John Banville just won the Booker for the first time, and if you believe the folks who scribble about this kind of stuff, he was really awarded for his body of work. The Sea, which won, has been called by just about every critic I've come across a "slight" Banville effort. It's like those cumulative Oscars, when they panic and give it to the old guy not for his cloying performance in this year's overwrought Movie A, but because they now realize he may die and should have won one along the way. Banville ain't that old, but you catch my drift. So I've had Banville's 1997 novel, The Untouchable, staring at me from the shelf for a few years now, taunting as only the unread can. Happily, I can announce that this is not a lesser effort, and I'm going to guess blindly that it kicks dust in The Sea's face. It's a fictionalized, first-person faux journal from one of the Cambridge spies who was exposed for spying on merry olde England for the Soviets during WWII, and all the old Banville themes are here- the transforming power of art, the authentic life, appearances vs. reality, and booze. I won't bore you with plot summaries, but I will say that this is my second favorite Banville book (after The Book of Evidence), and if you haven't delved into this fine Irishman's work this would be a fine place to start. He's famous for his lyrical desriptions and sometimes opaque plot lines, but he eschews the latter here for a gay-sex-and- all spy thriller. Even the double lives have double lives. I'm giving The Untouchable a big fat thumbs up for the literary fiction crowd (how are you two anyway?), and I'm betting on a Canadian for next year's Booker. Atwood again? 3:1?