Saturday, November 22, 2008

A Fine Night for Dying - Jack Higgins

Over the years I’ve read a number of books by Jack Higgins (whose real name is Harry Patterson) and enjoyed them all, but I haven’t read anything by him in a while. To remedy that I picked up a recent reissue of A FINE NIGHT FOR DYING, originally published in 1969. This is the next-to-last book in a series about British secret agent Paul Chavasse, which was first published under the pseudonym Martin Fallon and later reprinted under Patterson’s better-known pen-name.

I hadn’t read any of the Paul Chavasse books until now. There’s a certain similarity to James Bond: Chavasse reports to an M-like boss who has a flirtatious secretary like Miss Moneypenny, and Chavasse can also be brutally and efficiently violent when he needs to be. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, though, at least in this book. Although it has an international espionage angle, at heart it’s really a gritty little crime story about a ring of smugglers who bring people without visas into England. Chavasse is given the assignment of breaking up this smuggling operation, and to do so he has to pretend to be a fugitive from the law himself.

This is a tightly written book, the sort of lean little British thriller that doesn’t get written much anymore, if at all. A couple of years ago I read a debut thriller from an author who has gone on to be a best-seller. I remember thinking that it had a pretty good plot, but Nick Carter could have handled the same plot in a third as many pages. The same is true of Paul Chavasse. There are no wasted words here. Despite that, the story didn’t really draw me in until the extended action sequence that closes the book. The plot doesn’t have much in the way of twists and turns; the only real “surprise” is telegraphed early on. But the action scenes are very good, and in the end I enjoyed the book enough to make me want to read more of Higgins’ work again. I’ll probably pick up another of his novels soon.

6 comments:

August West said...

Even though the Sean Dillon series has been extremely popular, I've always enjoyed his earlier pieces of work. My personal favorite being "The Valhalla Exchange." (WWII Nazi stuff) And Its always nice to be able to pickup his reprinted issues in used bookstores, garage sales, etc...

Hell of an author, I'll have to start on one of the Harry Patterson books again soon.

David Cranmer said...

I enjoyed Eye of the Storm from 1992 but I agree with August West that earlier stuff like The Eagle Has Landed are among the ones I remember best... A Fine Night For Dying sounds like a good read.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

I've got Pay the Devil on my shelf waiting to be read.

James Reasoner said...

I read PAY THE DEVIL a while back and remember liking it a lot. It's almost a Western.

madshadows said...

Big fan of Jack Higgin's books, His stuff is really readable and keeps you hooked into the books. a great writer IMHO and well worth checking out. Sean Dillon is a great character, a James Bond type but with a evil edge !!

John :)

Ben Boulden said...

I'm a big fan of both Jack Higgins and his Paul Chavasse novels; I've read all of them except tough to find MIDNIGHT NEVER COMES that was re-worked and published as ON DANGEROUS GROUND. And every one of them is worth reading--a blue collar James Bond is Chavasse.

I finished reading Higgins' NIGHT JUDGEMENT AT SINOS last night and it was also terrific. Higgins is great.