Frankly, I tend to avoid thrillers, but will often make an exception when they deal with World War II, a period I love reading in for non-fiction too.
Helen MacInnes may very well be the Queen of thrillers and espionage novels written during World War II and the Cold War. She got it naturally, as she and her husband toured Europe as Hitler was taking power in Germany. She so hated what she saw she took notes and vowed to write books against Nazism. It also helped her husband was a member of MI6, British Intelligence. In fact, her first novel, "Above Suspicion," was based on their honeymoon.
However, I also read some of her novels based during the Cold War and find they are page-turners for me. Most of her novels have strong female characters, as does this one.
In Ride a Pale Horse, an American female correspondent is drawn into a trap set by a KGB agent. The trap involves deceptions within deceptions. Then there is the Russian mole in the CIA, which helps keep things lively. Who is real? Who isn't?
If you like thrillers and espionage, then I highly recommend Ms. MacInnes. I just checked and many of her novels are posted here. Including 12 copies of this one.
For those of you unaware of her talent, sixteen of her novels were on the International Best Seller list. Her novels sold 20 millions copies just in the U.S. alone. To quote from her Wikipedia page :
"MacInnes's second novel, Assignment in Brittany (1942), was made required reading for Allied intelligence agents who were being sent to work with the French resistance against the Nazis. It was featured on the New York Times first fiction bestseller list, in 1942. Her 1944 book, The Unconquerable, gives such an accurate portrayal of the Polish resistance that some reviewers and readers thought she was using classified information given to her by her husband."
Helen MacInnes may very well be the Queen of thrillers and espionage novels written during World War II and the Cold War. She got it naturally, as she and her husband toured Europe as Hitler was taking power in Germany. She so hated what she saw she took notes and vowed to write books against Nazism. It also helped her husband was a member of MI6, British Intelligence. In fact, her first novel, "Above Suspicion," was based on their honeymoon.
However, I also read some of her novels based during the Cold War and find they are page-turners for me. Most of her novels have strong female characters, as does this one.
In Ride a Pale Horse, an American female correspondent is drawn into a trap set by a KGB agent. The trap involves deceptions within deceptions. Then there is the Russian mole in the CIA, which helps keep things lively. Who is real? Who isn't?
If you like thrillers and espionage, then I highly recommend Ms. MacInnes. I just checked and many of her novels are posted here. Including 12 copies of this one.
For those of you unaware of her talent, sixteen of her novels were on the International Best Seller list. Her novels sold 20 millions copies just in the U.S. alone. To quote from her Wikipedia page :
"MacInnes's second novel, Assignment in Brittany (1942), was made required reading for Allied intelligence agents who were being sent to work with the French resistance against the Nazis. It was featured on the New York Times first fiction bestseller list, in 1942. Her 1944 book, The Unconquerable, gives such an accurate portrayal of the Polish resistance that some reviewers and readers thought she was using classified information given to her by her husband."
"...The incompareable Helen MacInnes has done it again--in a swift and thrilling tale that spins from Europe to ashington and offers the very best in non-stop action, fascinating characters, and spine-tingling intrigue." This is a first publication.
[from the back cover] When Karen Cornell, a beautiful journalist on assignment in Czechoslovakia, agrees to help a would-be defector by carrying top-secret documents to Washington, she is pulled into an astonishing web of terrorism, political assassination, blackmail, espionage, and treason in the highest levels of both superpowers. One false move could cost Karen her life--and throw the world into violent war.
This is the 21st novel by international suspense writer Helen MacInnes.
This is the 21st novel by international suspense writer Helen MacInnes.
Helen MacInnes was the queen of spy and mystery novelists. Her career spans the same time frame as her friend and fellow champion of western civilization, Dame Agatha Cristie. To read Coulter, Paretsky, Kellerman, Roberts, Mary Higgins Clark, et. al., and not to have experienced MacInnes, is like being a fan of Neil Simon, never experiencing Shakespeare! She passed in 1985, never seeing the end of the Soviet terror that she railed against.
