SINGLE & SINGLE - Book review

John le Carré’s novel Single & Single was published in 1999 and deals with the world of finance after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR, though of course it’s much more than that!

It begins in the present (1998) with Mr Wisner, a lawyer who worked for the finance company the House of Single & Single, facing the gun-toting Alix Hoban in Turkey. Wisner is aware that Hoban is affiliated to the Single firm and cannot understand why he is being held at gunpoint. It’s no spoiler to record that Wisner is shot dead (since it’s in the blurb!) A bit of a mystery.

Another mystery is in the form of Oliver Hawthorne. He’s is a peripatetic magic man, a conjuror, but there seems something unusual about his identity and past. He is wanted urgently by his bank manager (they had them in 1998, apparently).

Other mysteries include a Russian freighter being arrested and boarded in the Black Sea. And the disappearance of the Head of Single & Single, ‘Tiger’ Single, father of Oliver.

Mysterious Nat Brock is called in to investigate Mr Wisner’s purported suicide. He is not what he seems, a British Customs Officer...

Four years earlier, Oliver absconded from the firm of Single & Single when he discovered that his father was involved in financial chicanery with the Russian underworld, including money laundering and the dubious sale of Russian blood transfusions to America: ‘Human Blood is a Commodity – US Federal Trade Commission, 1966’) His conscience wouldn’t permit him to continue in the business, so he, ‘the idealist, the walk-in of all time’ contacts Brock...

Brock uses Oliver undercover and debriefs him when he can. ‘He had a priestly tone for these occasions. It went with a deep-felt sense of caring. When you take on a joe, you take on his problems, he would preach to his newcomers. You’re not Machiavelli, you’re not James Bond, you’re the over-worked welfare officer who’s got to hold everybody’s life together or somebody will run amok’ (p203).

‘Wasn’t that awful for you? Discovering your own dad was a crook and all?’ (p187). Reading this, I was reminded of Le Carré’s earlier masterpiece, A Perfect Spy, whose titular character, Rick Pym, was based on Le Carré’s own father, Ronald Cornwell. There’s the same love-hate relationship between father and son, and the exposure of flawed character.

Even though married with an estranged wife, Heather, and daughter, Oliver is not averse to carrying on an affair or two. His love-life might be described as ‘complicated’. ‘How is she, darling?’ Katrina cut in, with the special concern that mistresses evince for lovers’ wives’ (p213). Judging from the most recent revelations about his own affairs, the author definitely knew what he was talking about...

Oliver has returned from hiding to discover the whereabouts of his father. Not only for himself, but also to help Brock. It's a story of betrayal and redemption.

There are plenty of telling phrases and paragraphs one comes to expect from Le Carré, such as:

‘His eyes were water-pale and empty, and it was the emptiness that scared her: the knowledge that whatever amount of kindness anyone poured into them it was wasted. He could be watching his own mother dying, he wouldn’t look any different, she thought’ (p287). And: ‘Tractors sticking like slugs to their smear-trails’ (p322). And also: ‘White stubble grew where his brown hair had been, and it had spread over his cheeks and jaw in a downy silver dust’ (p3223).

And there are many varied characters to engage the reader’s attention throughout, not least Brock himself, his wing-woman Aggie, the beautiful but fragile wife of Hoban who is attracted to Oliver, the Russian dealers Mirsky and Yevgeny.

Considerable exposition is thrown into Chapter Seven, with lengthy unrealistic speech paragraphs, which slows down the narrative and causes the eyelids to drop...

Le Carré nearly always tends to play with the tenses. For this book, the narrative is past historic when detailing what is happening ‘now; for the flashbacks, he employs the present tense to depict past events and conversations!

The ending is tense and full of suspense (though not as good as The Night Manager in that regard) but I found it a little rushed. On the whole, however, it was a satisfying read.

SECRETS OF MALTA - Book review

 

Cecily Blench’s second historical novel Secrets of Malta was published in 2024. It is set in 1943, primarily in Malta but also in London, Tunisia and Egypt; there are flashbacks to Syria in 1926.

The dreadful plague of air-raids on Malta has lessened by now.

As the title suggests, the story involves intelligence activities of the Allies against the Axis forces. Dennis Pratchett is sent to Malta to root out a suspected mole in the intelligence community of Malta. ‘Chap called Morton runs our networks in North Africa and he’s got several operatives who go back and forth’ (p20). Pratchett’s senior, Sir Harold informs him the suspected agent was active in the last war and used the code-name Nero; and the man was believed to be responsible for a couple of murders in Europe before the war. The presence of Nero in Malta at this critical time is most serious – for reasons that will be explained in the book much later...

