City of Gold (Thorndike Large Print Basic Series)

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Summary: Foreign Military Spy story
Review: ... It is clear that he reigns supreme of the war spy thrillers. I must admit that this topic does not particularly interest me, however, I wanted to see if this "king" of war spy thriller could reach the disenchanted. Well, he was not so gifted. I really could not get with this book. I tried as I wanted to expand my subject interest.

After reading the first 20 pages, the author still had not reached any interest in me, therefore, I had to put the book down, never to pick it up again. I am willing to admit that I contributed the largest part to my disinterest, but, the author has to accept some of the blame also. I hope that sometime in the near future (next 5 years) I will be able to pick this book up again and read it in its entirity as I would have grown some. ...

Rating:
Summary: A Different Len Deighton
Review: CITY OF GOLD is a different kind of Len Deighton book. There is no cold war Berlin here. No Bernard Sampson risking his life to make one more dangerous border crossing. No Fiona, the non-traitor traitor, nor any of the rest of Deighton's usual cast of spies, counter spies, and stay-at-homes. Deighton, to his credit, has tried something different here.

Far from the cold war in both time and place, we find ourselves in 1942 Cairo in the presence of one Bert Cutler who isn't Bert Cutler at all. He is really Jimmy Ross who doesn't want to be Bert Cutler but can't afford to be Jimmy Ross. We first meet Ross on a train on the way to Cairo in the Custody of Cutler. Ross is being taken to Cairo to be tried for murder when Cutler suffers a fatal heart attack. The quick thinking Ross manages to switch identities with the deceased and shortly finds himself in Cairo charged with finding the identity of a spy who is leaking information on British troop movements to Rommel, the Chief of the German Tank Corps. Ross doesn't want to stay Cutler. He doesn't want to hunt for a spy. All he wants to do is to escape before his true identity is discovered. An escape opportunity never presents itself.

This is not a spy story. It is, however, a pretty good adventure set in Cairo and the surrounding desert. As Cutler, Ross's life is further complicated by the murder of a British soldier that he is expected to investigate. In investigating this murder, he runs across a group of "special assignment" British Soldiers who aren't really soldiers at all, but armed marauders who steal British Munitions and sell them to the highest bidder. To further complicate matters, the second in command of this group isn't even British. He's really German, but none of the other members of his "Unit" have been able to figure that out. In the final analysis, this man is the key to solving both mysteries, the intelligence leak and the murder.

Ross, along with some real British Soldiers and the profiteering phonies are all caught in the desert in a major raid by Rommel. All but Ross die, but not before he has solved both questions. In the aftermath, Ross, whose true identity is discovered. is set free and never tried on the murder charge against him, but to get the answer to the key question: who was leaking the strategic information, I'm afraid that you will have to read CITY OF GOLD. That is what this review is about isn't it?

Rating:
Summary: Not His Best, Far From It
Review: I wish the book had as much luster as the gold it talks about in the title. Bland, dull and obvious, all that in the first chapter. Based on the outline of the story I thought this would be an interesting book, and I have read some of his World War Two based books before which were ok. Unfortunately, the best writing was on the dust jacket. I got the feeling he just put this together to give him more time to get another of his famous spy novels completed. I would skip this one.