If your reading experience with Somerset Maugham is Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale, this will be a surprise. Spy stories: spare prose, desperate characters working to survive in an amoral fug.

If you think you don't like graphic novels, you probably haven't read Jaime Hernandez's Maggie and Hopey stories. His drawings are exquisite and he has a deep understanding of the lives of women.

This is an outstanding novel that deserves a wider audience, particularly now, at this juncture in American history. Warning: extreme poignancy.