The Secret Agent - post I

It takes a while to get into this book. The story doesn’t flow from the start and it is difficult working out just exactly what is happening with the main character Mr Veloc appearing to run a shop and be in the pay of some embassy as a secret agent. The shop, which sells among other things pornographic pictures mainly operates at night with the aid of some low burning gas lamps.

Mr Veloc is married to a woman that gave him the opportunity to gain a house with some furniture but also a live-in mother in law and a useless brother-in-law who lost his last job after setting off some fireworks in the stairwell.

But life seems okay with Mr Veloc moving around his world in firm command. That is until he is called into the embassy and has an encounter with Mr Vladimir who accuses him of doing next to nothing and demands an outrage in the next month suggesting that he blows up the Meridian in Greenwich to try and stir up the apathetic middle classes.

Despite hanging around with terrorists and anarchists the idea of the bombing throws Mr Veloc off his usual assured path.he gets together with the terrorists and thinkers that are part of his anarchist group and hoes to bed depressed that all they are full of is hot air. The only problem is that his brother-in-law has overheard some of the more descriptive oratory and is so wound up he can hardly sleep.

More tomorrow...