William HaggardResenhas

Perfect

Good

Good

Good

Good

Perfect

It is intriguing to see how tastes changes over the passage of time. This novel was first published more than sixty years ago, in 1958, and it would be fair to say that it has not aged well.

The plot revolves around the possible theft of secrets relating to the harnessing for commercial purposes of a newly discovered source of nuclear energy. Sadly, despite the potential for a gripping spy story that this opening scenario offers, the book is mired in mindless mundanity and peopled with characters who struggled even to be two dimensional. While I suppose I might be biased, I found the portrayal of the woodenness of the Civil Service left no prejudicial cliché knowingly overlooked.

I have just gone back to the vintage Penguin edition that I read to check that the title was correct, and that I hadn’t mistakenly lighted on a critical judgement of the book.

If you enjoy civilized spy stories, where adversaries can sit around and have intelligent discussions, even after one has shot the other, this is your kind of book. Perhaps in tone I would compare it to Eric Ambler, although Ambler's books generally center around a non-professional spy caught up in circumstances not of his choosing--a la Hitchcock. Here we have a multifaceted story of a scientist from a non-aligned communist country obviously modeled on Yugoslavia, who has come to England to make a speech. He has a breakdown when confronted by an English spectator and is rushed off to a hospital in the countryside where the real shenanigans begin. Mitrovic, his country's representative to the UK happens to have a good relationship with the head of the Special Executive, a shadowy spy agency headed by Colonel Charles Russell, the calm collected antagonist at the center of the story. As events begin to spiral out of control, pitting the Russians vs. an overambitious American diplomat in an attempt to either kill the scientist, kidnap him, or acquire his secrets in any way possible, Russell works with Mitrovic and the head of America's spy agency in London to bring about a satisfactory conclusion. Meanwhile, Starc, Mitrovic's right-hand man at the embassy, is up to no good. And he's pretty good at it.

In the end, the book satisfies but doesn't elate. While the cat-and-mouse game that is at the center of the story is fascinating, it requires a few mistakes and desperate acts to bring the story to its rather too-neat conclusion. Still, it is quite well written and definitely puts you into that 1960s spy mood in a more realistic manner than Bond or Helm. If I see another Haggard in a used book store, I'll definitely pick it up. There are other books about Colonel Russell, and he is a fascinating character.½

The blurb says this is the first spy novel by William Haggard - it is evident that he needs more practice. The action is in the world of top nuclear physicists, Whitehall Permanent Secretaries and highly placed spooks. Haggard had spent some years in Whitehall in undisclosed posts so the reader may assume that he knows the background which he portrays as snobbish, public school educated, cigar smoking, boozy and dependent on gentlemens' clubs.

Radiation associated with a secret British nuclear fuel is detected emanating from a semi-detached house in a London suburb. None of the fuel, which, incidentally, is vital for the economic future of Britain, is missing, so what is generating the rays, who created them and why from there? The plot is not particularly well constructed, relying too much on coincidence and improbabilities. The characters not very convincing. The chief scientist, Nichol, is pleasant enough, although his adolescent falling in love is a bit wet. He has a European housekeeper with an unexplained and improbable relationship with a fellow countryman who just happens to have significant links with another major character. The Whitehall mandarin starts out as competent, officious and defensive: the part he plays towards the end of the story is unbelievable, even allowing for the alcoholic skeleton in his cupboard. The Head Spook, Colonel Russell, is as interested in golf and the contents of the several decanters in his office as he seems to be in the case. His assistant, Mortimer, although made out to be less bright than his boss, is at least willing to believe a direct statement about the party responsible for a murder - Russell simply "won't believe it." Among the lesser characters are Mrs Tarbat and Eliot Parton. She lives in the radioactive semi and is a 'kept woman', providing sexual services for a trio of merchant bankers who play no other part in the story. When one of Russell's irregulars breaks into her house searching for clues she sits up in bed, naked, and threatens him with a pistol (this explains one of the popular covers). Fortunately he happens to know one of her 'young men' from army days so she is happy to provide her usual services, and lets him have it for a tenner! The author must have felt that he treated her unfairly as he has her marrying the said irregulal at the end of the book. Eliot Parton is a scientist, Nichol's second-in-command, is a Leftie and thought to be in contact with "Them", as Russell puts it. Apart from an Irish interlude where we learn that he casts a mean fly and calls sea trout sewin we don't get to know much about him. He is clearly just the right person to have as chief suspect. To keep the wheels of coincidence turning, his wife, who has left him, is the Permanent Secretary's official driver and also becomes the object of Nichols' passion.

There is a fair amount of silliness in the book, most of which would come under the heading of spoilers, but I cannot let past an attempt on Nichol's life after he attends a meeting of the Royal Society at Burlington House (now the Piccadilly home of the Royal Academy of Arts). A ten-wheeled lorry is lurking, unquestioned, in the courtyard and, as Nichols leaves, it tries to crush him in the narrow passage to the main road before escaping down Piccadilly. I do not see that this would have been possible, even in the 1950s.

The book reveals some interesting sociological changes to life in England over the last 50 years. After Nichols receives a glancing blow from the lorry mentioned above he finds that he has squashed his hat. He throws it away not believing that hats can be successfully re-blocked. He is then forced to take a taxi the short distance to his club in St. James' - "...he was not a man to walk hatless in London." Attitudes towards alcohol have changed significantly. Discussing the chief suspect, Russell asks Nichols, "Did you know Parton drank, by the way? ....He isn't a regular soak ..... but he drinks at weekends...". This from a man who keeps two decanters of excellent sherry, one of Madeira and a "noble decanter" of 'admirable port', not to mention enough whisky for regular restorative whisky-and-sodas, in his Whitehall office. The port decanter, which holds much more than a bottle, is emptied one lunctime by Russell and Nichols before they roll off for a committee meeting. Mortimer dines the burglar recruit at his club and after 'glasses of sherry' at the bar, the two put away an 'elegant Hock' with the sole and a 'solid claret' with the pigeon pie. Nichols, if he is not taking luncheon in London, puts away glasses of beer, and even presses a lunchtime brandy on his lady driver. I suppose they all kept fit on the golf course.

A book about skull-duggery in the City with a Moriarty-like villain who is eyeing electronic secrets. The descriptions of both the security services and financial institutions are showing their age. Bad guys and good guys are clearly defined and there is little mystery except over the uncertain fate of a central character or two. While the book is competently written, it does not have a lot to recommend it 45 years later.

an old Penguin crime paperback. A commercial crime thriller in the City of London, where "a rundown firm of commercial bankers, Bonavias, is half-heartedly trying to stave off a merger with an upstart firm known as the Bakerloo. But it is not only money that's at stake: personal pride, spite and national policy are involved. Bonavias have a hold on Radarmic, and Radarmic is top secret. Behind the decency of Walter Hillyard and the tycoonery of Sabin Scott yawns a cesspool of intrigue and violence." - jacket notes.