Midway through TRIO, this observation is made: “This is 1968. Look around you. Germany, France, the U.S.A., Vietnam. The world is on fire, changing. Don’t go backwards.” Readers of a certain age know that 1968 was a year of calamity, both politically and culturally. In some ways, we are reminded of our current situation, but perhaps the passage of time has changed our view of the ’60s. It all seems much different looking back with eyes and minds that are 50 years older.

TRIO gets its title from three characters who are associated with the arts. Elfrida Wing is a once-successful novelist who now has extreme writer’s block coupled with an addiction to alcohol, which has put her career in a tailspin. Talbot Kydd is a film producer working in Brighton, England. He is supervising the production of Emily Bracegirdle’s Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon starring Anny Viklund, who is suffering from a problem with pills. The movie script is incorporated into the book with its Brighton location and story of an American actress who comes to England and falls in love with her driver. That plotline is repeated in the form of Anny’s secret affair with her leading man, former British pop star Troy Blaze, whose real name is an extremely British moniker, Nigel Farthingly.

"William Boyd has produced a thoroughly enjoyable, amusing and entertaining journey through England (with a side trip to Paris); a cast of eccentric characters; and an inordinate number of cups of tea and large gin and tonics."

While this might seem to be quite a bit for a novelist to undertake, Boyd is just getting started as he weaves into the story a large group of subplots populated with related characters. The movie Kydd is producing is directed by Elfrida’s husband, Reggie Tipton, who currently is undergoing a life-phase change that has even brought about his desire to be known professionally as Rodrigo. Anny has an American ex-husband, Cornell Weekes, who appears as a fugitive from justice hiding in England with American law enforcement hot on his trail. She reluctantly agrees to assist his efforts to remain underground, a decision that she will regret. Elfrida’s stalled career as a novelist seems to get a jump-start with her sudden inspiration to write a novel based on the death of Virginia Woolf.

Readers move from episode to episode as Boyd tells his story in a traditional British manner. None of his characters, not even the Americans, get too excited. They go about their business in the manner that the English do, quietly and calmly.

TRIO revolves around subjects that are precisely located in the sweet spot of Boyd’s life. He appreciates the illogical world of movie production, the difficult work of writing a novel and the absurd world of acting. The Scottish-born writer has penned 16 novels, several short story collections, countless screenplays of both his own work and others, and two Chekhov short-story stage adaptations. The book touches on espionage, an area in which he also has some experience. The estate of Ian Fleming asked him to write a James Bond novel; the result was SOLO, which was published in 2013.

William Boyd has produced a thoroughly enjoyable, amusing and entertaining journey through England (with a side trip to Paris); a cast of eccentric characters; and an inordinate number of cups of tea and large gin and tonics. It is great fun to read and follow the various agents, artists and investigators on their adventures. TRIO is a superb escape novel for the dark days of winter.