Exactly how steamy is this story?
G
Unless you're talking about the smoking hole in the ground left by Stevie's bomb, there's not all that much steam in this book. This might be surprising, considering that Verloc owns and operates a pornography shop… but we don't get to see any of the dirty pictures he sells.
Nope, The Secret Agent is more foggy than steamy. Instead of Titanic-style hands groping at steamy turn-of-the-century vehicles, we see those vehicles moving slowly through the cloudy, gray, and utterly depressing streets of London.
Yup. Not only is this novel essentially a PSA that shouts, "Never go to London, guys!" it's also an anti-aphrodisiac. The only time Verloc directly tries to get his wife Winnie to make sexytimes, she ends up stabbing him in the chest. The Secret Agent: a book where "penetration" refers to "knife-in-chest."