel writer, a flawed individual with troubled childhood memories which he is attempting to understand. The tension in the plot ratchets up as the novel progresses, with several lighter moments that got me laughing, and a twist at the very end which left me wondering what he’d be doing different next …

Although I much prefer the author’s earlier spy novel, Restless, this one also has to be a 5 star read.

Long been a fan of William Boyd and this was right up there with his best.. Typical world wide scope and typically the story cracks along. A treat to have him write in the spy genre without losing the research that makes his novels such a joy.

This is good old-fashioned story telling with no tricks. Gabriel's moon is a compelling Cold War spy story that slowly builds into a page turner. Gabriel, a likeable, everyman travel writer, is slowly sucked into the secret services. He is never quite sure how it happened, but in trying to work it out he is sucked further and further into the world of agents and double agents. He becomes a reluctant spy, bumbling innocently onwards because at the time it always seems to him the easiest way to get out of the complex world he finds himself in. Beautifully written with an accurate sense of the 1960's and highly entertaining. I enjoyed Gabriel's company immensely.

I thoroughly enjoyed William Boyd's latest novel 'Gabriel's Moon'. Spanning from 1960's London over sunny Cadiz to cold war Warsaw, the story of the accidental spy Gabriel Dax is fascinating to follow. William Boyd's writing is exquisite as ever, beautifully descriptive and you feel you are actually there with Gabriel trying to figure out who is spying for who and how to get out of tricky situations. A highly recommended and captivating read!
Many thanks to #NetGalley and #VikingBooksUK for the ARC.

I have read all of William Boyd’s novels – it’s a long list now – and each time I wonder: will he finally drop the ball? And each time he answers: no.

Gabriel’s Moon is not one of his very best – but his best are truly exceptional, see Any Human Heart, The Romantic and The New Confessions - but it is still very, very good and like all his novels you read it with the wind at your back and a spring in your step.

I always call Boyd’s novels an easy read. This is can so be often a back-handed recommendation but here it is nothing but praise. He writes so well, confidently, but not showily, wearing all the research that he has done so lightly that it is like putting your foot into a handmade shoe.

You do not need to worry about picking up a Boyd novel; you know you won’t be bored; you know you won’t be confused. You know you won’t be distracted by howling errors and clunky language. He is a solid-gold novelist and Gabriel’s Moon is a treat.

I won’t go into endless details about the plot – just read it – but Boyd uses his skills at conjuring historical times and foreign places to good effect, bringing to life the early 1960s where post-war paranoia bumps up against burgeoning permissiveness.