The hero of Saving the Queen (and its sequels) is Blackford Oakes, known familiarly as Blacky or Blackie. He is a perfect boy who grows up to be a "perfect" young man. First of all, he is amazingly handsome. To compare him to a movie star is totally inadequate; not only his mother, who may be expected to be biased, but Sally, his steady girl friend, as well as his more casual sexual partners, routinely describe him as a Greek god.

In addition, Blackford is amazingly intelligent, a magna cum laude graduate of Yale who has, of course, read Buckley's God and Man at Yale (1951). He is also very lucky. A good deal of his success consists of being at the right place at the right time — such as at a shop when the villain whom everyone thought dead is ordering his distinctive brand of cigarettes.

He...