THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS - Book review

Robert Wilson’s spy novel The Company of Strangers was published in 2001. It spans the period 1940 to 1991, though over two-thirds of the book is set in the 1940s.

In 1940 Andrea Aspinall has survived German bombing in London which reinforces her hate of Germans. Her mother seems cold towards her so there is no love between them either. We then leap two years to the German invasion of Russia. Captain Karl Voss is disillusioned by the incompetence of Hitler who is unwilling to admit his forces face defeat against the cannon fodder of Russia. ‘It’s as if God’s lost control of the game and the children have taken over – naughty children’ (p328). Before he can be slaughtered, he is sent home to Berlin on compassionate leave in 1943. While there he is approached by a high-ranking officer; he is to be transferred to the German Legation in Lisbon. He is to become a spy – with the intention of shortening the war by clandestinely meeting with sympathetic British agents... 

In 1944 Andrea is recruited and trained as an agent for ‘the Company’ to work in Lisbon under the name of Anne Ashworth. Despite Portugal being neutral and one of England’s oldest allies, the country was not regarded as a safe haven. Under Salazar’s quasi-fascist regime, ‘Secret police – Gestapo trained – called the PVDE. The city’s infested with bufos – informers’ (p82). ‘... what she knew about the Portuguese – they understood tragedy, it was their territory’ (p413).

Voss is entangled in the secret machinations of Operation Valkyrie – the assassination attempt on Hitler – as well as his growing relationship with Andrea. There are shifting allegiances, it seems, and nobody can be trusted. That includes the bickering Americans, Hal and Mary Couples, Andrea’s host Wilshere and his demented wife Mafalda, the SIS agents Meredith, Sutherland, Rose and Wallis and the suspected turncoat Lazard. There is also the mystery of her predecessor, the American Judy Laverne who was either deported or died in a terrible motor accident. And behind the scenes Russian spymasters are lurking.

The febrile atmosphere in Lisbon is projected realistically and the action scenes, where blood is spilt, are dramatic and exciting. From time to time the suspense is high, too. And while the plot is convoluted it remains compulsive, and despite the narrative moving across many years the reader’s interest is held for the 560+ pages.

The book title crops up at least twice. Once when strangely she suddenly harbours a fear while flying, when God might ‘let them drop from the sky and she would die in the company of strangers, unknown and unloved’ (p417) and referred to again on p542.

When writing of the tragedy of Portugal, he could have been referring to the tragedy of the main characters. Sadly, I found the ending unsatisfactory – though in all probability truthful. This is only my opinion, after all. Indeed, Wilson is a good writer and has a gift for the telling phrase and metaphor, such as these samples:

‘She gave him a smile torn from a magazine’ (126). [Like this, better than giving him an insincere smile...].

‘blistered with rust’(p203) – a good description.!

‘He stirred his tea for a long time for a man who didn’t take sugar’ (p431). [conveys disguised mental turmoil, perhaps].

‘She listened again to the settling house and painted the desktop with her torch beam’ (p202). [better than his torch lit up the desktop].

‘Cardew shifted in his seat and looked as wary as a grouse on the Glorious Twelfth’ (p95).

‘Cardew stared intently at the windscreen as if the entrails of squashed insects might lead him somewhere’ (p97).

‘... fighting his way into unconsciousness, desperate  to stop living with whatever he had in his mind’ (p118).

‘The wind was stronger out here, blowing sand across the road, which corrugated to washboard, hammering at the suspension’ (p121). [good visuals!].

The blurb refers to this book as a thriller. While there are thrilling interludes, I feel it is too sedate to be a thriller. It’s a good novel, though.

Editorial comment – for the benefit of writers:

‘the incessant chatter in the room suddenly grated on Anne’s ears like a steel butcher’s saw ripping through bone’ (p160). [Probably should be a butcher’s steel saw, since he wouldn’t be a robot?]

‘I tried to join the WRENS...’ (p181). This should be either lower case Wrens or uppercase WRNS.

So many scriptwriters do this all the time: ‘... she saw Lazard and I together in the casino...’ (p269) – Should be ‘Lazard and me’. And ‘...Rocha had seen Voss and I together in Bairro Alto’ (p330).

I feel that metaphors are sometimes best jettisoned:

‘... a voice as clipped as a shod hoof on cobbles’ (p149).

‘He searched himself for words, like a man who’s put a ticket in too safe a place’ (p163).

