The Secret Guests by Benjamin Black

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on January 14, 2020

It isn’t easy to come up with a new plot for a suspense novel. John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, reimagines the history of England and Ireland during World War II in a thriller that blends politics with personalities. The royal family, worried about the safety of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose during the London Blitz, make a deal with the Irish government, with has remained neutral. The two princesses are taken to the Duke of Edenmore, a distant relative who has an estate in Tipperary, for safekeeping. The connection of the two girls to the royal family is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, but no secrets about the English are kept in Ireland.

The publisher’s blurb suggests that Black “has good information that the princesses were indeed in Ireland for a time during the Blitz.” Apparently, taking the princesses abroad was a contingency plan during the war, but at least officially, the plan was never implemented. The Secret Guests is a work of fiction so whether Black’s “good information” is accurate doesn’t really matter.

The girls, ages 14 and 10, are given new identities and a cover story to explain their sudden appearance at the Duke’s estate. The two princesses feel sisterly contempt for each other, but they have even less regard for Celia Nashe, an MI5 officer whose gender accounts for her assignment to babysit “a couple of girls.” Ireland’s contribution to the security team is Detective Garda Strafford, an uncomfortable Protestant whose religion seems to be his primary qualification for the job. Longing for a hero she can love, Margaret eventually turns her starry eyes to Stafford, but only after her early fixation on Billy Denton, a shabby groundskeeper who doubles as the Duke’s steward.

Denton is crucial to the novel’s political background. His mother was shot during the Irish War of Independence, although by which side is a matter of speculation. Strafford is worried that Denton may be sympathetic to the IRA, although Strafford, “as a descendant of the land grabbers who had flooded over from England three centuries before,” feels “suspended between two worlds, two sets of sensibilities, two impossible choices. Poor Ireland; poor divided little country, gnawing away at immemorial grievances, like a fox caught in a snare trying to bite off its trapped leg.”

The English are concerned that kidnapping a couple of princesses might be beneficial to the IRA. The fear is the IRA will trade the princesses to Hitler, who will hold them as hostages to destroy British morale, in exchange for allowing the IRA to rule Ireland as a puppet government. The local faction of the IRA, led by Boss Clancy, is generally regarded as harmless. Clancy lacks the resources to kidnap two girls from an estate that is loosely guarded by soldiers. But he does have contacts, and Belfast eventually supplies a couple of tough men who know to get things done.

As background to the political intrigue, various characters either backbite or sleep with each other. Sexual liaisons compete with the political undercurrent of a divided Ireland to hold the reader’s attention until action scenes drive the story to its ending. Black’s dependence on complex characters rather than chase scenes to carry the story gives The Secret Guests credibility that modern thrillers too often lack. As always, Black writes with graceful muscularity. With a good plot, strong characters, and a fascinating historical background, The Secret Guests pushes all the right buttons.

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