Customer Reviews

Soldier of Fortune

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One of Ernest K. Gann's many classics. The story takes place in Hong Kong in the 1950's. A woman goes searching for her husband who has been captured by the chinese communists. She procures the help of a mysterious American with shadowy connections to help get him back. A finely crafted novel with many interesting characters, but also very believable, with a splendid ending. They don't write them like this anymore. And even if they tried they could'nt top Ernie Gann. For some interesting insight read Gann's autobiography, A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE, with some background on developing the story for this book as well as being a very interesting book in its own right.

Having seen the film,"Soldier of Fortune" years before reading this wonderful writer's works, I expected mild disappointment. However, instead it is easy to see how this book remains a classic of its genre. Like another reviewer, Gann's prose is crisp, and sharp from beginning to end. The Clark Gable film version remains on course by relying on Gann's dialogue and combining characters in one instance. What you get reading it enlarges your experience of the culture and times in postwar Hong Kong considerably. The way Gann moves the story along while fleshing out the characters,(not all made it to the film)does make a case for Gann's surpassing Hemingway in some respects. In things aeronautical, Gann is unsurpassed. What Tim Allen, the comedian, does for "tools," Gann does for the acoutrements of war: guns, whiskey, bravado, courage. The men who inhabit this story are not stereotyped except to advance the narration; venal, vain, corrupt,weak, sentimental and compassionate as the situation demands. Written in the 50's, the women are not always submissive or weak. I'm not so sure that America has advanced so far when the only thing America made of Hank Lee,the protagonist, before he was thirty was being "a truck driver." Then, as now, some Americans must go abroad to make something of themselves, not always legal, before returning to its shores.

If you could sketch the story's plot it is really basic: girl seeks guy; guy likes girl but has complications;guy decides to be a gent and help girl out of situation; girl rewards guy for solution. In the hands of a gifted craftsman like Gann, it is an adventure worth taking every time.

When I saw this book on the screen as a 10 yr. old, I memorized its trappings of success(the domain of freedom) for Hank Lee(Clark Gable)with his hillside mansion, two kids, and his sailing junk "Chicago": whiskey, .45 cal. gun and for backup, a 20mm. gun below decks. In the book, it's even better: a Bofors 40mm. cannon instead!

This is a pot-boiler. Implausable plot and unbelievable events. Other than that it is just dated. OK - Lady looks for her missing husband in Hong Kong, meets dangerous people who actually help her. Lots of threats and narrow escapes - but only the Brits come off as heros.

Gann wrote much better books -- "Fate is the Hunter", "Gentlemen of Adventure", "In the Company of Eagles". Try one of those.