William F. Buckley Jr. (WFB) is an iconic figure in my life. I will spare you the details (for more see here and here), but suffice it to say when a new WFB book comes out I rush to pick it up. Such was the case for Last Call for Blackford Oakes. It is fitting that as Buckley begins to pull back from some of his more famous activities (The Firing Line, public speaking, his boat, control of National Review, etc.) that he wrap up the series of spy novels centered around Blackford Oakes.
Despite my love of all things WFB, I have always been a fan of the type of spy novels Blackford Oakes was designed to counter: dark, gray, ambiguous; full of what conservatives would call moral equivalence. I used to read Le Carre, Deighton, et al voraciously. But this didn't keep me from reading and enjoying Buckley's spy novels.
The Blackford Oakes series is interesting because it sheds light on Buckley and his way of thinking; or perhaps more importantly, his imagination. They are usually historical "what ifs" or "what might have beens." Blackford Oakes is the dashing young American spy out to thwart the evil empire and its minions. The Americans are always the good guys and the Communists are always the bad guys. In his defense, Buckley's bad guys are intelligent and believable, not simple caricatures. The books also include wry notes about National Review, key conservative politicians, and even Buckley himself. This is lively entertainment. They may not be his best work (Brothers No More is probably his strongest novel), but they are part of the larger Buckley phenomenon.
Those who have followed the series so far will likely enjoy this final volume (although Buckley hints that his assistant might "revive" the series). Picking up where he left off in A Very Private Plot, Last Call is set in the Reagan Era when Gorbachev is rolling out Perestroika and Glasnost and the US once again suspects a plot to assassinate the Russian Premiere. The aging Oakes is again sent to defuse the situation on orders of the President.
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