Tue 15 May 2012
Reviewed by Richard & Karen La Porte: JOHN GARDNER – The Secret Generations.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
JOHN GARDNER – The Secret Generations. Putnam, hardcover, 1985. Charter, paperback, 1986.
This might be called The Railton Saga. It is billed as a panorama covering the years between 1910 and 1939. It begins in 1910 with the death of General Sir William Railton, but almost all of the story is in the first decade.
When Sir William dies his brother takes over the clandestine network of informants the General has gathered. One by one brother Giles works other members of the family into the league. His daughter is in Paris with her French husband. One son, Andrew, is in London with a cover in the State Department. The other is in Ireland with his Irish wife Bridget and both are operating, unbeknownst to the other, inside the Sinn Fein.
The General’s two sons, John and Charles, are also in the family business. And, eventually, Denise of the third generation is in occupied Belgium running a courier service behind the Kaiser’s lines.
You can’t fault Gardner’s writing. It’s up with the best and it shows off well in a long novel like this. There are plots within plots, many twists to every turn, and any other cliche you would like to use.
But there is no cliched material in this book. The story line is unusual and the people are fresh, bright, right for their parts, and carefully drawn. The post-WWI sections are brief but revealing as a lightning-lit scene. The last chapter brings a surprise that backlights the rest of the story with a whole new meaning of the idea of “double agent.”
Fall 1986.
The Railton Family series —
The Secret Generations. Heinemann, UK, 1985 [1909-1935]
The Secret Houses. Bantam, UK, 1988 [1940s]
The Secret Families. Bantam, UK, 1989 [1964]
May 15th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
I’ve read only two or three books by Gardner, though I own quite a few others. None in this series, though, and it sounds fascinating.
May 15th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Am I wrong, but does this seem to have evolved out of The Scarlet Pimpernel and the concept of an underground league…?
May 16th, 2012 at 1:21 am
It could be, but the league in Gardner’s book consists of just one family in the UK, the Railtons (with some connections over the years to the Farthing family in the US, with perhaps some intermarriages taking place). And the scope is wider than the Pimpernel books, encompassing all kinds of international espionage (MI-6 and the CIA) not just the rescue of refugees.
I had to depend on Google to learn this, so I hope I have most of it right. Here’s the best source of information that I’ve found so far:
http://www.spyguysandgals.com/sgShowChar.asp?ScanName=Secret_Trilogy
May 16th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
One of the pluses of running a blog like this one is that I learn something from every review or article I post.
After finding that website page I included in the previous comment last night, I went to check out the rest of the site this morning, and I must have spent a couple of hours there:
http://www.spyguysandgals.com/index1.asp
As the URL says, the focus is on “Spy Guys and Gals” — espionage fiction in other words — and it includes “Information on 631 series covering 4711 books!”
And in detail. Most of the series and authors I’d never heard of. Characters from Simon Abelard (by Bill James) to Anna Zordan (by James Eastwood), and alphabetically everyone you can think of in between, including men’s adventure books such as The Executioner and sleazy spy stuff such as Agent 0008.
But James Bond, Napoleon Solo (the books) and all of the big names, too, all detailed and assigned letter grades:
Simon Abelard: B
Agent 0008 (The Man from Sadisto): D
Mack Bolan (The Executioner): B minus
James Bond: A minus
Napoleon Solo: C
Anna Zordan: A minus
I’ll be spending a lot more time there over the next few days. It looks like this will cost me a big chunk of change, too. Some of these new finds will be going straight to my want list, and from there I’ll head directly to Amazon and ABE to get them on their happy way to me and their new home.
May 16th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Thanks for this interesting link, Steve !
I immediately put it on my favorites list-and- LO and BEHOLD- it already was there.
The Doc