My latest read was an excellent novel to read after the misery of the previous one. Background to Danger (aka Uncommon Danger) by Eric Ambler was published in 1937. I definitely should have read this one years and years ago. However, in my defense, I have only begun really reading fiction since the late 2000s. So, once again, I find myself commenting on a novel that is very famous and seems like “everyone” has already read. I am late to the party – but it was a helluva party anyway.
I survived a chemical spill this week – nitric acid and oxides pluming throughout the land; was on the edge of my seat wondering how far the chemical situation would develop. This is an excellent, though not wholly recommended, backdrop for reading an exciting espionage novel. Another thought that I want to pass on is that due to the reduction of rail travel, thrilling moments like these are almost rendered non-existent these days. I mean, so many vintage novels and stories and films utilize the train and train depot as a setting or a passage for their plots. It is a real shame that this is gone for the contemporary reader.
I read the Vintage Books 2001 edition. However, I did find in the stacks an old copy of a Dell edition from 1965. I took a good look at this later and I do not think it has ever been read. There is a bit of tear on the top right of the cover, but the book is spotless otherwise. Inside, it seems the covers have never been opened (and boy, is that font tiny!) I really like the art on the cover of that one – I would happily buy it as an art print or poster.
“Mr. Kenton, Mr. Kenton, please! I have not been to sleep all night. I must ask you to spare me your outraged feelings. We are all feeling outraged this morning, aren’t we, Mailler?” He addressed the words over Kenton’s shoulder. — pg. 80, chapter 7
There is not a whole lot that I can share here about this novel that probably has not been explained and discussed in innumerable places. It is, indeed, a super-famous novel and its stood the test of time, I think, extremely well. Another thought that I had while reading this book was how the villains and heroes in our fiction have actually gotten stupider. I mean, the novels nowadays seem to have doubled in size, but they are lacking characters with intelligence and cleverness. So, these page count-expansions seem horribly dull. The tension and suspense needed in a thriller are slaughtered by stupid characters.
In Background to Danger, there is a relatively small cast of characters. The main character, Desmond d’Esterre Kenton, is likeable and realistic; its easy to believe his situation. Kenton makes logical choices, human movements. He is not simply a tool the author is utilizing for everything else. The villains do push the boundary a wee bit as to their fanatical behavior or their somewhat ridiculous personalities. Not, though, so much as to actually commit the crime of being outrageous and outlandish. They are violent and intelligent adversaries. I enjoyed every character in the novel because they were all dynamic and interesting. None of them were the stock characters or cardboard cutouts that readers bemoan in fiction. The two female characters were quite skilled and enigmatic. They were far more than the typical female characters one might stereotypically expect of the time period/genre.
In fact, one of my favorite chapters was 18 “Smedoff.” Smedoff is an unforgettable character and I could fancy a whole spin-off novel or series from her character. I am usually very unimpressed and unenthused by characters, generally. But I am adding Smedoff to my list of characters of awesomeness because she’s fantastic.
Her hair was short, henna’d and dressed in innumerable curls that stood out stiffly round her head, so that with her back to the light she looked like a rather disreputable chrysanthemum. – pg. 248, chapter 18.
The story is definitely a suspenseful and tense read. Ambler’s writing is perfect for it – snappy and lively, but not crude or simple. I know that I was gripped by many of the scenes because they contained just the correct amount of description, plausibility, and movement. There are several sections that provide a contrast to the somewhat “crackerjack” action sections. For example, in chapter eight, there is a relatively long commentary on Big Business:
It was the power of Business, not the deliberations of statesmen, that shaped the destinies of nations. The foreign Ministers of the great powers might make the actual declarations of their Governments’ policies; but it was the Big Businessmen, the bankers and their dependents, the arms manufacturers, the oil companies, the big industrialists, who determined what those policies should be. Big Business asked the questions that it wanted to ask when and how it suited it. Big Business also provided the answers. . . For those few members of the public who had long memories and were not sick to death of the whole incomprehensible farce there would always be many ingenious explanations of the volte face – many explanations, but not the correct one. For that one might have to inquire into banking transactions in London, Paris, and New York with the eye of a chartered accountant, the brain of an economist, the tongue of a prosecuting attorney and the patience of Job. . . One would have to grope through the fog of technical mumbo-jumbo with which international business surrounds its operations and examine them in all their essential and ghastly simplicity. Then one would perhaps die of old age. – pg 94, chapter 8
That was a longer quote than I like to use, but its worth it. Maybe even possibly especially in these fiery days…..
There is a snazzy Mercedes, a whole lot of gunplay, dossiers, and interesting supporting characters to meet along the way. Also, there are several times that Ambler subtly adjusts the disposition of the reader towards characters – so-and-so is obviously a bad guy, right? oh, so-and-so is clearly witless, right? surely, so-and-so had nothing to do with this situation, right? And each time the change is not some big ugly hammer-fisted reveal, but a slight adjustment like a few key details now shared and that is it. Its intriguing writing that works perfectly for an espionage story.
Ambler also did the minor details very well. For example, a man absently touching a ribbon on his overcoat, a small but utterly necessary detail about an escape, a minor phrase that later on solves an unsuspected question or a problem. (For example, how a mute person speaks on a phone – hah hah! you thought you had us there!) Also, when was the last time you read the word totschläger in a novel?
