I know it was last month's book, but February's a short
month, so I
hop no one will mind a few random thoughts on this
book.
One thing that struck me on re-reading this after so many
years is
that Robin Rosten's culpability in the spy plot against the
US was
kept hidden from the reader until close to the end. I won't
comment
on how well-hidden. I don't expect it was too hard for most
of you to
pick her out as the main villain of the piece. It was
interesting to
me, however, that there was even a token attampt at
concealment, since
the whodunit-type plot is fairly rare in spy fiction.
Offhand, I can
only think of LeCarre's *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* and
William
DeAndrea's series of four novles about American Super-Agent
Clifford
Driscoll that qualify. Incidentally, Robin doesn't drown
in
*Murderers Row*. She returns, under an alias, in *The
Intimidators*
and *The Revengers*.
Hamilton seemed to rather like recurring villains. The most
frequent
was Mr. Soo, a Red Chinese agent who appearred in four Helm
books
(*The Betrayers*, *The Interloopers*, *The Poisoners*, and
*The
Retaliators*). On the basis of sheer ubiquity, he's the
closest Helm
came to a personal Moriarty.
Vadya, a beautiful Soviet agent who was Helm's opposite
number,
appears in three books (*The Ambushers*, *The Devastators*,
and *The
Menacers*). But, in Hamilton's eyes, the worst villains are
federal
bureacrats who undermine the effectiveness of the
nation's
intelligence agaencies, and Helm's agency in particular.
Herbert
Leonard, who appears in two books (*The Menacers* and
*The
Intriguers*) and Mr. Bennett, who appears in three (*The
Revengers*,
*The Infiltrators*, and *The Vanishers*), fit this
description.
More later. - Jim Doherty
--UNS_gsauns2_3070122822--
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