CI5HQ mini review challenge: The Greatest Treason

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

I've been reading quite a lot recently, since I think I am up for the crack_van next (help! I'm last on the list! We need more drivers! Go and sign up here). So I have quite a bit of choice for "recently read". This story's one I found some months ago, and I keep coming back to it.

It's the one story in the zine D-Notice which is not online somewhere. (Chalk and Cheese is on AO3, the other three on the Circuit Archive.) I bought D-Notice second-hand a while ago, despite having read four of the five stories. (At least it meant I knew I'd like most of it.) The Greatest Treason was the big unknown. I'm now really glad I got the zine, or I would never have come across this story, and I like it very much.

It is a blackmail story, but this time this is not some undercover "draw the blackmailer out by pretending to be gay" plot. Bodie really is being blackmailed. He heads straight to Cowley, and Cowley, faced with the photographic evidence that two of his agents are lovers, is appalled and unforgiving. Flashbacks and memories are interpolated with the developing plot and that's how we learn what's been going on. I know some people don't like this technique, but I enjoy it when it's well-done, and I did here. I didn't feel I had to work hard to unravel it, or anything.

I like the characterisation of all three. This is a Cowley I can believe in, and the reaction I'd expect - especially his proposed solutions towards the end. The scene where Bodie discovers quite how it has affected Cowley really caught me, although the scenes involving Doyle are much more fun to read! I like Doyle's belligerence, and his feelings about Cowley. And there's the interaction between Bodie and Doyle after Bodie finds out something he hadn't known about his partner. (I am desperately trying not to spoil the plot here, can you tell?) There's some smashing dialogue, and some lovely terse descriptions.

The whole zine is good, but this was a stand-out story for me.

Comments

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

More zines to check into - yay! :D

This one sounds pretty good - on one level, I could see an intolerant Cowley as being very, very realistic. Given the character, it could be homophobic, but it's much more likely the threat to CI5 because of the blackmail threat. So this one goes on the list as well.

Actually, I want to do the Oct. crack_van, because I have stories with the right theme - but she's taking the signups as FIFO (frst in first out). So I'm trying to time it just right...

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Given the character, it could be homophobic, but it's much more likely the threat to CI5 because of the blackmail threat.
Good reasoning there. There another element at work too. Do you want to know more? I didn't want to give everything away, but if enough people are curious, I'll give a little quote from towards the start which points the way.

Well, looking back and knowing the end it does, at least!

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

Do you want to know more?

NOOOOO ~ no spoilers. I'll try to find the zine one way or another.

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

As a general comment, since Cowley tells us how much he hates prejudice of any sort in Klansmen, I'd need a very good reason to have him be homophobic. I don't think I have this particular zine but heaven only knows what's in my boxes. :)

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Moving from this story to the general (it's okay, golden_bastet, this isn't actually a comment on the storyline...) , I can accept any of a homophobic Cowley, a pragmatic Cowley, or a principled Cowley, if well-drawn.

*However*, I think it's reasonable to draw a distinction between Cowley's private beliefs about morality and Cowley's position in the corridors of power. We're writing about 1977-1982-ish, and British people and British power structures and British law were all generally more homophobic than not. The law might have changed, but social attitudes, by and large, hadn't. You were kicked out of the police if you were gay, it had not been decriminalised in the army, it had not been decriminalised in the merchant navy, and the security services saw it as a reason to fail 'positive vetting' in the civil service. So that's the canon background not just for Doyle and Bodie but for 90% of CI5, if we accept they're largely ex-army and ex-police. I think it's entirely plausible that most of CI5 would be, at best, like Murphy in Shoshanna's Never Let Me Down, "I don't hate them, but they're a security risk and shouldn't be in classified jobs" and at worst bigots prepared to let their judgement affect how they treat people.

Obviously I like to imagine it slightly differently, but I have absolutely no problem with Cowley behaving in keeping with the rest of the establishment - he has to work with them and for them and it was official policy that homosexuality meant you were a risk - before we even get onto what he actually believes.

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

An homophobic Cowley is absolutely and blatantly in contradiction with the most explicit canon: see "In the Public Interest"; not saying he would accept anything that could possibly be a threat to CI5.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

It's ages since I read this zine, so I need to take my life in my hands and sort through the zine cupboard! Thanks for the review - I really want to re-read the story now, as I hardly remember it at all!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The zine cupboard! *g*

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Heh! Life in your hands time *g*.

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

I think I have worked the life-cycle out: zine pile -> zine file -> zine shelf -> zine bookcase -> zine cupboard -> ....? (further research indicated, grant application follows)

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

Zine house, or course! :D

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in any comments you have - I hope I haven't done it a disservice!

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

I have very mixed emotions about these reviews! I love learning about new stories - but I hate it that many of them are not available :-(
You're review is a good one - sounds like a great story. Thanks for posting. I'll add this one to my wish list!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Try via loiteringpalely - I bet you'd have only to ask... *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I had to go away and find this story again too, to re-read it. It is pretty decent (though they apparently lived in New York at times... *g*), and I could believe Cowley reacting that way about keeping his own doorstep clean in the eyes of others. I liked the relationship between Cowley and Bodie too - the trust on Cowley's side, I mean, and the apparent understanding on Bodie's - and Cowley's reaction to that, and the way we're shown that Alf and Martin and Meredith and all have affected him so deeply (and that he's perhaps a wee bit twisted about it!) I don't have a problem with flashbacks done well either, and Conch/Shell is a good writer, so it all worked nicely! Thanks for the rec!

And flicking through the zine also reminded me that I've not read The Goodbye Soldiers for a very long time... so thank you for that too!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Yes, I liked the relationship between Bodie and Cowley in this, and totally forgot to mention that. Actually all the "how X regards Y" are interesting, because no two of them are alike: between Bodie, Cowley and Doyle, there are six different direct takes: we get Bodie thinking about Cowley, but also we learn what Cowley thinks about Bodie, and we get Bodie thinking about Doyle, and learn what Doyle thinks about Bodie, and how Cowley and Doyle regard each other are very distinct viewpoints. Come to think of it, Doyle voices how he thinks Cowley thinks of *him*, which is a seventh, I suppose.

The Goodbye Soldiers is brilliant, and it sidetracked me writing this review, but I thought I'd do the one that people were less likely to have heard of.

Still don't know what to think of Face Value in the same zine.

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

Of course for me this aspect is the most interesting. Is the story only available on a paper zine?

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

To the best of my knowledge, yes.