Cause For Alarm

I really enjoyed Cause For Alarm.  It’s a brilliant spy novel and not at all what I was expecting, but in a really good way.  I’ve read a couple of John Le Carre’s books and so thought I knew what I was getting into; that Eric Ambler would be similar.  He’s not and it’s wonderful.

Cause for Alarm tells the story of Nicky Marlow, a down on his luck engineer who takes a job in Milan following a downturn in the British market.  As I far as I could discern, Marlow makes machines that make weapons, or parts of weapons.  I really should know, but this part of the novel at least wasn’t particularly interesting or essential.  The key points are really that it’s 1937, he’s in Italy and involved in weapon production.  With hindsight, this is probably something the British should have been working on in 1937 too, but never mind.  After having his passport confiscated by the authorities, Marlow becomes embroiled in espionage.  Probable Nazi General Vagas pays for reports of all sales, while American busybody Andreas Zaleshoff pays him to feed Vagas false information.  Naturally, this all goes to hell at some point and Marlow and Zaleshoff spend about a third of the book on the run.

There are a couple of things that I loved about this book.  The first is that Marlow is the worst at spying.  He spends the book following the orders of Zaleshoff and never really being confident in his actions.  As soon as he lands in Milan, Marlow is in over his head and really just wants to go home to his fiancée.  Even she, from England, manages to deduce more than he does; helping him work out that his correspondence is being steamed open and read.  Marlow pretty much blunders his way through the novel and it’s so refreshing to see.  Le Carre’s books are so full of complex plots and twists that are orchestrated by genius spies that it makes a nice change to be in the company of a hero who isn’t a hero.  In fact, there are no professionals on the side of the good guys.  Even with Zaleshoff’s help, Marlow spends 80-odd pages fleeing trouble.  The protagonists are so much more relatable for it.

Ambler also has a fantastic turn of phrase.  He is a joy to read because of it.  When writing home to his fiancée, Marlow describes his (female) secretary thusly, “she has two dark pools of mystery where her eyes ought to be, a complexion like semi-transparent wax,” and about Zaleshoff he writes, “you received the impression that you were watching a very competent actor using all the technical tricks in his repertoire in an effort to make something of a badly written part.”  It’s a wonderful example of the hard-boiled style that people just don’t use any more.  It’s a real shame that that style was side-lined into genre fiction and then discarded, because it’s so entertaining to read.  I’d love to read a hard-boiled rom-com.

Cause For Alarm isn’t a perfect book but it’s damn good one.  It suffers, like most spy novels from the time, of a lack of women.  Marlow’s fiancée, Claire, mostly exists as a contrasting concept of home.  And even Zaleshoff sister, Tamara, who is his helpmate, is not around for any of the espionage heavy lifting.  It’s a small thing that could have improved the book, but really it’s a minor quibble.  All in all Ambler’s book is a cracking tale of pre-World War Two Italy.  Again, this provides a nice contrast from the plethora of books set at the timethat focus solely of Hitler because, really, Mussolini was a shit bag too.

I’m now on Lousia May Alcott’s Little Women.  I know, I know- I should have read it by now but I’m finally onto this classic.