Book review: Spy thriller Argylle has all the impact of a sock falling off a bed

Apple allegedly stumped up $200 million for the film rights, but this generic yarn fails to live up to the advance hype

Henry Cavill as the eponymous spy and singer Dua Lipa in the movie adaptation of Argylle

Truth is stranger than fiction although the truth in this case is hazy. According to the blurb, Argylle is Elly Conway’s first novel, which this“reclusive writer based in New York” started while recuperating from a serious accident.

An author’s note that prefaces this new edition (although evidence of a previous one is scant) expands further. While she was getting over “this terrible thing”, a book of landscape photographs gifted by her mother engendered a “tug ...