I really like a bit of a good old fashioned spy thriller every now again. It probably says a lot about formative years reading Ludlum, Forsyth and the like, curled up on a couch hiding from my parents (who were somewhat more interested in the daily chores list on the wall than I was). I found those early spy thrillers fascinating for a few reasons - for a start they hinted at a great menace in shadowy places in the world, places a long way away from a farm in country Australia. But luckily whilst there was menace there were also the "good guys" happily fighting the menace. Of course a fair amount of the fight was very well-mannered as well. Our characters might have been engaged in the great good versus evil battle, but that didn't mean that tea wasn't taken, and - you suspected - one didn't miss one's appointment with ones tailor.
I purposely never consider if any of these spy thrillers are accurate to life - frankly I don't want to know - the point is that there is nothing like a good spy thriller for pure and utter entertainment, escapism or just fun when it's presented to me on the printed page.
From the Blurb:
A nervous courier delivers the handwritten manuscript of a dissident Russian novel to Paul Christopher early one morning in West Berlin. Minutes after the hand-ff, the courier's spine is neatly snapped by an impact with a passing black sedan. Meanwhile, in Rome, Christopher's wife Cathy takes a famous film director as a lover to stir her husband out of the stoicism that defines his personality.
Opening Lines:
As the car moved through the wet streets of Berlin in the hour after dawn, Horst Bulow fussed with his briefcase. It was a pig-skin satchel, strapped and buckled, so old that it had lost the smell of leather. The night before, Bulow had carried it out of East Germany.
A nervous courier delivers the handwritten manuscript of a dissident Russian novel to Paul Christopher early one morning in West Berlin. Minutes after the hand-off, the courier's spine is neatly snapped by an impact with a passing black sedan. Meanwhile, in Rome, Christopher's wife Cathy takes a famous film director as a lover to stir her husband out of the stoicism that defines his personality.