[Detective fiction has come so far as] to embrace political philosophy in the person of William F. Buckley Jr., that essayist, columnist, hymnodist of all things conservative, in his second thriller, Stained Glass. The first, Saving the Queen, was replete with ambiguity, irony, suspense—all those qualities we associate with Ambler, Greene, le Carre and company—and yet it put forward by example an argument about loyalty and guilt which was, to this reviewer, thoroughly convincing. Now Buckley advances his argument a further step, and onto more dangerous ground…. [In Stained Glass all] is ambiguity, all contributes to forwarding Buckley's analysis of a time when a truly bold West might have broken through the stranglehold Stalin had laid upon the Cold War, yet all is realistic in its conclusion that ultimately one must take action rather than wait for all of the facts, the options, the moral judgments...