Margarita is a cabaret singer in Valletta; she has just ended an affair with Henry Dunn. Mrs Vera Dunn accosts Margarita in the night club and reveals that Henry has gone missing. There is no animosity between them; indeed, they seem sympathetic towards each other.

In 1926 Vera was one of four young archaeology students working on a dig in Syria for Professor Curzon. The relevance of these flashbacks only becomes significant as the book progresses.

Now, Margarita is courting a submarine officer, Arthur. Several submarines are involved in covert missions, landing spies in Tunisia, which was recently occupied by Axis forces.

The two women conduct their own investigations, and secrets are revealed...

Vera is a pragmatist: ‘Nothing does more to stimulate one’s sex drive than a war’ (p131).

The author has captured the period and the situation both in Malta, Tunisia and in Syria. Her characters provoke interest throughout. There were some clever misdirections, too; which only seems appropriate in a book about spying and deception!

Perhaps more could have been made of the awful destruction from the almost continuous bombing of 1942, and the stoic response of the inhabitants; but that’s a minor quibble.

I kept turning the pages; it was a quick read, made enjoyable because the setting was familiar.

Editorial comments:

‘Arthur had complained that Malta had no beaches, but Margarita had taken him to one of her swimming spots, where they swam off warm rocks...’ (p59). I’ve heard this nonsense before. There are plenty of sandy beaches on Malta!

There are a lot of ‘sighs’ and ‘sighing heavily’ – which do not detract from the reading pleasure; but perhaps the editor could have addressed some of them.

‘Her eyes brushed past and then returned to settle on him’ (p366). To avoid the surreal image, it would read better if ‘gaze’ was used instead of ‘eyes’!

THE SCARLET NIGHTINGALE - Book review

 

The Scarlet Nightingale (published 2018) is another excellent novel from the talented Alan Titchmarsh. His output is varied, to say the least. This outing begins along similar lines to Shute’s Requiem for a Wren – in other words, the female protagonist Rosamund is dead. The post-war Rosamund was a successful novelist and she had left behind a buff folder: ‘souvenirs and accretions of a life that had mostly had its share of romance... but which had also put a young woman in danger. Rosamund might have come from a privileged background, but it was something that she had been quite prepared to sacrifice in the name of love and duty. This is her story’ (p3).

The narrative is mostly in the third person, however interspersed are small insertions from Rosamund’s notes in first person (a good writer’s ploy which brings the character to life at a deeper level).

As ever, Titchmarsh reveals his gift for short telling character descriptions: Dr Armstrong ‘wore a wing collar and his eyebrows were long and upturned, giving him the look of a rather frightening owl’ (p31). Rosamund’s French governess Celine has to break the sad news to her charge: the girl had become an orphan and was to stay with her aunt Venetia in London (in 1938).

Venetia, the sister of Rosamund’s father, had married well and was now Lady Reeves and lived in Eaton Square. When war came, her aunt was loath to hide in the nearby air-raid shelter, preferring the basement in her house. Quite a character: ‘her aunt, in a floral Hartnell creation, half reclined on a sofa so generously furnished with brocade-covered cushions that she seemed in serious danger of suffocation’ (p125). ‘She might give the impression of being unworldly and ethereal, but the razor-sharp mind was clearly in no need of a whetstone’ (p125).

Venetia’s cook, Mrs Heffer, had a helpful brother who did odd jobs: ‘He was not exactly a liveried footman, but he did wear his three-piece Sunday suit and employed a liberal amount of brilliantine to tame his unruly thatch, which, on a bad day resembled an exploded Brillo pad’ (p220).

Rosamund meets and falls in love with Harry Napier who seems to be involved in secret war work. Before long, like many socialites of the period, Rosamund joins the SOE and is dubbed the Scarlet Nightingale; she is landed in France with others to sabotage a factory...

There are details about her training and the actual mission. Naturally, the reader is aware that she will survive, even if captured, because she died at the ripe old age of ninety-three (p1); however, there is still plenty of tension concerning the other operatives involved.

