Nicholas Luard (1937–2004)

When you hear about a spy novel written in 1975, you would expect to read about a lot of Russians (or someone else from the Eastern Bloc). This one is different.

A major Arab prince, Samir, is in a position to provide information to Great Britain and change the situation in the Middle East. A long operation is started and the prince is just about to be taken into British hands when things suddenly change and he ends up with the Americans. And they are not interested in sharing their show more information. So the British Intelligence decides to send a killer after Samir with the orders not to kill him - relying on the fact that this will make the Americans more cooperative - after they realize that they cannot protect him alone. And all might have worked - if they had not sent Carswell, an operative with somewhat checkered past, to monitor the "killer" LeKahn and forgetting to tell him that the plan is to not kill the prince. Add to this an order that amounts to "cut all connections and finish the mission in case something goes wrong" and things go from bad to worse very fast.

The "killer" is killed by the Americans (who believe that he was really trying to kill their esteemed guest, payed by someone in the Middle East), the British get their access to the prince and all seems to be going perfectly well - until they realize that they have an experienced operative that is doing all he can to kill Samir.

And while Carswell is hunting Samir, everyone is hunting Carswell (and his unexpected companion). And despite the fact that this is the main story, somewhere behind the story is another one, the one of the change inside of a man when he meets a woman that goes under his skin.

At the end there won't be a happy end - it is not that kind of a novel. But the way it finishes is unexpected - noone is safe from bad luck and the pure stupidity that led to the whole story.

It was a better story than I expected - the descriptions and the action are well written and readable. The dialogs on the other hand are as cheesy and forced as humanly possible - even for a spy novel. The novel as a whole remains readable although it tends to drag a bit in places - even well written descriptions get tedious when they sound a bit pointless and not really necessary.

I will probably pick up another novel by Luard - I enjoyed it enough for that. And I am surprised that it is almost (or completely) forgotten - it is a good spy novel after all and the genre is rarely known for consistently good writing in that era... show less

Excellent read. Takes place in Scotland (Iona), but mostly in Africa in the 1860's. I enjoyed the character development and the story line.

Yarn about Africa, Darwin, Kalahari desert and its inhabitants. Not as good as Gondar. A new world though.

SEL writes: Tops!!!! This one as good as Eric Ambler! WWII and Cold War w/USSR. SEL