Sun 3 Feb 2019
Archived Mystery Review: EDWARD S. AARONS – Girl on the Run.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
EDWARD S. AARONS – Girl on the Run. Gold Medal #424, paperback original; 1st printing, August 1954. Reprinted several times, including d1772, 1967.
My chronology may be a little bit off, bit I believe this is the book Aarons wrote just before beginning the series he’s most famous for, the Assignment series starring rugged CIA agent Sam Durell. It shows, too, since it contains much of the same style, settings and overall flavor of the series books that came next.
Something changed for Aarons as a writer in the early to mid-50s. After a short career writing for the pulps, mixed in with a number of ordinary detective thrillers written as Edward Ronns and taking place on the US, his books shifted their focus to that of international intrigue, mostly for Gold Medal. These later books are always filled with local color and details of life abroad that only someone who’d been thee could know (or so it seems), and his heroes are always convincing.
And although the problems his heroes run into do have far-reaching international significance — in this case either the treasure or the uranium deposit that Harry Bannnock’s French girl friend’s father has discovered will help restore France’s place in the community of nations — it is on the personal level that Aarons’s stories make their greatest impact. Aarons was no John le Carre or Len Deighton, with massive plots and counterplots that overshadow everything else in the tale, but I still read Aarons’s books, and I haven’t been reading theirs.
February 3rd, 2019 at 6:09 pm
This is a favorite of mine, a solid little adventure thriller in a minor Victor Canning or Eric Ambler key. It is fast paced, smart, and cinematic in the best sense, and for once you can’t quibble that Aarons peters out in the finale, something fans of the Durell books rightfully complain about in many cases.
The work he did at GM is far and away the best of his career, and it would be interesting to know the cause of the sea change from his more mundane, but reliable, pulp mystery work.
Minor though he may be (in comparison), he was a highly entertaining writer, and Sam Durrell deserves more recognition as one of the better spy series to pre date and post date the spy craze.
I suspect Aarons just did his research on his well rendered international settings much like Van Wyck Mason (who credited NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC for travel details despite his being widely traveled) and Stephen Marlowe. Part of the art of writing is the ability to spin convincing worlds out of your research.
We should probably keep in mind that writers like Lowell Thomas, Richard Halliburton, Peter Fleming, Freya Stark, Wilfrid Theisenger, and others were penning brilliant travel books in this general era that could give any writer who made the effort and had the skill plenty of background material for these kind of books, not to mention the ubiquitous Nat. Geo.and actual seven league boots writers like Hammond Innes.
February 3rd, 2019 at 8:21 pm
We’re certainly on the same page with this one, David. Not only does this pre-Sam Durell deserve to be reprinted, but the entire run of Assignment books as well.
February 8th, 2019 at 11:23 am
Read this one a couple of times. I don’t think I’ve ever started an Aarons novel without finishing it.
Let’s hope an outfit like Stark House reprints this one.
February 8th, 2019 at 5:44 pm
Dozy
The good news is that Stark House is working on it. Aarons’ family has been located, but so far, unfortunately, they haven’t shown a lot of interest in working out terms.
February 8th, 2019 at 11:57 am
So glad to hear sung the praises of Ed Aarons, who is one of my top tier favorites (and influences). I love the way he wrote pulp with a literate tone, & his use of research is outstanding. I have this one, haven’t read it though and so into the TBR stack it goes. If Aarons were alive today I suspect he’d be doing one book a year & would be up there on the NYT bestseller list ahead of his modern, minimally talented
counterparts like Brad Thor & Vince Flynn