Titchmarsh has a gift for creating sympathetic characters. As Aunt Venetia says, ‘If we do not approach life positively, if we succumb to the naysayers and the defeatists, then we might just as well throw in the towel now, because such negativity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... I cannot and will not be bowed down by a bunch of thugs who want to rule the world by bully-boy tactics. The only way to beat bullies is to stand up to them, and that – as you have discovered – is often painful and can have tragic consequences’ (p317). [That applies to any period, even today... – Ed]

A bitter-sweet tale, well told.

Book review - The Spycatcher

The Spycatcher (2011) is a debut espionage novel by Matthew Dunn, who just happens to have been trained by British SIS, as well as working with units of the SAS, SBS, and MI5, GCHQ and CIA operatives. The credentials are backed up by prose that reeks of insider knowledge.

The book was originally published with the title Spartan in hardback and then retitled for the paperback. The hero, Will Cochrane, is known by the code name Spartan. The British Spartan Programme allows only one man to go through the process, and he will be answerable only to the Prime Minister and his controller, Alistair: Spartan is trained to be a lethal weapon.

It begins with high tension, in New York’s Central Park, where an assignation turns into an assassination. Cochrane is badly wounded but survives (he would, wouldn’t he?) Part of the mystery that is his life unfolds as he is introduced to a secretive American who just happens to know Cochrane’s controller. The debacle in Central Park involved several agents from Iran. Alistair has learned that the Iranians are planning a massive atrocity in either the UK or the USA. Cochrane’s task is to identify the mastermind, capture him and get him to reveal the intended target. Nothing to it, really. Except, as Alistair says, ‘There is nothing regular about this mission.’ Cochrane is sent to meet a MI6 contact in Sarajevo, who knows somebody who might have a lead on the so-called mastermind.

No sooner does he get there than it all goes wrong.

But Cochrane has one lead – Lana, a woman living in Paris, who might have known the ‘mastermind’ during the Bosnian conflict. She was a journalist at the time, and came away scarred both physically and mentally. Reluctantly, he enlists her aid in locating her ex-lover, a man she now hates.

He is aided by a team of four specialists recruited specially for this mission. They’re tough and soon prove their loyalty to Cochrane. The trail will lead from the freezing streets of Sarajevo to the snow-clad mountain region of New York State and the city itself for the violent denouement.

Throughout, we follow the spy’s tradecraft, trailing suspects, killing shadowy agents. These passages are well written, sucking you into the suspenseful story, all the time casting doubt on the ability of innocents to survive. The insider knowledge is evident but never obtrusive. We believe in the apparent invincibility of Spartan. But he makes mistakes; inevitably. Dunn has created a hero readers will willingly follow in subsequent books. Cochrane is flawed, troubled by his past, aching to give it all up and lead a ‘normal’ life, and yet he is a driven soul, wanting to right wrongs, needing to punish those who do evil things. He is not averse to being judge, jury and executioner.

The narrative compels the reader to keep turning the pages. That is what every thriller should do; many don’t manage it.

Dunn has now produced seven books in the Spycatcher series. Be aware that he has also published two novellas and check the review comments of these.

Editorial comment.

Despite the page-turning ability of the writer, there are certain aspects that should have been addressed by his editors.  Almost on every page, somebody’s eyes ‘narrowed’; it became tedious. As for Cochrane’s training, stoic in adversity, it seemed out of character for him to kick the ground (or something else), or stamp his feet ‘in frustration’ so often.

The twist was not a surprise and, in a similar vein to Dan Brown, the explanations seemed contrived. Yet, and yet, the sheer verve of the narrative and the strength of the character Spartan carry you through these minor misgivings. That’s not great literature, but it is good story-telling.

As for the book title change, that seems significant and worthy of note by budding authors. Spartan was fine, since this was the main character’s codename. However, it smacked of a historical novel, not a contemporary espionage thriller. So, I can understand the change. It became The Spycatcher with the strapline ‘It takes a spy to catch a spy’.  However, subsequently it soon became simply Spycatcher and then the next books were referred to as Spycatcher novels. And if you examine some of the titles, some have been subtitled ‘A Will Cochrane novel’.  Received wisdom is to create a brand. And yet there’s a lack of consistency here; if Harper Collins (and its imprints) can’t manage that, what chance have lesser mortals, I wonder…. 

Writing - Background to historical stories (4)

For those readers who are interested in the background to stories, here are a few notes on the short stories in my fourth collection, Codename Gaby. The printing history for the stories ranges from 1975 to 2011.