‘He waited for a lifetime, which in normal currency was only twenty minutes’ (p320).

THE CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS - Book review

Elizabeth Peters’s 1981 novel The Curse of the Pharaohs is the second in her Amelia Peabody mysteries. At her death there were nineteen books in the series; a twentieth was completed in 2017 four years after her death. This is the fourth I’ve read (the others were 1-The Crocodile on the Sandbank, 3-The Mummy Case, and 6-The Last Camel Died at Noon); clearly you don’t have to read them in sequence, though you may miss some back-references by not doing so. They’re thoroughly enjoyable with two strong main characters, wryly comic in tone yet interlaced with oodles of fascinating archaeological detail.

This first-person story narrated by Amelia occurs in 1892. Dear reader, she has married Emerson, the professor she met in the first book. ‘Five years of marriage have taught me that even if one is unamused by the (presumed) wit of one’s spouse, one does not say so... Emerson is a remarkable person, considering that he is a man. Which is not saying a great deal’ (p2). They’re Egyptologists but stuck in a rut – family life and a young precocious son, Walter, known as Ramses taking up their time. However, their ennui is about to be relieved by the arrival of Lady Baskerville whose husband died under bizarre circumstances while on a dig in Egypt.

Before long they have deposited Ramses with relatives and head for Egypt and Lady Baskerville’s

Dig. Lady Baskerville: ‘There was no colour in her cheeks, but her mouth was a full rich scarlet. The effect of this was startling in the extreme; one could not help thinking of the damnably lovely lamias and vampires of legend’ (p26).

The married pair are constantly at loggerheads. ‘ "I never raise my voice," Emerson bellowed’ (p108). Though invariably they kiss and make up at the end of the argument (most of which Amelia wins). ‘My suggestion that I call my maid to help me out of my frock was not well received. Emerson offered his services. I pointed out that his method of removing a garment often rendered that garment unserviceable thereafter. This comment was greeted with a wordless snort of derision and a vigorous attack upon the hooks and eyes. After all, much as I commend frankness in such matters, there are areas in which an individual is entitled to privacy. I find myself forced to resort to a typographical euphemism’ (p38). In short, three asterisks (for a scene break).

There are plenty of suspects, of course. They meet up with Mr Milverton, a photographer who has an air of mystery about him; Karl von Bork, ‘I was not surprised to find him prompt at his meals; his contours indicated that a poor appetite was not one of his difficulties’ (p66); American Cyrus Vandergelt; the overbearing Madame Berengeria and her artist daughter Mary; and journalist O’Connell.

Despite superstition threatening the dig, our erstwhile characters go ahead: ‘... crystalline powder, clinging to the men’s perspiring bodies, gave them a singularly uncanny appearance; the pallid, leprous forms moving through the foggy gloom resembled nothing so much as reanimated mummies, preparing to menace the invaders of their sleep’ (p153).

Another murder and a poisoning add to the mystery. Throughout Amelia’s narrative we’re treated to suspense and amusement with a dash of tension and delightful colourful descriptions. ‘Alarm seized me. Emerson never speaks French unless he is up to something.  “You are up to something,” I said’ (p223).

I have several more unread books in the series about this indomitable Victorian sleuth piled on a shelf. Something to look forward to in due course.

Elizabeth Peters is the pen-name of Barbara Mertz (1927-2013) with a PhD in Egyptology. She also wrote as Barbara Michaels.

SYCAMORE GAP - Book review

LJ Ross’s second DCI Ryan novel Sycamore Gap was published in 2015, several years before two deranged dullards actually felled this famous tree. It is a sequel to her Holy Island bestseller.

It begins with a Prologue: in 2005 on 21 June, the Summer Solstice. The murder of a woman is committed alongside the Roman wall by an unknown man.

Then, ten years later on the same date a female skeleton is discovered buried in the Roman wall itself. Ryan and his team are brought in to investigate.

Ross has deservedly garnered a vast readership with her mix of gruesome murders, personable detectives and humour. ‘...she carried an enormous designer handbag that Mary Poppins would have been proud of’ (p14). There’s also believable police procedural detail and apt social commentary: ‘It was easy to talk about restorative justice and the value of rehabilitation when the damage and destruction had never hit too close to home’ (p149).

