First published 1993. Harper Collins, paperback, 1993, pp 253, c.90,000 words.
Duncan Kyle’s thrillers involve some high-octane plot which often use Russians as the bad guys and the fate of the world lying in the hands of some everyman. Exit follows this simple formular. It was the last thriller he wrote, and was published some five years after his previous one.
Sadly the plot here is totally unbelievable. The bad guys (several different groups) have an amazing ability to track our hero, who never bothers to resist kidnap and yet manages, ‘with one bound’, to get free again. One doesn’t usually read this type of book for fine characterisation, but all the people here are risible and the relationship between the hero and his girlfriend unbelievable. Characters appear and then disappear without reason.
All this is a great pity because I have enjoyed the simple pleasures of some of his earlier works. Plausibility is always stretched, but in this case, after a promising start, I found myself laughing at one ludicrous plot development after another. The opening scenes are set in Western Australia, which is an original and intriguing location. The story begins with a ‘youngish’ Perth based lawyer out on a sailing boat. One might expect this to foreshadow something, but no one goes sailing again. The most interesting character is the lawyer’s client whom we quickly learn is dead in prison. The lawyer then seems to be able to take an infinite amount of time off to jet around the world following up a mysterious, and insanely complicated, trail left by the dead man. The Australian lawyer’s girlfriend is supposed to be a major in the British Army, involved in intelligence work. Quite what she sees in him is not made clear, and indeed when they can ever see each other. He has a very poor line in ‘wise cracks’, which are irritating. There might be some explanation in The Honey Ant, his previous novel, which also features these two characters.
The dénouement is particularly laughable.
Don’t judge Duncan Kyle by this farrago. He has written much better stuff, e.g. A Cage of Ice, or A Raft of Swords. Avoid this one.
© William John Graham, May 2022