            In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I read a lot of true war stories – The White Rabbit, Carve Her Name With Pride, Odette, The Naked Island, Boldness Be My Friend, The Colditz Story, Commando Extraordinary, and Ill Met By Moonlight, among many others. I always hankered after writing a French Resistance novel. I have still to do that, but I have compensated a little by writing two stories on the subject: ‘Codename Gaby’ and ‘Hammer and Honey’. The former won a writing competition and the comments gleaned are here:

                ‘(Codename Gaby) is a tale of betrayal and extreme courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, written with great insight and sensitivity. The emotional conclusion is well crafted, leaving the reader bruised but relieved, just as it should for such an intense period of wartime history.’ – Award Organiser’s comments

            ‘This short story captures suspense, drama and wonderful character depiction. In less than 2,500 words, we know and relate to our heroine, the period and her situation. The story is complete and compelling. It is a remarkable achievement and demonstrates this author’s outstanding writing skills.’ – Kate Cavendish, Book Awards reviewer

            The earliest story represented in this collection is ‘The Trilby Hat’, which was originally broadcast on British Forces Radio, Malta, read by Reverend Ray Jones, November 1975. For the time transition, the production team used incidental music which proved effective. I’ve still got the recording from the radio. I jiggled the date-time for the printed version some years later. It grew out of an evening visit to a Portsmouth pub in the early 1970s when I was propping up the bar and an old gent wearing a battered trilby hat came in…

            ‘Tealeaf’ is slang for ‘thief’. Society rightly frowns on thieves. Theft is despicable, and even more so in a closed community, such as a ship or submarine. Servicemen were sent to detention if caught thieving; I used to type up the warrants. This story extrapolates.

            The early days of Australia have been of interest since I read The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. I’m also fascinated by myths. So I was drawn to write ‘Creation Myth’.

            In my Tana Standish psychic spy series, I have introduced a number of secret agents, friends of Tana. I wanted to write some short adventures about them and when the writing circle prompt was ‘turkey’ I came up with ‘Cold Turkey’. Another prompt was ‘leather’ so ‘Hell for Leather’ was the result. In keeping with the Tana series, both stories blend fact with fiction. I’ll probably attempt a number of slightly longer stories about these agents in the near future. The events involving Alan Swann occur before he acquired a limp and a glass eye, as revealed in Mission: Prague and explained in Mission: Khyber.

            The reconstruction required in the aftermath of the Second World War must have been daunting. Reading about it, I was inspired to write ‘One day we’ll walk through’, which was also intended as a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

            When my wife and I saw the rather small pyramids on Tenerife, I conjured with the idea that certain craftsmen could have travelled there from Egypt in the prehistoric past. Certainly, having seen the pyramid of Altun Ha in Belize, I find that Heyerdahl’s theory that reed boats could have travelled across the Atlantic most compelling. This story is an attempt at visualising that ancient journey. The title is taken from Matthew chapter 11, verse 7.

            In my research for other work, I’d come across John Dee (1527-1609) and found him a fascinating character. I wanted to attempt realising his life and the best way to do that was for him to reminisce in writing. An occultist, mathematician, philosopher, astrologer and possibly spy for Queen Elizabeth, he was hoodwinked by an ex-criminal Edward Kelley into believing that angels communicated through Kelley. Dee died in poverty under the care of his daughter ‘about’ 1609. What drew me was the accusation of ‘calculating’ being a heinous crime! And we thought we had problems with the PC crowd finding offense at the drop of an innocent word or two…

            I wrote ‘For Valour’ expressly because I was inspired by the Help for Heroes campaign and it coincided with the time of commemorating the first awards of the Victoria Cross.

            ‘Born of Joy’ was written for Remembrance Day and its explanation is in a dedication note at the end.

            Another period that intrigues me is the English Civil War (1642-1651). I recalled the 1950s comic series featuring Cavalier Claude Duval (though in fact the real Claude Duval was a gentleman highwayman who came to England after the Civil War; he was sentenced to hang by Sir William Morton in 1670). ‘The Reckoning’ is a nod to a period I’d like to return to at greater length.

            ‘The Proper Thing to do’ evolved from reading about the ill-fated HM Troopship Birkenhead. I wanted to experiment and write this with a single person speaking, present tense. This was the birth of a tradition, too: women and children first. The story gained an ‘honourable mention’ in a competition before being published a couple of years later.

            ‘When the flowers are in bloom’ was inspired by the true tales of survivors from the war being discovered on tropical islands years after hostilities ended. Also, I wanted to attempt a detective quest in a strange land. I’d been to Japan in the late 1960s onboard HMS Zulu, but didn’t get the opportunity to travel far. The story was a runner-up in an international writing competition and published in the organisation’s anthology. The story was the title for an anthology of my short stories published in the US, now out-of-print.