Finding the murderer is not easy – and there is a second one before long. The team – older, experienced Phillips and bright and brave MacKenzie with Ryan – work well together and there are moments of charm, friendship and compassion. Ryan is still plagued by the awful murder of his sister. There is a lingering threat from the far-from-moribund black magic Circle. And Ryan’s relationship with Anna hits a few speed-bums during the case. The final pages speed towards a suspenseful denouement.

Not surprisingly, while this murder case is wrapped up satisfactorily, there are sufficient hints of more future trauma aimed at Ryan and Anna, doubtless in book three, Heavenfield.

LJ Ross’s twenty-fourth DCI Ryan Berwick is due out in November.

Editorial comment - for the benefit of writers:

Ryan puts his hands in his jacket pockets (p11). We don’t see him removing them yet he ‘shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket’ again on p12.

Ryan refers to the discoverer of the skeleton as Colin (p13). Yet his name isn’t seen to be revealed to him before this.

‘I’m sure that’s it,’ he nodded (p204). That sentence should end with a full stop. He nodded – as separate sentence. Or it could have been written as ‘I’m sure that’s it,’ he said and nodded...

THE BORODINO SACRIFICE - Book review

Paul Phillips’s spy thriller The Borodino Sacrifice (published 2024) is the first book in the Chasing Mercury trilogy. 

I can see why Phillips dedicated it in memory of Peter O’Donnell, author of the Modesty Blaise thrillers: the novel is fast-paced and introduces us to two characters who end up facing dangers together – in a similar manner to Modesty and Willie Garvin.

I’m a sucker for word-play in titles, chapter headings etc. There are four parts. 1 – Between the Lines; 2 – Behind the Curtain; 3 – Beneath the Ashes; 4 – Upon the Mountains. So we have four different yet relevant prepositions.

We start with US sergeant Sam Bradley protecting a Brit spy, Jones, in the Moravian forest when a violent altercation occurs between a partisans. Inevitably there’s plenty of action at this time of Cessation of Hostilities at the close of World War II in Europe. Czechoslovakia is a mess, with national militias, partisans, communists and anti-communist guerrillas on the rampage... Bradley’s observant and memory-scarred. ‘... the Red Army mechanics had the  jeep repaired by midday. Bradley wished flesh and blood was as responsive’ (p155).

Jones wants Bradley to find one of his people who is missing: Ludmila Suková, codename ‘Mercury’. Usually called Mila. She is almost a force of nature. ‘... there was something else about her, something real and strangely potent’ (p241). Mila is a layered character, an enigma, somebody who never gives up, no matter what obstacles get in her way. Like many spies, she used a poem to encrypt her messages, reminiscent of Violette Szabo’s written for her by Leo Marks in 1941; Mila’s is by W.B. Yeats. Gradually, we learn of her backstory and it seems the past has come to define her. Mila is on a quest of her own.

Bradley’s quest takes him to Berlin where he witnesses the devastation as well as the amazing rubble-women clearing away the detritus of war. Where there are razed buildings there are bodies: ‘Summer heat – the dead were making themselves known’ (p76).

Phillips's power of description puts you in the scene: ‘Smoke caressed the cobwebbed roof-space. The derelict mill was poorly shuttered and dusty beams of late afternoon sun were slinking across the walls. (He) heard an insect trapped somewhere, and the ticking of a watch’ (p55). And: ‘The sinking sun had turned the windows of the terraced tenements to molten ingots’ (p216).

His action scenes are intense; you can almost hear the shell casings hit the ground. However, it is not all action. Sometimes there’s poignancy. One individual reflects: ‘His heart had been buoyed by the last blessing, the tenderness of a woman, even directed at a worm such as he – a traitor, a nothing, a black joke, a geography teacher in a land without place names or frontiers, on a continent with its populations upended, in a world where the maps were redundant’ (p58).

The story has depth and is well researched, brilliantly evoking this period of post-war confusion. The assassination attempt on Heydrich in 1942 is pertinent. Men from GRU, NKVD and Smersh are plotting and loyalties are tested in grey areas. Behind the scenes the future of Czechoslovakia is and its people is being determined...

At the end of the book the reader is quite breathless. Happily, as you will be aware from the first sentence, there are two more in the continuing saga of Bradley and Mila. (I suppose that constitutes being labelled as a ‘spoiler’ – both survive the tense travails of this book!)

Note:

Berlin's rubble-women are detailed in Volume 4 of my Collected Stories - 18 history tales, Codename Gaby.