High Treason at the Grand Hotel, Kelly Oliver

When I first participated in writing workshops years back at a state university in the Southwest, I bought into what seemed that program’s regnant narrative. This, I should say, to my discredit. For that narrative was a stern one—literature was serious business, an act of psychological spelunking intended to probe whatever, often mundane situation to uncover whatever shattering (discomforting... disturbing... transgressive... transformative... pick your own overwrought adjective) kernel of truth might lurk within.

I became a believer! By the Lit-Fic Borg, I’d been assimilated! The crime and espionage fiction on which I’d subsisted through college became an embarrassing memory. Science fiction and fantasy, mainstays of my high-school years, did not deserve mention. I went overboard. I remember sitting in one writing prof’s office and informing her that I’d come to believe that literature oughtn’t be about much of anything—its terrain ought to be the dreary quotidian, its task to rip away the scab of the ordinary and reveal the unhealed flesh beneath.

Stephen King—or, rather, the fact of him—delivered the first hammer blow to this wall I’d erected between myself and much of the world of letters. As I sat one day in workshop, listening to another fledgling writer outgas regarding King’s shortcomings (a bit of a lit-student go-to, that; I’d probably done it myself) a particular thought occurred to me—yeah, said thought went, SK’s no Thomas Mann, but he entertains hundreds of millions of readers. You can go your whole life and not meet another person who’s read The Magic Mountain. Try that with Carrie, or Salem’s Lot, or The Shining.

And is entertaining bazillions of readers not worth something? Or is it that reflexive rejection of popular, less literary fiction is fatally problematic? In either event, my self-erected wall commenced to crumble. My recovery from literary snootiness had begun...

...making me, ultimately, into the reader I am today—one who can snatch up a novel intended for simple entertainment, like Kelly Oliver’s High Treason at the Grand Hotel, and be, well, entertained by it.

Fiona Figg, file clerk in Room 40, World War One Britain’s nearly all-male center for code-breaking, finds herself by dint of her photographic memory in wartime Paris, shadowing the elusive Frederick Fredericks—journalist, big-game hunter, and (Fiona suspects) assassin specializing in the, erh...removal of double agents.

As she seeks proof of Frederick’s treachery, Fiona contends with her button-down superiors in British Intelligence; with the exotic dancer, Mata Hari; with the Paris Gendarmes and Louis Renault, founder of the French auto empire. Toss in, for good measure the odd serial killer; the charming Aussie, Archie Somersby; and, most obtrusively, the gallant and seemingly dull-witted British officer, Clifford Douglas, Fiona’s suitor and—inconveniently—Frederick’s fast friend.

This amiable espionage tale (dare I say, cozy spy story?) owes much in terms of its sensibility to mannered forebears like Agatha Christie. Violence hovers, but happens off the page. The damsel does indeed find herself in distress, but one feels always sure that Fiona’s cleverness, pluck, talent for disguise, and love of a good hat will carry the day.

Oliver’s writing can be breathless, but suitably so...

The wheels of my brain were awhirl. Both Frederick Fredericks and Mata Hari were persons of interest to British Intelligence. And they knew each other. But what did the fiendish Frederick Fredericks have to do with the passport-stealing Mata Hari? Were they both spying for the Germans? I was determined to retrieve my passport and find out.

Or...

I told Abby my plan. She was nervous, but agreed to give it a try. After all, if the dastardly Désiré Landru was here at the hotel, where was Berthe? We planned to find out even if it meant conjuring a ghost.

Fiendish? Dastardly? Really?

Yes. Fiendish. Dastardly. Really. And in the context of this good-natured, early 20th Century spy story, they hit my 21st Century reader’s eye just right.

Period-evoking, mildly florid language notwithstanding, High Treason at the Grand Hotel is a tale marinated in feminist sensibility. Underestimated, condescended to, oft overlooked, Fiona is easily the better of her confederates and is the novel’s only true match for the diabolical Fredericks. (Diabolical?! Now I’m doing it!) And name the woman who’s spent an instant meeting with male colleagues who can’t identify with that! Gender dynamics are addressed gently in High Treason, but they inform this story at every turn.

Nice also are Oliver’s depictions of wartime Paris, in particular the quintessential, Parisian embrace of pleasure that renders even fear of defeat secondary to a tender breast of poulet, preferably immersed in a delicately seasoned sauce.

If you’re a habitué of the continent of cozy, if you want your excitement without too much blood on the wall, if you enjoy a resourceful heroine who (mostly) saves herself, then you’ll find a great deal to enjoy in High Treason at the Grand Hotel. This Fiona Figg novel is the second in a series.

High Treason at the Grand Hotel hits the bookshelves on January 5, coming. Buy it at your local bookseller’s or from bookshop.org, an online retailer that donates part of its proceeds to independent bookstores. A positive of capitalism is your ability to support merchants you favor with your dollars and to withhold said dollars from those who’ve grown fat and powerful. Jeff Bezos has enough of your money.