I began reading Helen MacInnes when I was a teenager — many happy hours curled up in a leather armchair in my school’s library with one HM book or another. Recently, she’s made a resurgence in our household, and I am having enormous fun rediscovering her work and remembering why I have enjoyed it so much over the years.
Her books are suspense/spy thrillers, many of them set during WWII, so there’s lots of action and people running down dark alleys and such. They’re brilliantly written, with characters who are interesting and believable people even in unbelievable situations — although MacInnes was an astute observer of political conflict on both the macro and micro-level, and her plotting shows it. Her work focuses always on the human consequences of politics. And, like John D. MacDonald, she had many things to say about being human in general, and she wasn’t afraid to let her characters say them every once in a while.
He ought to have come alone. But it had been easy to be persuaded, for the selfish reason, quite apart from the more practical one that this mission must seem a holiday as usual, that he would have been miserable without her. He lay and thought of the way in which two people, each with their own definite personality, could build up a third personality, a greater and more exciting one, to share between them.
— from Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes, 1942
If you don’t know MacInnes’ work, seriously, go get some. (Edited to add: Thanks, Mark, for this additional link to information about MacInnes as a person and a writer.) Libraries everywhere are bound to have her — she was enormously popular in her day, and I agree with Julia Buckley that it’s a damn shame HM doesn’t get more love now. She’s ten thousand times a better writer than Robert Ludlum or Alistair MacLean.
They all made such businesslike gestures, thought Richard irritably. Did it really prove greater efficiency to walk with a resounding tread, to open doors by practically throwing them off their hinges, to shut an insignificant notebook with an imitation thunder clap? Probably not at all, but — and here was the value of it — it made you look, and therefore feel, more efficient. The appearance of efficiency could terrify others into thinking you were dynamic and powerful. But strip you of all the melodrama of uniforms and gestures, of detailed régime worked out to the nth degree, of supervision and parrot phrases and party clichés, and then real efficiency could be properly judged. It would be judged by your self-discipline, your individual intelligence, your mental and emotional balance, your grasp of the true essentials based on your breadth of mind and depth of thought.
— from Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes, 1942
The grasp, the breadth, the depth, are things that I aspire to as a writer and a person. Helen MacInnes certainly had them as a writer, and I imagine she was a fantastic person to drink and eat and talk with. Another person on the long list of if only.
*sigh* One more name for my towering to-read pile. These are the times when I wish I could just ditch school.
BTW, I enjoyed Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Been meaning to tell you. Even E read it! I seized the chance to get her hooked when she woke up from a nightmare involving an old building that seemed to watch her and her group of fellow psychologists, all of whom were living/working in it. When she said the building was evil and haunted and mad at them, I knew she’d read the book. So glad it worked.
Thanks for your reading recommendations. I’ll get around to most of them one day.
Thanks for the recommendation, Kelley! Like Karina, I’ll add it to the pile of books to be read, which will some night fall over and kill me in my sleep. But what a way to go.
Unfuckingbelievable! Guess who else read all of Helen MacInnes’s books in high school? I loved them for the adventure and suspense. I also loved them because the male and female characters were equally complex and interesting and had real relationships. Because of her books I actually thought seriously of going into the foreign service when I grew up.
Karina and Duncan, I hope you get as much pleasure out of reading HM as I do. I envy people the first-time read of people like Jackson (Karina, so glad you and E both liked her, I think she’s amazing) and O’Brian and MacDonald and MacInnes. Oh, so many good reads in the world! Duncan, ah, death by books… although you also have the option of death by chocolate. I think I would choose books.
Barbara, how great! HM was one of my set of Adventure books for sure, I was always looking for stories that I could throw myself into, where I could live dangerously and be competent and smart and always know the right thing to say. I am a total pushover for that sort of thing done well.
Those sound great. Is there one of her books that you’d particularly recommend as an introduction to her work? (I’m looking at a long list on Amazon.co.uk, and feeling a little overwhelmed by choice!)
Just last week I mentioned her to Donna (who is generally not good with names) and wondered aloud why she just sort of vanished from popular ken.
I just checked and one of the better online bits about her is curiously enough on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/28VWM1S7W0GLP
The Salzburg Connection is around the house somewhere….
Hi Stephanie, well, they’re all good (grin), but I suggest possibly (in no particular order of ranking) The Venetian Affair, The Salzburg Connection, North from Rome, Above Suspicion, or Assignment in Brittany. These are books I think of as “vintage HM,” whereas there are a few (like Message from Malaga) that are a bit different in focus or landscape. HM, among her other talents, is also wicked good at landscape/location!
That’s a great link, Mark, thanks very much. I’ve edited the original post to include it.
I ordered Above Suspicion when I first read this post. Despite also having a considerable ‘to be read’ pile myself. I always like your recommendations Kelley. I’ve been slowly working my way through the MacDonald books. I enjoy them, but can’t take too much at once (because of the dated sorta sexist stuff). In fact I’ve just started another, and here’s my favorite line from it so far:
A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enters your mind. With acquaintances, you are forever aware of their slightly unreal image of you, and to keep them content, you edit your self to fit. Many marriages are between acquaintances. You can be with a person for three hours of your life and have a friend. Another one will remain an acquaintance for thirty years.
Oh, that’s from Bright Orange for Shroud
Jennifer, I’m glad you’re enjoying MacDonald. Yes, there’s some eyebrow-raising gender moments, for sure. I treat those like something I would find in an historical document: shake my head and move on. But the human moments — about friendship, love, life, self — those, for me, are timeless.
I’m so happy to find someone else who enjoys Helen Macinnes. I’ve enjoyed her books since I was a teenager also. They are so hard to find now. Our local library started weeding out some of the older books. It’s such a shame!
I’m always happy to find someone who loves Helen MacInnes. I was alive during the cold war and enjoyed spy thrillers which were set in the times which were occurring. Now, I am retired and am re-reading her books again. My favourite character was Colin Grant. My recollection is that he appeared in three novels: PRELUDE TO TERROR, THE HIDDEN TARGET, and ???????? I have Googled it to death, but simply cannot find a literary reference which gives enough of the plot to find the title in which he first appears and in which he meets and marries Jennifer. I would be so grateful if you can supply that answer. Or have I just imagined I read that?
Thanks. from Australia
Hi Laura. I wonder if you are mixing up Colin Grant with Bob Renwick? Colin Grant is the amateur hero in Prelude to Terror, and Bob Renwick is the “pro” guy who is the secondary focus. In that book, Colin meets Avril but there are complications (being coy so as not to spoil the book for others). Then in The Hidden Target, Bob Renwick (as the main hero) gets together with Nina. And in Cloak of Darkness, Bob is under threat and sends Nina to stay with Colin for a while. I was happy to see Colin again…
But I don’t know of a book in which Colin is once again the main hero, apart from Prelude to Terror. Would love to read it if there is!