The Untouchable

By: John Banville

Narrated by: Bill Wallis

Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons, the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his photograph is all over the papers. His disgrace is public, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated… Maskell writes his own testament, in an act not unlike the restoration of one of his beloved pictures, in order for the process of verification and attribution to begin.

©1997 John Banville (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Delightful, light Irish intonation, rather than a full on accent by reader Bill Wallis

I have always been I intrigued by the whole business of the 5 spies including Blunt. This writing gets right so much of the thinking and attitudes of the participants. The story of betrayal and it's context is beautifully told, with some really lovely language, which I have come to expect from Banville. His knowledge of art is also quite expert.

The reader's intonation is perfect with his very subtle Irishness, and enormously much better than the reader of Banville's books by his alter ego, Benjamin Black. Those audio books were ruined for me by the labored Irish accent of the John Lee, who rolled every R and twisted his words with almost music-hall Irishness. .I will.only read those books, never listen!

A way with words

When I read or hear a Banville novel I am continually astonished at his way with words: rich, polished, one cascading after another like some great avalanche. Where, I wonder, does he find the time to concoct these great, rich, literary stews? I like to imagine the two of us sitting at a table in the back of some scruffy little bar, sharing a bottle of gin and talking long into the night. The closest I'd get to heaven.

Absolutely smashing peek into the mind of a spy

This novel purports to be the memoirs of Victor Maskell, a thinly disguised version of Anthony Blunt, on of the infamous Cambridge spies: well-educated upper class Beira who spied for the Russians from the 30’s to the 50’s. Not much derring-do or cloak and dagger. More a psychological and social inquiry. And the narrator could not have done a better job

I'm old enough to recognize all the players.

If you do not know the background of the Cambridge 5 and do not recognize the characters from real life this may not make much sense.Blunt,Burgess Mclean etc, I LOVED the story and the narration.Warning quite a lot of homoerotica.

fiction/literature doesn't get better that this

A fictionalized retelling of the Cambrige-Oxford British elites, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burrgess, Donald MacLean and Kim Philby, who worked for years together as spies for Communist Russia. Told in the first person, stream-of-consciousness Joycian style by Victor Maskell who is Anthony Blunt. In the novel Maskel/Blunt reminisces for a his biographer after Margaret Thatcher has "outed" and disgraced him in Parliament.

I'm a Banville fan, but I think this novel may stand the test of time as his best. Hard to read more pedestrian prose after putting this gem down.

The reader who 'performs' the audible version could not be better; obviously an actor who understands everything about the book, story and Banville's sense of humor. Will definitely "read" it again.