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ONE MAN'S FLAG is the second book in David Downing's new WWI series. Modeled after his engrossing Station Series, which covered the whole expanse of WWII, this new spy series encompasses the years of the earlier war. ONE MAN'S FLAG takes place in 1915, focusing on the issues leading up to America's entrance into the war.
The main character is Jack McColl, a British spy, and his love interest is Caitlin Hanley, an American journalist whose family has become personally involved in the fight for Irish independence. The British execute her brother Colm for his part in an act of terrorism. The events of the first Jack McColl book are important to the current story line, as we learn that Jack, perhaps unwittingly, betrayed her brother to the British. Although Jack and Caitlin were in love, she has vowed never to see him again.
This novel is episodic. Events occur and are resolved, but the only clear thread holding the book together is the question of whether or not Jack and Caitlin will be able to overcome their political differences and be together. Their jobs, to spy and to report, put them into the thick of the action, but their grand associations seem contrived. Jack knows Gandhi from his time in India. Caitlin knows Lenin. Caitlin met the labor activist Joe Hill in a bar and he dedicated a song to her. Caitlin is friends with Emmeline Pankhurst, the famous British suffragette.
The reader may suspect that Jack and Caitlin will survive, since this is only book two and WWI has barely begun. The Station series followed the adventures and difficulties of a pair of lovers and it seems likely that this series will use the same template. Downing might need to keep them alive in order to write about all the war years yet to unfold. Sensing that they are ultimately safe may be the reason the current book lacks sustained suspense and tension. Although Jack and Caitlin are at various times in mortal danger, faced with guns or threatened with prison, each always manages an escape, sometimes in less than believable fashion. As with all his books, Downing includes much background and historical detail, and his insights are illuminating. Here, however, these passages often seem to interrupt the action. The reader may hope that the next book in this series will be more engaging.
§ Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, November 2015
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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