Friday's Forgotten Books, THE DEAD LINE, Philip McCutchan

(from the archives) Bill Crider

 

The Dead Line -- Philip McCutchan

 Back in the '60s I read spy novels by the metric ton.  I wasn't the only one, as there were more spy series being published than I care to count.  The reason, as you all know, was James Bond.  Every publisher wanted to find "the next Bond," and as you can see by the blurbs on this book, Commander Esmonde Shaw was one of the guys that reviewers thought might fit the bill.  I'm not sure how many books in the series Berkley published, but I read a lot of them.  I ran across this one the other day and picked it up to see what it would be like to read one again.  Or re-read.  I have an idea I read all the Berkley editions with this particular cover style.


As you'd expect, Commander Shaw is pretty much a Bond clone, except even more suave and attractive to women.  He's a magnificent physical specimen, and he has a great car.  He smokes, too.  Everybody did, back in the old days.  The book opens (as a lot of spy novels did) with Shaw recovering from wounds received on his previous assignment.  He's doing some surfing to tone up, and of course all the young women on the beach swoon over him.  Also of course in only a short time he's become one the best surfers around.  Now, however, it's time to get back to work, so he gets put through some tough exercises by his handlers and proves that he's aces.


Then he learns about his assignment.  This is a very '60s novel, with the commies stirring up "the Coloured elements" and doing a bang-up job of it. Shaw's sent to Harlem, where a woman falls for him at once and gets involved in some really serious action that even includes a tiger.  In an apartment.  Things get even more bizarre later on.  (Spy novel plots got more and more outrageous as the years went on for writers not following the Le Carre model.)  It's kind of hard to get past the racial elements of the plot here.  It might have been good fun in 1966, but it's not so much now.  Still, McCutchan had a flair for this kind of thing, and the book zips right along.  Maybe I'll read another one someday.

Short Story Wednesday, The Continental Op, Dashiell Hammett

     "The Tenth Clew"

Hammett is such a straight forward story teller He dives right into this story as he goes to the house of a man who has summoned him. He arrives to find his potential client has been killed. Just what the man feared. Nine items have been recovered from the dead man's person and he asks the man's son, if they all belonged to his father. The son identified nine items that were his father's. Of course, there's a woman in the story and her brother. A well-written story I enjoyed.  

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Trying to work my way through this ANDOR, which people tell me is great. I am not seeing it yet. Also watching ANNE WITH AN E and FURIOUS on Hulu. 

No movies at the theater this week, but I watched the 1976 version of OBSESSION with Cliff Robertson.And I liked THE DRAMA (HBO) very much.

Two birthday parties this week. Once you are old, people celebrate birthdays like you are eight.

Reading a collection of stories about the Continental Op by Hammett and about to start WHISTLER by Ann Patchett

How about you?  

ASYMMETRY, Lisa Halliday

 This book from 2018, is divided into three sections, which come together by the end.

The first section is about an affair between a young woman editor and an elderly famous novelist (maybe Philip Roth)

The second section is about a Muslim man who is waiting to be released by security in an airport. He tells the reader about his life. 

The third section takes the famous novelist to a radio station where he participates in Desert Island Disc. 

This is a first novel and a good one. It is not immediately clear how the parts fit together. 

Short Story Wedneday' GOOD EVENING, MRS CRAVEN: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes

 

Mollie Panter-Downes wrote (150) letters and 21 stories for the NEW YORKER about her wartime experiences in England. All 21 appeared in the magazine, about one every three months. They remind me of the novels of Barbara Pym or Anita Brooks or Elizabeth Taylor. They are humorous, sad and short. I don't know where I got this collection from but it's terrific for anyone who wants to be reminded of wartime Britain. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

I hope they will film more Broadway shows and show them on movie screens. They have been doing this with operas for some time. This was a wonderful show. Really terrific music. They are extending the run so look for it at your local theaters. Also watched THE BLUE HERON on Criterion, which was sad but so well done for a first film.

On TV watching ANDOR (Disney) Anne with an E (Netflix), TRYING (Apple). There must be more but I can't think of what. I watch a lot of LANDSCAPE PAINTER OF THE YEAR. 

I went to my friend, Rose's 90th birthday party today. Her whole family was there as well as her friends. They held it at the Polish Cultural Center, which was fun. The food was terrific.

Still reading ASYMMETRY by Lisa Halliday.  

Lovely weather although we could use some rain--but not as much as half the world.

How are things there?