Jarrolds publishers - 1939/40?
I began collecting the Jarrolds 'Jackdaw' Crime Series paperbacks a few years ago and have managed to purchase 12 of the original 16, published between 1939 and 1940. The two Moray Dalton works (Nos. 15 and 16) and Alan Kennington's She Died Young (No. 9) are proving elusive. However, I received from Zardoz Books - that excellent paperback bookseller in Westbury, Wiltshire - only this morning the fourth book I was after: Marthe McKenna's Double Spy (No. 12). Once I have read it, I shall Blog on it. There are two others (at least), in addition to the numbered sixteen, which have been traced and, though unnumbered, I have detailed as No.17# and No.18#. Van Wyck Mason's, The Cairo Garter Murders, the first of these, I failed to win on Ebay - my top bid was beaten by another, more wealthy, collector. I did track down another of Marthe McKenna's spy novels - again from Zardoz Books. This was the first of nine crime paperbacks I read on our recent holiday in Greece - all of which I will be Blogging on in sequence. Like Van Wyck Mason's book, the cover price has gone up from 6d. to 9d. A casualty of the Second World War.
The story of the author is at least as interesting as her spy books. Marthe Mathilde Cnockaert, born in West Flanders, Belgium, in 1892, began studying at Ghent University's medical school, but her studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Great War. She was conscripted as a nurse at a German military hospital in her home village. She was awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans for her medical service. Transferred to the German Military Hospital in Roulers, a family friend revealed she was a British intelligence agent and that she wished to recruit Marthe to an Anglo-Belgian intelligence network operating in the town. Such was the latter's success in passing on important military intelligence, she was mentioned in dispatches on 8 November 1918 by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and was made a member of the French and British Legions of Honour. She married John 'Jock' McKenna, a British army officer. Her memoir I Was a Spy - ghostwritten by her husband and published under her married name in 1932 - had a foreword by Winston Churchill. The following year, saw it made into a Spy Thriller movie, with Conrad Veidt as Commandant Oberaertz and Madeleine Carroll as Marthe. The film was voted the best British movie of 1933 and Carroll as the best actress in a British film that year.
Of the 17 books written by Marthe between 1932 and 1951, 13 had 'Spy'/'Spies' in their title. Although published under Marthe's name, it is speculated that her husband was largely responsible for their writing. In the Second World War, Marthe was listed in 'The Black Book' of prominent subjects to be arrested by the Nazis in case of a successful invasion of Britain. After the war, the McKennas returned to Marthe's family home in Westrozebeke. Their marriage ended around 1951 and Marthe died in 1966.
Hunt the Spy tells the story of the inimitable British secret agent Jim Archer and a beautiful London shop girl, Susan Denton, who innocently becomes entangled in a sinister spy plot. Susan's close friend, and fellow worker at the outfitters Rayon and Crepe, has married Andrew Blair, a staid uncommunicative young man, who is an assistant to a Professor Justin MacArdle, who is working on some secret assignment in the small town of Bayleigh on the Thames Estuary. Strolling along window-shopping in Bond Street, Susan is accosted by a tall, slim young man, tanned of face, short dark crispy hair and glittering laughing eyes. He pretends he has mistaken her for someone else, but the tone of his deep caressing voice and other attributes soon enable him to wangle his way into her affections. The reader soon finds out (before Susan herself) that he is a dastardly spy - leaning towards the Germans but, more importantly, totally out for the highest bidder. What is he after? - Professor MacArdle's 'secret' invention, which could help turn the tide in a future war. Nicholas Talos, for such is he, at their first dining out, gives Susan a sparkling brooch (the reader should keep this in mind for a future episode).
A burly chauffeur is sent to pick Susan up for the next date, but is attacked and Susan is 'rescued' from a difficult situation. Her rescuer? "My name is Archer - Jim Archer" (shades of "Bond. James Bond.") of the British Secret Service. Archer takes her to meet a friend, Philip Glade, who is immediately attracted to Susan. Archer tells Glade that "Talon is a brilliant misfit. A God in forehead but at heart a fiend...he is a magnificent beast...he is the complete international spy..." He also explains that MacArdle's invention will possibly give Britain a cast-iron defence against air bombers (no wonder Talon wants the blueprint - to sell it to the highest bidder). The story develops with Susan not only visiting Rayleigh to see Muriel but also going to a fortune-teller, Madam Sigratta, who is obviously up to no good. The latter appears to have links with Talon. In fact, it's all good, if dangerous, fun and the author can spin a promising yarn, with plenty of mishaps and near escapes on the way. Good and Britain will, of course, win out, as does Philip Glade with Susan Denton. Moreover, as the very last paragraph states: But, damn it all, it was well worth it. Professor MacArdle would recover the complete plans of his invention, and the day that saw its completion would be the signal for Britain's roar to be heard rumbling round the world. And this time it would roar with a set purpose, not of frightening persecuted insanity, but of carrying soothing peace to all men's minds. So, bah! to Hitler and his toughs.
No comments:
Post a Comment