In spy fiction, either you get a hero who’s prepared to knock a few heads together (if he’s being honest – and it is a he – one who actively relishes some head-knocking) or you get a hero who sits wondering whether they know that we knew that they knew that we know, filling in a hard cryptic crossword in pen as a way of resting the old brain cells.
Happily, Charlie Higson collapses the distinction.
The young James Bond does not start Double or Die a devoted solver: he encounters them through an “[Eton] messmate, Pritpal Nandra, the son of an Indian maharaja”, who is solving the Times.
Pritpal’s is a handy intellect to have access to, since in the kidnapping that starts the tale, the victim is a Times setter and is able to leave, in his clues, clues with arguably greater import: ones that may help Bond do his usual business of saving the world, or at least the British empire.
Most importantly of all, and as we always ask: how is the cluing?
We know that Charlie Higson is a devoted quizzer (and one who has set in this parish!); we also know that quizzes and crosswords follow different rules. So where is Double or Die on a scale from PG Wodehouse to (at the bottom) Martin Amis?
Here’s the clue that Pritpal has got to when the story begins:
3d Top-secret monkey (4)
And here are two that the kidnap victim includes in his plot-driving puzzle.
1a Spinning tornado, King Alexander’s problem (7,4)
7d Three-part sporting achievement’s smothered in it (7)
The first gives us, via “ape X”, APEX; the others are GORDIAN KNOT (anagram of “king tornado”) and TRINITY (TRY containing INIT). Let’s ignore the question of what the Times style of the 1930s would make of the cheekiness of the monkey clue: this is as good as fictional clues get.
From my point of view, the plot of Double or Die is all very gripping and that is all very well but the book’s primary purpose is to draw young adult readers toward cryptic crosswords and these surely do the trick.
A diligent man, Higson no doubt wanted to check the crossword parts of the book, and to check with the very best. Let’s have a quick peek at the acknowledgments …
My thanks to Sandy Balfour and John Halpern for guiding me through the world of cryptic crosswords and helping with clues.
Sandy Balfour and John Halpern, eh? He came to the right place. My only cavil is that The Deadlock Cipher is a much more Ludlumesque and therefore better title.
Our next book
Suggestions for future book club reading are very welcome. In the meantime, a collection described in these pages as “a second volley of pithy one-liners in the continuation of his life story”, David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day.
Other puzzling books
131 Words for Rain by Alan Connor can be preordered from the Guardian bookshop
