Tue 21 Oct 2014
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review: GORDON ASHE – A Nest of Traitors.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[4] Comments
by Karol Kay Hope
GORDON ASHE – A Nest of Traitors. Holt Rinehart & Winston, US, hardcover, 1971. Popular Library, US, paperback, no date. First published by John Long, UK, hardcover, 1970.
Gordon Ashe is a pseudonym of John Creasey, an amazingly prolific British writer who had to his credit some 560 novels published under more than twenty names. A Nest of Traitors continues the adventures of Patrick Dawlish and “The Crime Haters,” one of his most popular series.
A revered British war hero and onetime independent crime fighter, Dawlish is now deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, London, specializing in crimes of international significance. He is also the acknowledged leader of a loosely knit group of crime fighters, the membership representing every major police force in the world.
In this case, Dawlish must alert various international investigative agencies to a widespread passport-fraud scheme that could wreak havoc on immigration and passport control throughout the world. As Dawlish’s investigation continues, passport control turns out to be the tip of the iceberg; a select group of the world’s most powerful men are on their way to seizing control over each government, major industry, banking system, and society on the planet.
By the time Dawlish discovers this master plot, the organization — known as “the Authority” — has almost succeeded, and Dawlish is the one person standing between a
free world and its complete domination by this small but vicious group of immensely wealthy megalomaniacs.
Unfortunately, Dawlish is just too perfect; and the Authority is too powerful to really be vulnerable to the heroic antics of what Ashe would have us believe is the last honorable man in the world. Farfetched, but a good book to read yourself to sleep with.
Patrick Dawlish appears in all the Gordon Ashe novels except The Man Who Stayed Alive (1955) and No Need to Die (1956). Representative titles are Death on Demand (1939), Murder Too Late (1947), Elope to Death (1959), A Clutch of Coppers (1969), and A Blast of Trumpets (1975).
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
October 21st, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Dawlish originated as Creasey’s answer to Bulldog Drummond, so farfetched is a good description. Dawlish and the Crime Haters by this point like Dr. Palfrey and his was part of Creasey’s political vision of world cooperation that was the basis for the political party he formed in England.
The Baron, The Toff, Gideon, Roger West, and Dr. Cellini all still fought more personal battles, but Dawlish and Palfrey took on big threats, super criminal organizations and threats to the planet itself, and Creasey’s specialty was pulling their fat from the fire at the last second when it seemed impossible for them to win — in fact he literally decimated the planet in a few Palfrey’s if not worse. In one by the end there is no life on Earth below the tree line — but all is back to normal in the next book.
But for anyone who wants to explore it these books are not only, as you say, good for reading before bed, they show a great deal of insight to Creasey’s political views of international cooperation against threats to all.
October 21st, 2014 at 7:56 pm
Dr Palfrey’s adventures were so farfetched that I could never get through one, but I tried. I’m sure I read a couple of the Dawlish books, back in the day, but if I did, I certainly don’t remember the scope expanding to such a worldwide, international scale as this one does.
Creasey wrote so many books and so many series, I’ve probably got them all mixed up in my head.
October 21st, 2014 at 10:46 pm
Creasey did occasionally use the big conspiracy elsewhere, notably in the two Roger West books THE THEFT OF THE MAGNA CARTA and THE EXECUTIONERS, but they were not as wide ranging as the threat here.
Most of the Dawlish books remained more personal than this one despite the Crime Haters, but if Creasey was going to use an international conspiracy Dawlish or Palfrey were his go to characters.
Before Dawlish his first try at a Bulldog Drummond type was Bruce Murdoch, the Liberator (as by Norman Deane) who battled a villain along the lines of Valentine Williams Clubfoot, the Withered Man.
If you can find it, I AM THE WITHERED MAN is an interesting experiment since it is narrated by the Withered Man himself, something I can’t imagine Rohmer doing with Fu Manchu, Doyle with Moriarity (other writers did, but not Doyle), or McNeile with Carl Peterson — or Irma for that matter.
I didn’t find it successful, the Withered Man is a bit of a Snidely Whiplash crossed with Colonel Klink from HOGAN’s HEROES to be frank, but it is short and well worth reading just to see how close he comes to pulling it off.
October 22nd, 2014 at 5:18 pm
I must have a ton of John Creasey on my shelves. I used to buy them blindly trying to complete each series or get all the books published under each pen name. I even read some of them, but have not opened one for years. About Dr. Palfrey, a friend of mine once said you might just as well read Sax Rohmer.