Xavier Flynn is the pious agent of John Braine's novel of treachery within the British Secret Service. A devout Roman Catholic, Flynn belongs to a group of agents hired to dispose of England's interior enemies.

Flynn's personal assignment is to search out and eliminate the members of an undercover Trotskyite group, whose survival depends on sabotaging a family-owned, credit-to-private-enterprise motorcycle factory.

"Braine is a smooth, sophisticated writer...THE PIOUS AGENT is an exciting and stimulating read."(The New York Times)