The Memory Room, by Christopher Koch

“There’s something oddly unsatisfying about tales of Australian spies. Perhaps I’m just guilty of some kind of cultural cringe, but any espionage that requires a meeting in a coffee shop in Canberra’s “Civic centre” lacks a necessary frisson of interest. Trenchcoats by Lake Burley Griffin suggest porn-trading politicians rather than Cold War capers to me. But this marginality is an all-too-familiar quality to Christopher Koch, the author who memorably had a character remark in an earlier novel that Australia was “outside history”. His latest novel, The Memory Room, follows on from this notion, directly and indirectly exploring the ways Australia’s existence at the fringe of global events affects those who work in its intelligence community.’ Read the review at the Melbourne Age.