Truthfully, since I feel like everyone has already read this, I feel people will think me foolish for my enjoyment; you know, latecomer to the bandwagon thing. I like intense stories with dynamic characters and exciting storylines. I know some readers today will not agree with me that these are dynamic characters, but my definition tends to be different. I usually do not think having strong characters is the same as endlessly relating every detail about characters. Yes, I do think some of the most tense action scenes may push the belief of the reader just a bit, but not, truly, in comparison to most of the moments in contemporary novels! Remember how I started off this review talking briefly about nitric acid? Well, you know, sometimes danger and action is a reality and not so far-fetched!
If anyone is wondering – no, I have not seen the film (1943), though I read somewhere that the author was no fan of the thing.
5 stars
I finished Gallows View by Peter Robinson (b. 1950) this morning and I do not have good things to say about it. It was published in 1987 and is the first in his Inspector Alan Banks series of novels. This summer, for whatever reason I have been up to my elbows in crime, mystery, and suspense novels. Truth be told, there are only two that I found to be good reading. Only a couple were decent reads and then the majority, I think, were quite bad. Since I have finished this novel, I am debating with myself about whether this is the worst of the bunch or second-worst.
Case Without a Corpse by Leo Bruce (Rupert Croft-Cooke 1903 – 1979) was published in 1937 and is the second of Bruce’s Sergeant Beef mysteries. I cannot imagine any of his other stories to be on the level of the first Beef mystery, Case for Three Detectives, but readers who somehow expected the same seem to be a bit disappointed in this second offering. In my opinion, once you get used to how Bruce is writing these stories – with the poking fun at the whole detective novel industry – you can settle in and simply enjoy the read.
I finally got around to reading the second book in Stuart M. Kaminsky’s (1934 – 2009) Inspector Rostnikov series Black Knight In Red Square (1983). I had read book one in the series way back in 2013. I gave that novel a four star rating and I am going to give this novel the same. I knew even before opening the book that it would be four stars, so I am likely very prejudiced by enjoyment and not being very objective.
Finally, after eighteen other ratings this year, I am giving a novel a four-star rating! East of Desolation by Jack Higgins aka Henry Patterson (1929 – 2022) is my first four-star novel of the year. East of Desolation was first published in 1968 and I think is one of the author’s first novels – if not the first – to be released under his pen name “Jack Higgins.” Incidentally, after reading this novel, I have read a novel with this year with the words 
The Late Monsieur Gallet (also known as The Death of Monsieur Gallet) by Georges Simenon (1903 – 1989) was first published in 1931. It is the third Inspector Jules Maigret novel that I have read. I think I like this one the most, so far. Still, I am giving it the same rating as the first that I read, Pietr the Latvian. I think that Maigret’s brooding, aloof manner really suits this storyline very well. The mystery was revealed carefully enough to complement Maigret’s personality.
The Third Gate by Lincoln Child is the third book in his Jeremy Logan series. I have read the previous two novels. The Third Gate was published in 2012 and is the first in the series that has Logan on every page of the book, so to speak. In the previous novels, Logan was not a major character; here he takes control of the narrative.
The good thing: listen, I love setting and the setting of this novel is really good. I mean it. I was surprised to find such a strong, interesting, and intense setting in an adventure pulp. Child liberally utilizes the concept of the Sudd (Cp. The White Nile by Alan Moorehead – 1960) and expands and develops it as needed. Seriously, this stuff captured my imagination and I wanted to spend more time in this setting having it weigh on us, confuse us, frighten us. In other words, Child’s idea to use it is a great idea and he did a decent job. I just want him to have done an even better job. I did pull my old, crusty copy off of my bookshelves and think I will skim through it, just because I can.
I finished The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin last night. I have been reading it this week and at several points I was inclined to read sections aloud to my household, to the chagrin of my household. I did not love so many things about this novel to include the plot and the murder. However, there are a whole lot of things that I really did enjoy, which more than makes up for the things that I disliked. Before I begin, let me mention that “Edmund Crispin” is the penname for Englishman Robert Bruce Montgomery (1921 – 1978). He was a relatively prolific writer along with being an organ scholar and music composer. Allegedly he was friends with Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. The Case of the Gilded Fly is his first novel and stars his detective Gervase Fen. It was first published in 1944 when Crispin was himself an undergraduate at Oxford.
New York Dead by Stuart Woods (b. 1938) was first published in 1991. This is the first in the Stone Barrington series. There is really not much I can say about this one that is positive. Shockingly, there are over sixty in the series. One of the reasons I read it is because I am trying to get through a very large stack of – truly – pulp fiction. The stack has a lot of real junk fiction on it – schlock and pulp at its finest worst. Part of me is utterly amused by how horrible most of these books are. I do mean in that paradoxical sense of “so bad, its good.” Not all of them meet that level, though. Most are “so bad, just so bad.”
I finished another book, but its another that I really did not like. In fact, I may actually dislike this one. I read Ruth Rendell’s From Doon With Death from 1964. I have heard that Baroness Rendell (1930 – 2015) is considered a strong mystery writer, so of course I started with the first of her famous Inspector Wexford novels. After having read this one, I have to say that I certainly hope that her other novels are big improvements. I think there are twenty-four novels in the Inspector Wexford series – and Rendell also wrote a bunch of other novels, besides.
AQ's Reviews 