Despite its affiliations with popular literary genres, Stallion Gate should be approached as a deliberate work of fiction; formally as well as thematically, it is an ambitious novel. Significantly, it is Smith's one novel which does not belong to a series. There has been no sequel. Liberated by the success of Gorky Park, Smith composed a novel intended to stand alone as a literary achievement. It should be read as his claim to be taken seriously as a novelist. It surely justifies that claim.

Smith exploits a number of established fictional forms — the detective novel, the spy novel, the western novel, even the historical novel — to construct his narrative. The conventions of any of these forms can be the starting point for discussion of his achievement. How has he, for example, stretched the formulas of the spy novel to make his points? Some of...