Customer Reviews

The tango briefing

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Quiller is back, and this time he's being pitched headlong into the deserts of Algeria with the mission of locating and destroying a downed plane with a cargo that could embarrass the British government. In typical Adam Hall fashion, the objective that the eponymous hero is asked to risk his life for is not world-shaking. The freedom of the world is not at stake, and failure will not mean that his closest friends or loved ones will meet a fate worse than death. Quiller is an adrenaline junkie, driven to risk his life but disciplined enough to adhere to rules and regulations of unthinkable strictness. (For instance, agents are not allowed to steal from private citizens, disallowing them from hotwiring a car to escape certain death.)

As with all Quiller books the real draw are the enormously telescoped action scenes, where a few seconds or minutes worth of action can take up an entire chapter. Hall tries to give us an insight into every factor that goes into the instinctive decision making of an intelligent and highly trained individual by creating an impossibly fast internal dialogue for Quiller at every decision point. We get to know why he choses a specific karate strike, why he positions his head slightly to the right or left of the steering wheel when a sniper is trying to gun him out of his car, and a thousand other details. The overall effect for the reader is that you can almost step inside these situations and feel that you have lived them.

This is, in my opinion, the best written book of the Quiller series, and it is well worth checking out if you like spies or action.

There is a lot more info on the Quiller series at www.quiller.net, a fan site.

"The Tango Briefing" is certainly the fastest-paced, most entertaining Quiller adventure I've read so far. Elleston Trevor (using pseudonym "Adam Hall") reuses the same basic premise of his classic "Flight of the Phoenix" - a plane crashes in the desert - and adapts it remarkably well for his world-weary "ferret" Quiller. This is a return to form of sorts following the somewhat slower-paced, more Le Carre-esque atmosphere of "The Warsaw Document", which put Quiller in the field without an operator. Thankfully, in "Tango Briefing" Quiller is grudgingly reunited with Loman (who first appears in the somewhat lesser second novel, "The Ninth Directive"), and who, in Quiller's view, is both prissy and too wrapped up in bureaucratic protocol to be fully trusted. Their tenuous partnership matures and adds a shade of humor and character development often absent from the previous books.

Though I would certainly consider "Tango Briefing" to be a classic, it is not without flaws. In every novel, Quiller rambles on about "brain think vs. stomach think", "the organism" crying out to live whenever he puts his life in jeopardy, and uses the saying "no go" whenever possible. It probably made more sense when the books were published every couple years, but wears a bit thin for those of us reading the books now. Likewise, there are a number of loose ends that are never fully developed. Who was the "second cell" that was trying to murder he and the previous agents and what happened to the unseen marksman with the gun that was "really quite big"? Likewise, I'm not sure we are ever given a good explanation of how the "cargo" ended up on Tango Victor or who the "clandestine" group was that smuggled it aboard. It can be argued though that because the books are written in first person, Quiller himself never knows and readers can guess based on clues. It is frustrating though, especially since Trevor goes to such great lengths to reason out minute details and lend credence to a couple otherwise unconvincing moments in which Quiller dodges difficult predicaments. All in all, though, I think this is a great adventure and feel that the series should be given a faithful film adaptation - one at least in which Quiller is not portrayed as being American.

You read Quiller & everything else pales in comparison. James Bond is embarrassing & LeCarre's characters are boring bureacurats. Quiller however is resourceful, brave & vulnerable at the same time. He doesn't need gadgets or even a gun, he is better, stronger & braver than most of us, but the plot & his actions still remain credible. He's also human: he doesn't hide his fear of going back "to those nasty birds", nor the fact that while determined to die, he'd rather avoid it. You never get the sense when reading that it's a character you can't relate to.

Beginning with a dull and annoying eye test, ending with a mix of sun and shade hardly easier for the 'shadow executive' to process, The Tango Briefing is the most internal of Hall's Quiller tales.

That is saying something indeed, since all of the novels are written in a first-person narrative that is painstakingly detailed whether it is during the fifth minute of a lonely car pursuit on a midnight roadway, steeply banked, across the Algerian Sahara...or the fifth second-- counting down now--before head-on impact at 140 mph after he has turned his car to play chicken with the same pursuer.

While the possibility of screen time for Hall's hero seems remote--other excellent reviews seem to agree--if there is a candidate among Hall's stories for a Pinter-esque adaptation for the post-modern stage--allowing for a gas tank explosion and a larger one, of course, at the end--it is The Tango Briefing: Man/woman alone, pursuing odd goals through this sometimes-unimaginably nightmarish wasteland redeemed only, perhaps, by common decency (here, esp. Quiller's, regarding the young female aide's future career path, and his director's regarding his final voice communication to his agent), only explained, perhaps, by a "sense of duty".

(P.S. Bleak and yet. There is nothing existential about Quiller's admiration for those he elsewhere describes as caring, committed, and competent...especially competent. So how about let's cure the big C already and stop talking about doing it.)

In this adventure, Quiller is first challenged to define his own objective. The geography is real; you can feel the heat and see the shifting sand and share his thirst. You also share his satisfaction when he succeeds - and then his determination when he is sent back to die.

From his induction by Loman into a suicide mission to the end its self-prophesying ending Adam Hall delivers quintissential Quiller dialogue and attitude; at his most innovative and closer that ever before to the edge, the hard-nosed espion comes home with reputation enhanced.