Sat 29 Jun 2019
MANNING COLES – The Basle Express. Tommy Hambledon #19. Doubleday/Crime Club, hardcover, 1956. First published in the UK: Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1956. Paperback reprints: Jonathan Press #93, digest-sized, ca. 1957; Berkley F892, no date stated.
While taking the overnight train from Calais, France, to Basle, Switzerland, the man in Tommy Hambledon’s compartment is knifed to death. The fact that Hambledon works for British intelligence is both purely coincidental and inconvenient: whoever killed the journalist Edouard Bastien now thinks that Hambledon must have the stolen papers he was looking for, and he and his gang follow Tommy, intent only on a vacation, into Austria atnd the Tyrolian Alps in a continuing series of serio-comic but still deadly adventures.
Chief among these is, along with the head of the Austrian Special Police, being asked to strip naked before they make their escape from their captors, then after finding some feed sacks to mostly cover themselves, being assumed to be fellow companions of two mental patients who have wandered off their grounds, all the while traipsing through the rocky Tyrolian mountainside.
As far as being entertaining, The Basel Express falls into the category of “very.” One can only wish that where the missing papers have gone wasn’t so obvious. I knew at once, while Hambledon, very embarrassingly, takes half the book, unsuccessfully, only to have a dotty lady from England come across their hiding place for him. That I found very unsatisfying.
June 29th, 2019 at 11:52 am
Despite the fact that there were 25 Tommy Hambledon novels and on e collection of shrt stories, none of them have been adapted to either film or TV. Someone is missing the boat here.
And despite the fact loads of obscure detective fiction writers of the 20s and 30s are being reprinted in handsome editions today, Only the first two Hambledon books have, and those by Rue Morgue Press several years ago. The rest of them really ought to be. I think the word serio-comic describes them well. I shouldn’t be the only one who would find that an enjoyable combination.
That’s another boat that’s being missed.
June 29th, 2019 at 9:07 pm
The first two books set the tone, DRINK TO YESTERDAY and TOAST TO TOMORROW, being dark yet often very funny as they follow Hambledon from undercover agent in WWI Berlin to amnesiac chief of police of Nazi Berlin suddenly waking up to find himself a British Agent chasing himself twenty years later. The two are actually classic spy novels DRINK ending on a dark cliffhanger note.
The delightful series, always cinematic as you suggest, continued with numerous high points like this one and WITHOUT LAWFUL AUTHORITY, all marked by what Anthony Boucher called “good humored implausibility.”
Some even have a bit of decent detective work.
I always imagined Hambledon as either John Mills or Richard Attenborough (the latter having a slight edge because Hambledon is short, fair, and stocky), and even now the books would make a fine series.
What I remember most about the books is how much fun they were to read, pleasant, suspenseful, funny (in the manner of the best British humor), and once in a while extremely tough with Hambledon a believable agent.
Most of the titles were published in paperback here by Berkeley, but I recall one or two from Pyramid too and I think early on a couple from Bantam.
I think some of the Hambeldon novels are starting to be released in e-book editions at least.
June 30th, 2019 at 6:20 am
Since posting that first comment of mine, I have been stumped trying to come up with someone who could play (or have played) Hambledon. Richard Attenborough is a good choice, but to me he just doesn’t quite fit. If I come up with someone better, I’ll say so in a later comment.
June 29th, 2019 at 11:08 pm
I see that Amazon has No Entry and Without Lawful Authority for sale in e-book form for 99 cents apiece.
June 30th, 2019 at 6:16 am
Thanks, Chuck. Not having an eBook reader, I seldom look to see what’s available on them.
June 30th, 2019 at 7:47 pm
Steve,
Since you mention it Kenneth More (THE 39 STEPS, NORTHWEST PASSAGE, THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, television’s FATHER BROWN) would have been an ideal Hambledon, with just the right balance of humor and man of action.
June 30th, 2019 at 8:42 pm
Yes, Kenneth More. He would do very very nicely.
PS. His is my favorite of all the THE 39 STEPS’s I’ve seen.