Jon Cleary (1) (1917–2010)

Pearl Rule 14 (p50)

Rating: 2.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Paul Tancred, First Secretary at the American Embassy in Beirut, walks a tightrope. On either side, war is imminent. Caught between a passionate desire for peace and loyalty to an old friend and in love with an Arab girl, Paul is sucked into a whirlpool of espionage and violence.

My Response: On the first page, the author drops the w-bomb. Over the next three pages, he uses the very 1960s racist shorthand of Arabs being shifty bargainers, Western educated if intellectual and violent primitives if not, Americans being honorable if dimwitted, Welsh people being romantic and shifty....

It's got balls...the first line is "You could help us kill Nasser." That isn't exactly the least PC line in the first fifty pages, either. But balls, love them though I do, aren't anywhere near enough to compel me to wade through an American diplomat's loss of innocence told in this period-perfect voice.

I have no idea if anyone I know will want to read Season of Doubt, but believe me it's not one to go on an extended search for. Thus I bid farewell to Author Cleary, after having read [Peter's Pence] at the cyber-behest of Criminal Element's The Edgar Awards Revisited series of articles. (It won for 1975.) I've reviewed that book already. This one, I'm sorry to say, never overcame my distaste for its period politics with a cracking story the way Peter's Pence did.… (more)