House of the Hunted by Mark Mills

Published by Random House on April 3, 2012

House of the Hunted begins in midstream, as if it were the sequel to a novel that had already set up the plot and established the characters.  It is 1919 in Petrograd.  As Irina Bibikov is surreptitiously released from prison, Tom Nash, who orchestrated her escape and is the father of her unborn child, flees from Cheka patrols.  Little by little, Mark Mills fills in the backstory.  We learn that Nash was working for the British Foreign Office until, after barely escaping from Petrograd during the Russian Revolution, he joined the SIS to better his chances of assisting the woman he loves.  His attempt to spirit Irina out of the country goes disastrously wrong; Nash has been betrayed and is lucky to make a second escape from Russia.

After that tense beginning, the story flashes forward to 1935.  It again begins in mid-stride, introducing new characters in a new setting (Toulon, France) as if they were already familiar to the reader.  The focus nonetheless remains on Nash, who is haunted by his failure to rescue Irina.  Despite his retirement from a life of danger, Nash becomes the target of an assassination attempt.  Even worse, he suspects he has been betrayed by one of his friends.  At that point the novel blends suspense and mystery as Nash tries to figure out who wants him dead and why.  The threat forces Nash to look back upon his life, giving the reader an abbreviated view of the events that shaped him, including some ugly childhood memories.

The characters in House of the Hunted are all erudite, well-educated and often artistic.  They make impossibly witty dinner conversation while consuming bottle after bottle of fine wine.  They are nonetheless a believable mix of Russians, Americans, Germans, French, and British, the sort of folk who might have summered (or lived) in a charming harbor town in the south of France between the two world wars.  Nash’s relationship with a goddaughter who is blossoming into adulthood adds an interesting dimension to Nash’s character as he tries to decide what to do about their changing relationship.

This isn’t a novel of jaw-dropping developments, and in that low-key sense House of the Hunted is more credible than many espionage thrillers.  Several small interpersonal dramas substitute for blockbuster international intrigue, although those dramas give birth to intrigues of their own.  There is nonetheless a significant surprise at the end, as well as a smaller one, neither of which I anticipated.  This is a novel without loose ends; all the storylines are carefully knotted together as the story reaches its climax.

Mills’ prose is as smooth as the cognac the characters love to drink.  He tells a smart, engaging tale.  While I felt emotionally detached from Nash and the other characters (maybe I’m just not a cognac kind of guy), I appreciated the skillful storytelling and enjoyed the unexpected plot developments.  The final chapter sets up the possibility of a sequel that I would love to read.  Nash is a worthy heir to James Bond, sophistication and grit without all the flash and gadgetry.

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