Mike Ripley retired from regularly reviewing new crime fiction after more than 32 years (and almost 3,000 reviews) at the critical coal-face. He now restricts himself to the worthy or unusual titles which tempt him out of retirement.
After a gap of several years I am delighted to see not only the early spy thrillers of David Brierley coming back into print, but the second of a promised trio of brand new novels in Budapest Hand and once again Brierley revels in settings slightly off the beaten thriller track – Czechoslovakia, Tunisia, Latvia and in this case, Hungary.
The hero of Budapest Hand is not a spy, he’s an Oxford-based journalist, but his wife might have been one. The problem is she was declared dead in Budapest four months ago after her car was fished out of the Danube leaving gruesome evidence of her death in the shape of a severed hand. But then our hero Bazil Potter, who is half Hungarian, spots his wife, alive and well, in a BBC television news clip filmed in Budapest and strange things begin to happen as Bazil tries to investigate.
The news item mysteriously vanishes from the BBC schedule, Bazil’s home is burgled and his passport stolen and he’s warned off by shady Foreign Office mandarins and even shadier Special Branch officers. Given that his wife had been a ‘diplomat’ of sorts, Bazil really should have suspected his wife of dabbling in espionage, but as the days of a Communist secret police are long gone, who in Hungary is worth spying on? (Spoiler alert: the Hungarian mafia.)
Undeterred by intimidation at home, and with the aid of his dual-nationality Hungarian passport, Bazil charges off to Budapest to find his wife, with the aid of a wily Hungarian cousin – who really was a secret policeman in the good old days – and a voluptuous photographer sent as back-up by his newspaper.
The story is narrated by Bazil in an understated, in-over-his-head style leavened with David Brierley’s cynical humour and fascination with local history and culture. Very much out of his comfort zone, Bazil survives mainly thanks to the assistance of his streetwise cousin Josef who has a long memory when it comes to unpunished crimes and the fantastic ability to pull off an outrageous bluff to get out of, or into, a dangerous situation.
And their situation does get very dangerous as the action hurtles, harum-scarum, to a violent, and ultimately harrowing, conclusion.
{Note: David Brierley’s famous ‘Cody’ spy novels have all been reissued by Brash Books, along with his superb stand-alone Big Bear, Little Bear.}
