Saving the Queen is a 1976 Blackford Oakes

Blackford Oakes

Blackford "Blackie" or "Black" Oakes is a fictional character, a Central Intelligence Agency officer and the protagonist of a series of novels written by William F. Buckley, Jr.-Early life:...

 novel by William F. Buckley, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...

. It was the first of 11 novels in the series.

Plot

It reveals Oakes's childhood and educational background, his recruitment into the CIA, and Agency's procedures for "handling" him. His first assignment sends him to Britain, where he must identify (and deal with) a high-level security leak close to the Queen of England.

Rufus, the enigmatic genius behind American intelligence operations, is also introduced.