            ‘Day of the Unicorn’ was written from another writers’ circle prompt – ‘unicorn’. A fun piece, mixing humour with myth, it sadly didn’t find a home in any of the limited number of magazines I deemed suitable.

            Having attempted to transport myself into the mind of a child in 1803, I fancied empathising with a tree – or rather all trees for ‘A Shared Experience’. This can be construed as whimsy, fantasy, an ecological or a religious piece.

            Finally, a sort of bonus: ‘Angel’s Trumpets’ is based in Tenerife, an island my wife and I have visited often; it is the first chapter of a planned novel in Victorian times concerning a detective duo, Bradbury & Hood. Tenerife features in my novel Blood of the Dragon Trees, which has been republished as An Evil Trade.

Codename Gaby - Collected short stories volume 4

Available as a paperback and e-book from Amazon here

Other books in this series are:

Gifts from a Dead Race – Collected stories vol.1 (science fiction, horror, fantasy, ghost)

Nourish a Blind Life – Collected stories vol.2 (science fiction, horror, fantasy, ghost)

Visitors –  Collected stories vol.3 (westerns)

I Celebrate Myself – Collected stories vol.5 (crime and adventure) 

Book review - Red Sparrow

The Cold War isn’t dead and buried, it’s still with us, very much so, if Jason Matthews’ debut thriller Red Sparrow (2013) is to be believed. And since Matthews is a retired Operations Executive of the CIA, the tradecraft and information letter-drops suggest authenticity. Mr Putin may even have avidly read a translation, particularly as he figures in the story. As an ops officer observed, Putin’s intent on putting together USSR Mk 2, and he will do it by any means possible, probably creating instability in the West and Europe in particular. There’s a deep psychological need to create a new, feared Russian Empire.

We first meet CIA agent Nate Nash in Moscow, clandestinely meeting with his asset, code-named MARBLE. The Russians are aware that a mole exists, but have no clue - so far. The meeting seems to go as normal, then mere chance thrusts them both into danger. The manhunt is on – and Nash is identified by the Russians as a foreign agent. The fact that he evaded the hunters is good news, but the bad news is that his asset, a major general in the SVR, the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, is at risk if Nash arranges to handle him further.

At about the same time, Dominika is a new member of the SVR, her recruitment engineered by her uncle, Vanya Egorov. Her career leads her to the Sparrow school, where she learns the techniques of seduction, then suborning targets by blackmail. Dominika’s background is veined with tragedy, her parents’ and her aspirations smothered by the system. Strangely, she is able to view coloured auras around people’s heads, signifying their moods, but keeps this arcane knowledge to herself. It comes in handy when dealing with conspirators, and even her uncle. Considering the controversial lineage of the Kirlian imagery of the 1960s-1970s, this is not too far-fetched, perhaps, noting that my spy heroine happens to be psychic!

Certainly, Dominika is depicted as a strong, sympathetic and convincing character.

Nash is redirected to Helsinki. His boss is Forsyth, a no-nonsense kind of guy, aided by Gable, a quick-talking, apparently glib yet cunning agent, very much in the mould of Tom Arnold’s character Albert Gibson in True Lies, providing light relief.

Before long, Dominika is tasked with going to Finland to ferret out any clues to the mole suspected to exist in the SVR. A fascinating cat-and-mouse affair begins between the attractive pair, each planning to recruit the other.

Disaster strikes and almost at the point where Nate and Dominika become lovers, they are brutally parted.

Dwelling in the shadows is Sergey Matorin, a ‘mechanic’, an executioner of the Russian secret service. This is a dark, unpleasant creation, his deadly cruelty given release in Afghanistan.

Matthews has imbued the story with authentic settings and knowledge about the Russian system and psyche. There are tense, suspenseful moments, and a few brutal interludes, and throughout there’s the constant stench of betrayal hovering. Even though it has 546 pages, it’s a fast read, because you become involved with the characters and want to know how their stories are resolved.

If you like espionage books, then Red Sparrow should greatly satisfy.

Soon, I expect to be reading the sequel Palace of Treason.

Footnote: I cannot fathom why he has inserted recipes at the end of each chapter, admittedly relevant to the food eaten in that chapter. I got to the point where I stopped reading them as they affected the narrative flow!