The Robespierre Serial

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 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 show more 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

L'inizio è un po' lento e arzigogolato, e davvero non si capisce bene dove l'autore vorrebbe andare a parare. Superato questo ostacolo però, vale a dire precisamente nel momento in cui compare quel grande personaggio che è Carswell, le cose cominciano a farsi davvero interessanti, e sempre più interessanti mano a mano che l'uomo Carswell prende il sopravvento sulla spia Carswell. Tutti gli altri personaggi, compresa Minette, che pure è il fulcro della trasformazione di questo vecchio soldato ligio al dovere, sono solo punti sulla mappa che lo porterà a liberarsi del passato, i suoi superiori poi, che dopo averlo cacciato in una situazione insostenibile cercano persino di ucciderlo, sono ombre, tanto che l'autore non si prende la show more briga di farli comportare in maniera coerente, eppure la cosa nemmeno disturba.
Ottimo libro, un po' datato, ma davvero piacevole.
Ringrazio Endeavour Press e Netgalley per avermi fornito una copia gratuita in cambio di una recensione onesta.

The beginning is a bit slow and convoluted, and really it's not clear where the author would like to end up. But cleared this hurdle, that is precisely the moment in which appears that great character that is Carswell, things start to get really interesting, and more and more interesting as Carswell the man takes over Carswell the spy. All other characters, including Minette, which also is the centerpiece of the transformation of this old dutiful soldier, are just points on the map that will take him to get rid of the past, his superiors then, that after having driven him in an untenable situation try even to kill him, are shadows, so much so that the author does not take the trouble to make them behave in a consistent manner, yet it even doesn't bothers.
Great book, a bit dated, but really nice.
I thank Endeavor Press and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review. show less