The Torch of Tangier by
Aileen G Baron
hbk out December 06
Published by Poisoned Pen Press
at £15.95
This is Aileen G Baron's second novel, and the second time she has used Lily
Sampson, archaeologist. As a professor of archaeology herself, you can be sure that
Baron's description of that aspect of Lily's activities will be compellingly accurate.
In the previous novel, 'A Fly Has a Thousand Eyes', Lily Sampson was in a 1938
Jerusalem populated by Jews, Arabs and the British presence in Palestine. Now time has
moved on, and Lily is in Tangier in 1942. Having arrived a year earlier, before Pearl
Harbour and the US's entry into World War Two, she has been peaceably involved with
excavations at the Caves of Hercules. Now the team is frustrated at being unable to work
on the site in a Morocco controlled by Vichy France. Tangier itself is supposed to be an
International Zone, but it is populated by German spies, and controlled by the Spanish
police. Her boss, Dr Hammond Drury, seems curiously unconcerned about getting out,
and he and Lily along with team members Clark MacAlistair and Zaid Sutton are stuck,
albeit languishing in some style. Drury introduces Lily to a friend – Will Bill Donovan,
whom most people will know of course as a real-life person and founder of the OSS during
the war. Lily is asked to help out at the US legation, and from there gets increasingly
sucked into undercover and dangerous activities associated with the invasion of North
Africa. It is a recipe for murder and high drama.
All the ingredients of an old black-and-white movie are here – incompetent but
scary German spies, a slippery customer by the name of Armand Korian at the Legation,
who might be Arab or Armenian, fearful Arab assistants, a brooding and resentful shady
operator of mixed blood, and legendary old lady Emily Keane Shereefa, ex-governess
turned revered widow of important Arab leader. Inevitably, though Lily still cherishes
memories of her lover Rafi, lost around Tobruk, she meets and is charmed by handsome
Major Adam Pardo. Though the opening is a little disjointed due to excursions into the
past to explain the present, the tale is a delicious girlish romp with more than a flavour of
'Casablanca' to it. If you come to this story without expecting subtlety in the
characterisation, but looking for a good yarn well told, you will not be disappointed.
Let's hope Aileen G Baron has another Lily Sampson up her sleeve.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
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The Torch of Tangier by
Aileen G Baron
