Books, Arts & Manners: Living History

A Very Private Plot, by William F. Buckley Jr. (Morrow, 272 pp., S20)

LET us register an extraordinary datum: that William F. Buckley Jr., in his tenth Blackford Oakes espionage thriller, has not—as one might expect and excuse—begun to flag at all. He is a better fiction writer now by leagues than he was in 1976, when Saving the Queen took off. New directness and clarity jumpstart his prose. He has command of several voices and can modulate each. And. structurally, his later volumes—I date the mature Blackford from See You Later Alligator (1985)—have had an arrow-shaped ease and purpose. Mr. Buckley is no longer the polemicist/politician/media person who also writes fiction. He is fully a novelist. Self-confidence long ago replaced self-consciousness. A Very Private Plot is his best and most affecting Blackford yet.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

A Very Private Plot, by William F. Buckley Jr. (Morrow, 272 pp., S20)

LET us register an extraordinary datum: that William F. Buckley Jr., in his tenth Blackford Oakes espionage thriller, has not—as one might expect and excuse—begun to flag at all. He is a better fiction writer now by leagues than he was in 1976, when Saving the Queen took off. New directness and clarity jumpstart his prose. He has command of several voices and can modulate each. And. structurally, his later volumes—I date the mature Blackford from See You Later Alligator (1985)—have had an arrow-shaped ease and purpose. Mr. Buckley is no longer the polemicist/politician/media person who also writes fiction. He is fully a novelist. Self-confidence long ago replaced self-consciousness. A Very Private Plot is his best and most affecting Blackford yet.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.