Well, I've reached and read the last of Helen MacInnes's novels; it did not disappoint. Ride a Pale Horse (1984) leaves Robert Renwick, who had figured in the previous three stories, behind and, instead focuses once more on an 'amateur'. As always, the hero (this time heroine) is an American having to battle with the typical MacInnes 'baddies' - communists from Russia and anarchists. Karen Cornell, is a US journalist sent to Europe for the Prague Convocation for Peace. The city, still under Russian supervision, is one of MacInnes's favourite settings, used in several of her previous novels. Whilst there, Cornell agrees to help a high-level Czech bureaucrat escape to the West. But is he all that he seems - well, no! She is told to contact a CIA expert, Peter Bristow, once she returns to Washington.
First edition - 1984 Fontana paperback - 1986
From then on, the scene switches to another of MacInnes's favourite cities - Rome. The story involves anarchists, bombing, treachery and, of course, murders (assassinations?) The author clearly knew a considerable amount about the workings of the USA Intelligence services, both at home and abroad. Her late husband had certainly worked for British Intelligence during the Second World War and may well have been employed in low-level spying for a considerable time after. However, it is not just her technical know-how (compared with today, the spy's arsenal was still pretty primitive) that makes her stories so compelling. The plots in nearly all the novels are complex and tight; she is strong on character, whether female or male; and her descriptions of European cities and countryside is as good as any travel writer's. As one reviewer has said, members of ordinary professions...become accidentally involved in an espionage plot and find themselves navigating an ominous new geography of duplicity and danger with the hint of death around every shadowy corner...the books followed a formula, but it was one that MacInnes shrewdly made work for her.
The last time I read a Helen MacInnes novel was in 1986, 34 years' ago. From Message from Malaga onwards, I bought the Fontana paperbacks as they came out. Much later on, I collected the original UK hardbacks and have ended up with all of them except The Unconquerable. I haven't read my paperback version again, preferring to see if I can chase down the Harrap hardback. The other three books which I have decided not to re-read are the ones set entirely in the USA, a country I am not really interested in (except for spy stories!)
What were my favourites this time around? When one has read so many in such a short time, it leaves you mildly confused as to which was which. However, the ones that stuck in my mind, in date not preference order:
Assignment in Brittany (1942); Friends and Lovers (1948); North from Rome (1958); Decision at Delphi (1961); Prelude to Terror (1978); The Hidden Target (1980); and Cloak of Darkness (1982). But, really, I enjoyed them all. MacInnes was known as The Queen of Spy Writers. The vibrant sense of place, the suspense, the Iron Curtain paranoia all support the hammering home of her message - a hatred of totalitarianism of any sort. Dated? Yes and no. The events are obviously anchored in the 1940s-1980s, but the message is as relevant today as it was then. Putin's Russia, Xi Jinping's China, Kim Jong-Un's North Korea and Ali Khamenei's Iran are just as evil as their Nazi and Cold War predecessors and MacInnes would surely have gripping stories to write about them.
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