Thu 26 Apr 2018
A. S. FLEISCHMAN – Counterspy Express. Ace Double D-57. paperback original, 1954. Bound back-to-back with Treachery in Trieste. by Charles L. Leonard.
A matter of a defecting Russian scientist, temporarily missing somewhere in Italy, Austria or France, with CIA agent Victor Welles (aka Jim Cabot) on his trail. There is a girl involved, or more precisely, two, as well as a slew of various Communist agents.
A minor affair, easily read, easily forgotten, I amused myself by wondering if I could make a movie out of it, and I can. My version would star none other than Alan Ladd, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Sydney Greenstreet and Orson Welles. How’s that?
PostScript: I’d have to do some rewriting though, if I’d like to avoid some of the more obvious cliches of the trade. Such as, why on earth does every hard-nosed agent you come across (or every cheap imitation hard-boiled PI, which is very nearly the same thing) in every book that every instinct should warn him against, but whom he falls in love with anyway?
“Cabot” is even warned by the advance agent on the scene. The man is dying or severely wounded by shots fired from the taxi that sped around the fountain in the center of the piazza, but he manages to get these words out: “Don’t get mixed up with a woman. My mistake.” Does Cabot pay any attention? Are you kidding? Is the Pope Polish?
April 26th, 2018 at 11:29 pm
Not only was the Pope Polish, he was quite a guy.
April 27th, 2018 at 6:32 am
Well we’ve all had relationships like that, hsven’t we?
April 27th, 2018 at 1:04 pm
After two hardcover mysteries from Phoenix Press in 1948-49, all of Fleischman’s other novels were published by Gold Medal, except for this one. I have a feeling that this one was a Gold Medal reject. I’ve enjoyed all of the ones from Gold Medal that I’ve read.
April 27th, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Not bad for what it is. His Gold Medal titles were less by rote though, his big one BLOOD ALLEY filmed with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall.
I always thought this one read as if it was aimed at selling as a movie.
I spent twelve years with State in intelligence and worked undercover five years with Pinkertons and was only seduced once — in exotic faraway Dallas. I must have been doing something wrong. Of course, the only time I was on the Orient Express was with my wife.
Reading something like this reminds you what a breath of fresh air Fleming and Bond were. It wasn’t until Charles McCarry and Robert Littel that an American writer other than Marquand got the spy novel right. And yes, I’m including Atlee, Aarons, and Hamilton.
Most fictional American agents were just misplaced private eyes.