Paul
Chavasse: An Introduction to the Cold
War Spy Story
I. Introduction
The 1960s were a decade of espionage—both in cold
war machinations of super power maneuvering and popular fiction. The popular front of the adventure spy story
started when it was made public President John F. Kennedy enjoyed Ian Fleming’s
James Bond novels. According to the JFK
Presidential Library and Museum website, Allen Dulles, former Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, stated:
“‘Jacqueline Kennedy
gave her husband his first James Bond book (probably From Russia, with Love).’
Dulles then began to buy other books,
and sent them to John F. Kennedy.”
Ian Fleming’s work became a sensation, hitting the
major bestseller lists and, in the decades since, becoming a pop culture icon;
spawning a myriad of films and, after Fleming’s death, attracting authors great
and small to continue the Bond series. While
the James Bond series is the most well known of the adventure spy genre, it is
far from the best. The most striking of
its contemporaries was Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels—a series first appearing
in 1960 with Death of a Citizen, and
totaling 27 titles in its three decade run.
In industry, and publishing is no different, when a
commercial strike is made—in this case the rise of Fleming from midlist writer
to bestselling phenomenon—a host of copycat products are rushed to market. One of the many spy novels published in the
wake of Fleming’s success was a slim volume published by Abelard-Schuman, a
British publisher, in 1962 titled The
Testament of Caspar Schultz (Testament). The name on the copy was Martin Fallon, which
was a pseudonym for a young Harry Patterson.
The
name Martin Fallon and Harry Patterson have a long and successful history. Martin Fallon was
used for the protagonist of two separate novels—the first was an early title, Cry of the Hunter, which was published
in 1962 under Patterson’s own name, and the second was A Prayer for the Dying published in 1973 as by Jack Higgins. Mr. Patterson has a tendency to repeat
himself, and he did something very similar to the two incarnations of Martin
Fallon: He killed both. The novels are
both very good, but A Prayer for the
Dying is one of Patterson’s best.
II. Chavasse
Testament
featured
a stark and hard protagonist named Paul Chavasse. Chavasse was a former academic who caught the
eye of Mallory, the boss of a British espionage agency answerable to the Prime
Minister called “The Bureau,” when he helped a friend escape from Communist
Czechoslovakia. Mallory, known as “The
Chief,” offered Chavasse a job while he was in hospital recovering from his
wounds. The Bureau is headquartered in
an old house in St. John’s Wood—on a polished brass plate next to its main door
is inscribed “Brown & Company – Importer’s & Exporter’s”.
Paul Chavasse is a
recognizable character to readers of Harry Patterson; educated, exotic—he was
derived from a Breton father and British mother—cynical in a romantic sort of
way, and tired of the game he can’t, or really doesn’t want, to leave. Chavasse’s personal life is not really explored
in the novels; however, a paragraph from Testament
summarizes his early life, in order to explain his French name—
“My
father was a lawyer in Paris, but my mother was English. He was an officer in the reserve—killed at
Arras when the Panzers broke through in 1940.
I was only eleven at the time. My
mother and I came out through Dunkirk.”
The novels are serious
adventure stories, but there is some humor.
Enough that it seems Patterson likely had a great time writing the Paul
Chavasse novels. An early scene in Testament finds The Chief explaining why
Chavasse can’t have some much needed time off.
When Chavasse asks about two specific agents—Wilson and LaCosta—Mallory
responds that Wilson is presumed dead in Ankara, and LaCosta—
“…cracked
up after the affair in Cuba. I’ve put
him into the home for six months….I’m afraid we shan’t be able to use LaCosta
again.”
Another example is a
line from the 2001 edition of The Keys of
Hell, where two characters are speaking of Chavasse’s excessive skill as a
linguist, “He speaks more languages than you’ve had hot dinners.”
The Bureau is set up
similarly to that of Fleming’s MI6. The
Chief is over the top and larger than life, and very, very British, and his
private secretary, Jean Frazer, is all curves and someone Chavasse quite enjoys
looking at—
“She
was wearing a plain white blouse and tweed skirt of deceptively simple cut that
moulded her round hips. His eyes
followed her approvingly as she walked across the room to her desk and sat
down.”
While his eyes are
appreciative, Chavasse is anything but a womanizer, and his relationship with
Jean Frazer is that of a friend.
Chavasse, like most of Patterson’s protagonists, has a romanticized view
of women, which is often both a strength and weakness, but it always lends
itself to the character’s loneliness—he is an outsider, isolated from a society
that depends on his work to survive, and often a gentleman people look upon as
fallen far below his stature.
Chavasse always gets
the job done and he does it with a complex mixture of larger than life exploit
and human frailty; a mixture and style only Harry Patterson can routinely
employ successfully. It is atmosphere,
dialogue and action. When in top form Patterson
can tell a character’s story with the singularity of the way he smokes a
cigarette, stirs his drink, or looks at a woman. The six novels to feature Paul Chavasse are a
step below Patterson’s best work, but only just.
Part III. Novels
1. The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962)
2. Year of the Tiger (1963)
3. The Keys of Hell (1965)
4. Midnight Never Comes (1966)
5. Dark Side of the Street (1967)
To be continued...
Ben, I enjoyed reading your insightful essay on Paul Chavasse, and I look forward to reading Part III. I haven't read "The Testament of Caspar Schultz," "Midnight Never Comes" and Dark Side of the Street" mainly because it's not easy to find Higgins' early novels in my neck of the woods. Chavasse was at his entertaining best in "The Keys of Hell" and "A Fine Night for Dying."
ReplyDeleteI thought A PRAYER FOR THE DYING, both novel and film, were very good and Mickey Rourke fit the role of the brooding Martin Fallon, especially in the end scene. I don't know what it is about Higgins and priests and luckless women, although anyone who has read up on his early life in Northern Ireland will understand why.
Although Patterson does repeat himself, in terms of characters, plots and settings, I find his books highly entertaining nonetheless. He is a storyteller in the truest sense, just like Jeffrey Archer.