Arcadia Scotland

This semester we invited David Goodman to talk to our students and our creative travel writing class about his latest novel A Reluctant Spy. The protagonist is a Scottish ‘fish out of water’ who is recruited to be the human cover story for an actual fully trained spy.  It is not giving too much away, given the title, to reveal that our noble Scottish fellow ends up having to take the place of the real spy. He has to learn rather quickly on the job as he travels around the world facing evil enemies in exotic locations eventually ending up in an evil lair. Surely the villains won’t reveal their evil plot to him?

This novel definitely captures the spirit of the great spy action thrillers from John Buchan, Ian Fleming, and John Le Carré to the more recent Mick Herron novels.  It is written with an incredible sense of place and atmosphere that brings to life the scenes as if watching a TV show or film. This is the only book I have read where after finishing the text I was almost confused whether I saw this on a 2D screen or read it as a novel given the fast action filled narrative and the visual power of the descriptive detail and language. David is clearly hinting towards a Bond credit with his style of writing and action. At one point I was fully expecting an army of wet suited enemies in one colour to be fighting another wet suited army of heroes conveniently in another colour (this doesn’t happen, but there is still plenty of action)! 

David is looking forward to the development of his novel into a TV format and I cannot wait! I really hope the television adaption keeps the Scottishness of the hero as central to the plot especially with his distinctive sense of humour as he faces ever increasing levels of threat. The recent memory of the relocating of Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things to London from its original setting of Glasgow in the novel has still left me reeling despite the creative brilliance of the film adaptation. 

Many thanks to David for coming to talk to the students. We can all help him fulfill his ambition to move more full time into his writing career by reading his fantastic book! See below for David’s wonderful talk to our students about his novel and becoming a published writer.