The Gargoyle Conspiracy

Fülszöveg

Photograph by arielle danssy
Marvin H. Albert wrote . The Gargoyle Conspiracy, as he says, 'in anger': an anger bred from a detailed knowledge of the facts with which he deals, and kept just by an intimate acquaintance with the Middle East. Beirut, Algeria and Tunisia are among the many places he knows well.
As a Merchant Marine Officer in World War Two and after, and as a newspaper man, he travelled all over the world; and since he started writing books at the age of thirty he has kept up the habit for his own satisfaction. He has been an actor, director of a theatrical group, dishwasher, magazine editor, short-order cook; and he has written a great deal for the screen. Two of his earlier books, a history of sailing ship warfare and a history of the early Tudors, have been published in Great Britain. It is not easy to see how he has found time for his favourite pleasures besides travelling: reading, chess, nursing beers in waterfront bars, sex, films, music and food.
'Most... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Photograph by arielle danssy
Marvin H. Albert wrote . The Gargoyle Conspiracy, as he says, 'in anger': an anger bred from a detailed knowledge of the facts with which he deals, and kept just by an intimate acquaintance with the Middle East. Beirut, Algeria and Tunisia are among the many places he knows well.
As a Merchant Marine Officer in World War Two and after, and as a newspaper man, he travelled all over the world; and since he started writing books at the age of thirty he has kept up the habit for his own satisfaction. He has been an actor, director of a theatrical group, dishwasher, magazine editor, short-order cook; and he has written a great deal for the screen. Two of his earlier books, a history of sailing ship warfare and a history of the early Tudors, have been published in Great Britain. It is not easy to see how he has found time for his favourite pleasures besides travelling: reading, chess, nursing beers in waterfront bars, sex, films, music and food.
'Most of my family's past,' he says, 'is buried somewhere in the Ukraine.' He was born in Philadelphia in 1924, and is at present living in Paris.
FACT often overtakes fiction, these days; many real incidents in the war waged against the West by Arab terrorists make thrillers look tame. But Marvin H. Albert's novel The Gargoyle Conspiracy^ challenging fact on its own ground, leaps ahead. It is excruciatingly exciting, while at the same time it offers an impressive interpretation of the guerilla activities on which it is based.
Ahmed Bel Jahra has to See from Morocco after the failure of General Oufkir's aerial attempt on King Hassan's life. His whole being is centred on returning to his country and bringing down the King's regime, but without the backing of an existing guerilla organisation he is helpless. To gain such backing he must prove his worth.
His first attempt to do this takes place at Rome airport. It causes five deaths but falls miserably short of its objective, so to recapture the confidence of his sponsors he needs quickly to bring oiF something bigger and better. A chance meeting with a woman he once took to bed opens up a staggering possibility. He will have to prove a virtuoso in conspiracy to achieve it, and it will cause much incidental bloodshed, but the double assassination he can now envisage would make him a hero of a great part of the Arab worW.
Meanwhile Simon Hunter, an American cop working for the State Department, is investigating the Rome airport attempt: a man with a huge ;igsaw puzzle to assemble from which almost every piece is missing. We now have two stories to
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continued from front flap follow, that of the coup's preparation and that of Hunter's patient and relentless tracking. He fnd I ;I Jahra both go about their jobs with professional meticulousness-a large part of this novel's fascination lies in the accuracy with which it reveals the mechanics of conspiracy and of police work; and both of them are nerve-rackingly subject, for good or ill, to accident and coincidence.
The conspirator has better luck than his pursuer, and as the stories weave in and out of each other it seems increasingly improbable that Hunter will hit on the missing pieces of the jigsaw before it is too late. The novel's climax, a breathless but finely controlled acceleration of events, resolves an almost unbearable tension.
What takes The Gargoyle Conspiracy so far ahead of most suspense stories, however crafty, is its searing topicality and its truth to fact.
Jacket design by Tom Simmonds
ANDRE DEUTSCH
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