The Untouchable [Paperback]

One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, biting social comedy, and vertiginous moral complexity. The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation?

As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell's co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity,The Untouchableplaces John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre.

Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction

Contemporary fiction gets no better than this... Banville's books teem with life and humor. - Patrick McGrath,The New York Times Book Review
Victor Maskell is one of the great characters in recent fiction...The Untouchableis the best work of art in any medium on [its] subject. -Washington Post Book World
As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland; Joyce and Beckett notwithstanding. -San Francisco Chronicle Maskell takes his place with John le Carre's Alec Leamas as one of spy fiction's greatest characters.  Poetic and deeply affecting. -People

[Banville's] books are not only an illuminating read—for they are always packed with information and learning—but a joyful and durable source of aesthetic satisfaction. -The New York Review of Books

Enthralling... Victor Maskell is a thinly disguised Anthony Blunt... Banville has pulled off a marvelous series of tricks. -Anitlƒ*