What happens when a movie starts production for a book before the latter is even published? You get a hell of a lot of publicity, and an air of intrigue and mystery surrounding both. Argylle is the story of (Secret?) Agent Aubrey Argylle and it is interesting, but not in a good way. Full disclosure, I have yet to watch the movie starring Henry Cavill, but noting some of the character names the movie feels like something a bit different and the book is more to set the backstory and add more context to the characters in the movie. With that said, this will be a review of the book on its own.

The book Argylle is essentially a spy thriller. It follows how Argylle is recruited by the CIA despite his less than ideal upbringing. He follows the typical trope of being banded in a training camp with other recruits, nobody of whom are happy he’s there. He’s picked on, shunned for the most part, and yet is considered to have the potential to be one of the best agents to ever come through the programme. Of course. Add to this a very Indiana Jones-esque plot and you’ve got a mishmash of everything that counts for an entertaining airport read, and by that I mean only worth reading once because options may be limited.

There were one too many issues I had with the plot of the book, especially with the reliability of one of the world’s top intelligence organizations. How do they make the same mistake in every scenario and why are they surprised they lose people when it keeps recurring. Apparently this old dog really can’t learn new tricks.

The antagonist of the story lacked any real flair, and while the author did try to come up with a James Bond villain vibe, it just fell flat. There was a bit of buildup to introduce this damaged character but it felt unnecessary, especially when many other characters were introduced and summarily forgotten for the rest of the book.

The protagonist isn’t any better to be honest. While the bulk of the book is focused on his rise to whatever status he probably possesses in the movie, it was all so dull. I’m a sucker for most books/media that show the whole rise of the underdog. That trope always stirs something in me (cue Rocky training montage) but there was very little struggle that our protagonist had to face after joining the team. By that I mean struggle in terms of getting better. Our author made it clear that Argylle had a lot of struggles growing up and is working very hard to live up to the values his parents instilled in him. As for the parents. Well, every character seems to have a tragic backstory which the author uses to bring characters closer together, because what works better than sharing childhood trauma with your training competitor.

Long story short, this book was meh. Wouldn’t really recommend it considering how saturated this genre is and how much better some of the other books are. I was left with too many questions after reading the book, and I only had an answer for one. Why did I even pick this book up? The answer: Henry Cavill. I felt that was a warranted a pick up, but after finishing it, and I’d rather not associate him with this anymore.

Links:

• Goodreads: Argylle – Elly Conway