The Untouchable (novel)

The book is written as a roman à clef, presented from the point of view of the art historian, double agent and homosexual Victor Maskell—a character based largely on Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt and in part on Irish poet Louis MacNeice.

Maskell indicates that he suspects the presence of a concealed or perhaps sublimated homosexuality in the life and personality of George VI.

Maskell undertakes a secret mission to occupied Germany to rescue some documents which could prove embarrassing to the British royal family as they indicate the extent of King Edward VIII's (later the Duke of Windsor) contact with the Nazis.

Banville himself said that the motivation to write the book came from seeing Blunt smile to himself when not aware of being on camera, just before giving a press conference following the announcement to the British House of Commons (by prime minister Margaret Thatcher) of his role as the 'fourth man' in the Burgess-Maclean-Philby spying ring.

The small secret smile, said Banville in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, was the smile of a man who had been interrogated by the British secret services and dealt with a Soviet minder for years, and who knew he had nothing to fear from a roomful of journalists.