The novel has the kind of political background that readers of Greene's The Quiet American (1955) and, more particularly, Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement (1984) would expect. It ends in Panama, with the "Captain" (only one more alias for this character) giving his life for the Sandinista revolution. Mr. Quigly, a CIA agent, and, apparently the "enemy" the title refers to, may or may not have given the order for Somoza's forces to shoot down the Captain's bomb-laden plane before it reached Somoza's bunker, and it is unclear who — the CIA, the Sandinistas, or the Panamanian National Guard — orders the death of the narrator, the Captain's "adopted" son, "Jim" (he was never formally adopted, and his name isn't really Jim; the ambiguities, illusions, and downright lies abound throughout the novel).

Even so, The Captain and the Enemy is not as political...