GREEK FIRE - Book review

 

Winston Graham’s Greek Fire was published in1957 and was one of several of his early suspense novels re-issued in the 1970s in response to his success with the Poldark series (my copy is dated 1974).

American Gene Vanbrugh is a post-war publisher visiting Athens, Greece. He has a history of fighting with the partisans during the war. ‘You have sad eyes, M. Vanbrugh – as if they have sen many things they would like to forget. But I think you are a man of honour’ (p58).

In the cellar night club The Little Jockey he is watching several people at their tables, including Anya Stonaris who is accompanied by the politician Manos. Anya is the mistress of politician Georg Lascou. There is an election due soon. Politics is dangerous, and there is the post-war grievances and pressure from Communist outfits.

The cabaret is Spanish: ‘Here was some inner truth from Spain stated in terms of the dance, an allegorical picture of the relationship of the sexes, spiritual more than physical but partly both, a statement of a racial anomaly which had existed for two thousand years’ (p11).

One of Vanbrugh’s contacts is a woman he knew during the war, Mme Lindos: ‘There are certain architectures of forehead and nose and cheek-bone which defy the erosions of age. She had them’ (p20). She will prove useful to Gene as things go awry.

One of the Spanish troupe is the victim of a hit-and-run. The police consider it is an accident but the man’s wife Maria thinks differently and enlists Gene’s help. These Spanish performers seem to be linked in some manner with Lascou.

Gene is not a fan of Lascou. ‘I’ve seen Communism at work. I’ve seen the cold mass slaughter, the children dying, the brutality to women, the absolute ruthless callousness in gaining one set objective. Above all, I’ve seen the lies – so that no words have any meaning any more. Nothing that’s worth living for has any meaning any more…  That’s what I want. Just to stop you.’ (p119).

Strange, how times haven’t changed – the lies and double-speak are still with us, though not merely spouted by avowed communists.

There’s quite a lot of Greek politics of the period, not particularly pertinent now, but that does not detract from a page-turning suspense novel with strong characterisation, a hint of romance and a haunting manhunt:

‘A hunted man is like a man at the centre of a cyclone; there are periods of calm when it’s impossible for him to assess the strength of the storm around him’ (p190).

Recommended.