I said. “Don’t you get lonely at night?”
“We’re in here,” said Amelia, opening a door.
I followed her into a big study, adjoining the sitting room, which was presumably where Marty Rhinehart worked on holiday. There was a similar view from here, except that this angle favored the ocean more than the pond. The shelves were full of books on German military history, their swastikaed spines whitened by exposure to the sun and the salt air. There were two desks: a little one in the corner at which a secretary sat typing at a computer, and a larger one, entirely clear except for a photograph of a powerboat and a model of a yacht. The sour old skeleton that was Marty Rhinehart crouched over the wheel of his boat—living disproof of the old adage that you can’t be too thin or too rich.
“We’re a small team,” said Amelia. “Myself, Alice here”—the girl in the corner looked up—“and Lucy, who’s with Adam in New York. Jeff the driver’s also in New York—he’ll be bringing the car back this afternoon. Six protection officers from the UK—three here and three with Adam at the moment. We badly need another pair of hands, if only to handle the media, but Adam can’t bring himself to replace Mike. They were together so long.”
“And how long have you been with him?”
“Eight years. I worked in Downing Street. I’m on attachment from the Cabinet Office.”
“Poor Cabinet Office.”
She flashed her nail-polish smile. “It’s my husband I miss the most.”
“You’re married? I notice you’re not wearing a ring.”
“I can’t, sadly. It’s far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security.”
“Ah.” We understood one another perfectly.
“The Rhineharts also have a live-in Vietnamese couple, but they’re so discreet you’ll hardly notice them. She looks after the house and he does the garden. Dep and Duc.”
“Which is which?”
“Duc is the man. Obviously.”
She produced a key from the pocket of her well-cut jacket and unlocked a big gunmetal filing cabinet, from which she withdrew a box file.
“This is not to be removed from this room,” she said, laying it on the desk. “It is not to be copied. You can make notes, but I must remind you that you’ve signed a confidentiality agreement. You have six hours to read it before Adam gets in from New York. I’ll have a sandwich sent up to you for lunch. Alice, come on. We don’t want to cause him any distractions, do we?”
After they’d gone, I sat down in the leather swivel chair, took out my laptop, switched it on, and created a document titled “Lang ms.” Then I loosened my tie and unfastened my wristwatch and laid it on the desk beside the file. For a few moments I allowed myself to swing back and forth in Rhinehart’s chair, savoring the ocean view and the general sensation of being world dictator. Then I flipped open the lid of the file, pulled out the manuscript, and started to read.
ALL GOOD BOOKS ARE different but all bad books are exactly the same. I know this to be a fact because in my line of work I read a lot of bad books—books so bad they aren’t even published, which is quite a feat, when you consider what is published.
And what they all have in common, these bad books, be they novels or memoirs, is this: they don’t ring true. I’m not saying that a good book is true necessarily, just that it feels true for the time you’re reading it. A publishing friend of mine calls it the seaplane test, after a movie he once saw about people in the City of London that opened with the hero arriving for work in a seaplane he landed on the Thames. From then on, my friend said, there was no point in watching.
Adam Lang’s memoir failed the seaplane test.
It wasn’t that the facts in it were wrong—I wasn’t in a position to judge at that stage—it was rather that the whole book somehow felt false, as if there was a hollow at its center. It consisted of sixteen chapters, arranged
“We’re in here,” said Amelia, opening a door.
I followed her into a big study, adjoining the sitting room, which was presumably where Marty Rhinehart worked on holiday. There was a similar view from here, except that this angle favored the ocean more than the pond. The shelves were full of books on German military history, their swastikaed spines whitened by exposure to the sun and the salt air. There were two desks: a little one in the corner at which a secretary sat typing at a computer, and a larger one, entirely clear except for a photograph of a powerboat and a model of a yacht. The sour old skeleton that was Marty Rhinehart crouched over the wheel of his boat—living disproof of the old adage that you can’t be too thin or too rich.
“We’re a small team,” said Amelia. “Myself, Alice here”—the girl in the corner looked up—“and Lucy, who’s with Adam in New York. Jeff the driver’s also in New York—he’ll be bringing the car back this afternoon. Six protection officers from the UK—three here and three with Adam at the moment. We badly need another pair of hands, if only to handle the media, but Adam can’t bring himself to replace Mike. They were together so long.”
“And how long have you been with him?”
“Eight years. I worked in Downing Street. I’m on attachment from the Cabinet Office.”
“Poor Cabinet Office.”
She flashed her nail-polish smile. “It’s my husband I miss the most.”
“You’re married? I notice you’re not wearing a ring.”
“I can’t, sadly. It’s far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security.”
“Ah.” We understood one another perfectly.
“The Rhineharts also have a live-in Vietnamese couple, but they’re so discreet you’ll hardly notice them. She looks after the house and he does the garden. Dep and Duc.”
“Which is which?”
“Duc is the man. Obviously.”
She produced a key from the pocket of her well-cut jacket and unlocked a big gunmetal filing cabinet, from which she withdrew a box file.
“This is not to be removed from this room,” she said, laying it on the desk. “It is not to be copied. You can make notes, but I must remind you that you’ve signed a confidentiality agreement. You have six hours to read it before Adam gets in from New York. I’ll have a sandwich sent up to you for lunch. Alice, come on. We don’t want to cause him any distractions, do we?”
After they’d gone, I sat down in the leather swivel chair, took out my laptop, switched it on, and created a document titled “Lang ms.” Then I loosened my tie and unfastened my wristwatch and laid it on the desk beside the file. For a few moments I allowed myself to swing back and forth in Rhinehart’s chair, savoring the ocean view and the general sensation of being world dictator. Then I flipped open the lid of the file, pulled out the manuscript, and started to read.
ALL GOOD BOOKS ARE different but all bad books are exactly the same. I know this to be a fact because in my line of work I read a lot of bad books—books so bad they aren’t even published, which is quite a feat, when you consider what is published.
And what they all have in common, these bad books, be they novels or memoirs, is this: they don’t ring true. I’m not saying that a good book is true necessarily, just that it feels true for the time you’re reading it. A publishing friend of mine calls it the seaplane test, after a movie he once saw about people in the City of London that opened with the hero arriving for work in a seaplane he landed on the Thames. From then on, my friend said, there was no point in watching.
Adam Lang’s memoir failed the seaplane test.
It wasn’t that the facts in it were wrong—I wasn’t in a position to judge at that stage—it was rather that the whole book somehow felt false, as if there was a hollow at its center. It consisted of sixteen chapters, arranged
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