Wed 20 Jul 2016
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: BRIAN FREEMANTLE – Comrade Charlie.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
BRIAN FREEMANTLE – Comrade Charlie. Charlie Muffin #9, hardcover, St. Martin’s, US, hardcover, 1992. First appeared in the UK: Century, hardcover, 1989.
I think this is the ninth Muffin book — the idiot US publishers have retitled so many that I can’t be positive I haven’t missed one. Regardless of how many, Freemantle has created one of my favorite espionage characters in the scruffy Muffin.
Charlie is the eternal outsider, the irreverent prole amongst the stuffy aristocrats of England’s secret services. Unfortunately for them, he’s as cunning as a weasel and has a highly developed instinct for self-preservation. He’s already brought down numerous superiors who had thought to rid them-selves of him, and earned several sets of undying enmity in the process. His escapes haven’t been unalloyed with tragedy; his wife was killed in an early book, and he later had to leave a lover behind in Russia.
As usual, Freemantle starts out with several semi-related plot threads, and brings them ever closer as the tale progresses. Charlie’s immediate superior is after him again with dismissal the least of his aims; an old Russian nemesis of Charlie’s is given the job of stealing some Star Wars technology from a plant in England and decides to get even with Charlie in the process; and he enlists Charlie’s old lover, all unwitting as a part of the plan. Will the lovers be reunited, or destroyed? Will Charlie emerge triumphant again, or will this be the time they get him? Well, you’ll just have to read it and see.
And you’l1 enjoy it. Good writing good story, great character. Charlie Muffin is a genuinely engaging maverick, and Freemantle always puts him through some complex, interesting, and readable paces. Great Britain has produced a number of outstanding espionage series, and in my mind Charlie M. ranks with the best. Do it.
Bibliographic Note: Barry’s numerical calculation was quite correct. This was the 9th book in the Charlie Muffin series. Through 2013, there have been 16 in all.
July 20th, 2016 at 12:39 am
Sixteen books, and I’ve read only the first one, CHARLIE MUFFIN (or CHARLIE M here in the US), and that was back in 1977. I enjoyed it, too. Why I never picked up on any of the others is a mystery to me.
July 20th, 2016 at 5:15 am
Barry got me to read these and I liked them a lot, but every time I mean to go back and read the rest something else seems to come up first and I forget. I believe he did eventually bring back the Russian lover in a trilogy within the series (Red Star Rising, Red Star Burning, Red Star Falling), but as I haven’t read them yet I can’t tell you more than that.
Charlie Muffin U.S.A. (originally Charlie Muffin’s Uncle Sam) was set in Florida, as I recall, and was very accurate about an area I know.
July 20th, 2016 at 11:55 am
I found Charlie through his film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_7wAyieyMg
I was disappointed in the second book but have several waiting to be read.
There is a touch if I remember right of Brian Garfield’s HOPSCOTCH about Charlie. I liked the film HOPSCOTCH better than the book as well. Watching actors react to the complex twists as the hero outsmarts the people after him is more fun than reading the same action without the reaction shots.
July 20th, 2016 at 12:24 pm
I had no idea the Charlie Muffin movie still existed. Thanks for the link, Michael.
David Hemmings seems to be an ideal fit for the title role. I’ll have to watch this and find out.
July 20th, 2016 at 10:00 pm
A clever series with an engaging hero. Freemantle was an exceptional master of the spy story and one, had he come along a little earlier in the genre’s popularity might well have had greater success. I loved the Hemmings film, but thought a television series would have served Charlie better.
August 12th, 2016 at 3:33 pm
The review inspired me to check local bookstores for Charlie Muffin titles, a search that yielded only The Blind Run (1985). Although I am hoping that other works in the series are more compelling, only one part of the book bothered me: the description of Charlie Muffin’s duties in the prison library as “reindexing.” I think the activity must have been reshelving or shelf-reading. Surely Charlie was not revising Universal Decimal Classification numbers…
Thanks to Michael for the link to the movie on You-Tube.