Getting the Memo--Tuesday Tomes #1

There is a moment about 2/3 through Private Wars, where author Greg Rucka uses the text of a memo not only to elide time in the story, but also to put a bullet through the plate glass window of the status quo, through which I'd previously thought I could see so clearly. And to think it wasn't even the text of the memo, but rather the "To" line, that did the shattering.

We've all had those moments where we have a piece of grave news dropped on us with the utmost mundanity. While seeming insignificant to others, both the what and the how stick with us forever. That Rucka knows this fact is laudable; that he demonstrates it so deftly is what sets him apart from his peers in the genre.

I give this example not only because it was so striking to me personally, but also because it illustrates what Rucka's Queen & Country series is...and what it isn't. Set among the ranks of the Special Operations Section of the British Secret Service, Queen & Country is the anti-James Bond (at least pre-Daniel Craig). Battles are fought as much with words as with fists, and they are won as much with pens as with pistols. Far from a world of laser-firing Omega watches and properly chilled Dom Perignon, Rucka never lets the reader forget his vision of the world of spies.

In short, it's a dirty business, best left to the indomitable and the sly.

Private Wars is the second novel set in the Q&C world (but the thirteenth story, the other eleven being comic volumes). Minder (i.e. operative) Tara Chace has returned from the devastating events of A Gentleman's Game and Operation: Red Panda, only to find herself plunged into an even more complex, dangerous mission in Uzbekistan. The current Uzbek president is close to death, leaving one of his two children to take office. Chief of the Minders, Paul Crocker, orders Tara to sneak into the country--without any local help--and come back out with the pro-West son and his child, before the power-hungry daughter gets to them. Add the complications of an arms deal come back to haunt SIS and Chace already being at her breaking point, and you have the setup for the most emotionally wrenching and politically labyrinthine tale Rucka has offered yet. (And since I've got at least a couple of good friends reading this series right now, that's all the plot I'm going to declassify.)

Private Wars serves as a turning point in the series. New characters are introduced, notably a new SIS Deputy Chief and a new CIA contact for Crocker, which shake up the long established relationships in the book from the word go. Supporting characters, particularly fellow Minders Nick Poole and Chris Lankford, are given more time to shine--an advantage over the comic format, of which Rucka makes the most, without ever slowing the book's momentum.

And Britain's top spy finds herself even more at odds with Britain's top spymaster. The increasingly rocky relationship between the icy Chace and her boss, the taciturn Crocker, gives the story its foundation and propels it forward. And beyond the fact that I...respond somewhat favorably to tales of grumpy spies, one of the most wonderfully accessible qualities of this book (the series, too) is that anyone who has worked in any sort of office can identify with the office politics these characters suffer. This identification, in conjunction with the realism with which the service is portrayed, makes the book's stakes and its characters much less abstract, much more personal.

Private Wars also seems like a turning point for Rucka's writing. He is already known as an author who gives his characters not only breath but brains, and he's especially praised for the complexity and authenticity of his female characters. But the increased maturity with which he writes Chace here--trying to speed through the intersection of duty and tragedy--points to the type of work he recently completed with Batwoman in Detective Comics and is beginning with Dex Parios in Stumptown.

Rucka has also grown even more fastidious (which I didn't think was possible) with respect to the integration of his research and his fiction. After reading this book, it occurs to me that, if I ever got lucky enough to interview Rucka, one of the first things I would ask him would be where he gets his news. I've heard him referred to as "Tom Clancy with a brain." Which is insulting, because this book proves Rucka's ever-growing place as a consummate--yet never overblown--stylist, where Clancy's work is a consummate, overblown bore.

Rucka gives us thoughtful prose, and with a Hammett-esque snap.

I cannot wait for October's release of the third novel, The Last Run, which will lead into the new volume of Q&C comics. I'm almost positive I know where the story will go.

And I know I'm going to love it when Rucka proves me wrong.

Bonus Feature:

I mentioned that the Q&C series is comprised of both comics and novels. To that end, because I've not seen it elsewhere very often, here is a comprehensive read order for the series to date.

Operation: Broken Ground

Operation: Morningstar

Operation: Crystal Ball

Operation: Blackwall

Declassified, Vol. 1 (technically published before Blackwall, but directly sets up Storm Front)

Operation: Storm Front

Operation: Dandelion

Operation: Saddlebags

Declassified, Vol. 2

Declassified, Vol. 3

A Gentleman's Game

Operation: Red Panda

Private Wars

The Last Run (available October 26)