Desmond Bagley’s The Freedom Trap

The Freedom Trap was Desmond Bagley’s eighth thriller, published in 1971. It was filmed two years later as The Mackintosh Man.

At first it seems like it’s going to be a gritty hard-edged crime thriller, but of course that’s not really what it’s all about.

Rearden is a South African thief who has arrived in London to do what should be a very simple job. It’s a diamond robbery but it’s so well-planned that it’s fool-proof. His reputation suggests that he’s a very clever very cautious thief and on this job he leaves nothing to chance. But even the most clever cautious thieves sometimes get caught. In this case it’s obvious to him that there are only two people who could have betrayed him - either Mackintosh (the mastermind behind the robbery) or Mrs Smith (Mackintosh’s young very attractive and ultra-efficient secretary who carried out the detailed planning). Either way he is now facing a very long prison term.

Rearden doesn’t like the idea of spending twenty years in one of Her Majesty’s prisons. If an opportunity for escape is offered he intends to take it. Such an opportunity is offered. There’s an organisation which specialises in breaking out of gaol, if they have the money to pay the very high fees involved. And Rearden has no idea if he’s being set up. He just has to trust these people. The fly in the ointment is that Slade will be breaking out as well. Slade is serving forty-two years for espionage. Rearden isn’t bothered by the fact that Slade is a Soviet spy. Rearden isn’t British, it wasn’t Rearden’s country that Slade betrayed and in any case Rearden has no love at all for the British. The problem is that Slade can’t walk properly so he’s likely to be an encumbrance. However there’s no choice. He either escapes with Slade or he doesn’t escape at all.

It’s not too long before Rearden starts to wonder if he should have trusted these people.

To say any more about the plot would be to risk spoilers.

In the 1960s Alistair McLean was one of the world’s bestselling writers and was regarded (quite rightly) as being at the very top as far as thriller writers were concerned. It’s hardly surprising that he had quite a few imitators. The best of these imitators were Desmond Bagley and Gavin Lyall. Bagley and Lyall were so good that it’s really unfair to dismiss them as imitators. It might be better to say that they belonged to the Alistair McLean School of thriller writing.

The Freedom Trap is very much in the classic MacLean mould. It uses the first-person narration that MacLean used in his best books and it uses certain narrative techniques that MacLean had perfected. MacLean loved exotic settings but he liked exotic settings that were off the beaten track rather than the obviously glamorous settings that Ian Fleming favoured. The Freedom Trap takes place in England, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta.

My feeling about Bagley is that he was very good but not quite in the same league when it came to plotting as MacLean or Lyall. Bagley’s plots are skilfully handled but they don’t pack the same surprise punches that MacLean and Lyall always delivered. The Freedom Trap has a good plot but once you start to put the pieces together it’s just a little predictable in the way it plays out.

This book is also in the MacLean style in the sense that there’s virtually no sex at all (although there’s a kind of romance between the hero and Alison and I’m not going to tell you who Alison is because that might be a mild spoiler). The emphasis is entirely on action and excitement. In those departments Bagley delivers the goods. The action finale is excellent.

The hero doesn’t have a huge amount of personality. Alison is more interesting. The villains are suitably devious, especially the primary villain.

Bagley always wrote well. In this novel there isn’t really any major use of an exotic setting although he certainly creates a memorable prison atmosphere.

The Freedom Trap is a good solid thriller and it’s definitely worth a look.

On the subject of the Alistair McLean School of thriller writing, I highly recommend Gavin Lyall’s Midnight Plus One and Shooting Script. Bagley’s The Vivero Letter is also well worth checking out and his Running Blind is an object lesson in the effective use of an unusual setting (Iceland).