M.G. Braun was the pseudonym used by Maurice Gabriel Édouard Brault (1912-1984), a very successful and prolific French writer of detective and spy fiction. Between 1954 and 1978 he wrote an immense number of Al Glenne spy novels. Sadly only four were translated into English.
The cover blurb naturally tells us that Al Glenne is the French James Bond. Personally I thought this novel was much closer in feel to an Alistair MacLean thriller. It uses the same technique of putting a first person narrator hero into an incredibly hostile environment, an environment that becomes as much of a threat as the bad guys. The hero is also more like an Alistair MacLean hero than a James Bond. It resembles MacLean’s thrillers in another way but I can’t say more since that might give away a spoiler.
This is a spy action thriller but it is also a kind of murder mystery. The book puts a group of people into an isolated situation and one of them is a killer.
French secret service agent Al Glenne is sent to Venezuela to retrieve a satellite. He will be working under a more senior French agent, a man named Théo. The satellite came down in the middle of the jungle. The French secret service people are excited because they think they have a lead that will get them to the satellite before their rivals (which includes the Russians, the Americans and the British). The French and the British don’t know if the satellite is American or Russian. What they do know is that there is a super-advanced laser on board and they want that laser. At the moment the French are lagging behind the Russians and the Americans in this technology but if they can get hold of this laser they will catch up overnight.
Al Glenne and Théo parachute into the jungle. Everything goes smoothly at first. They now have the laser. Then everything goes wrong. They find themselves with three enemies to deal with - a very hostile local tribe plus an American and a British secret service team.
There is now a party comprising about a dozen assorted spies from rival powers all thrown together and nobody trusts anybody. With good reason. It’s not long before one of the British spies is murdered, by an unknown killer. The killer must be a member of this ill-assorted party.
An added complication is their local guide, Innocencia. Innocencia is young, very female, very pretty and absurdly over-sexed. As you might imagine this adds considerably to the uneasy atmosphere.
And other members of the party turn up dead. Murdered.
The only way out of this nightmare is a long long trek through the jungle to reach a seaplane that (they hope) is waiting for them. They have no radio. And the rains are about to arrive.
As much as anything else this is a saga of survival, with plenty of paranoia thrown in.
The plot is quite solid with plenty of twists. There are some clues scattered through the novel that make the final twist at the end plausible.
Although there’s a high body count this is more of a mystery/suspense thriller than an action thriller. And both the mystery and the suspense are handled effectively. Innocencia’s presence adds plenty of sexual tension - all the men want her.
All in all this is an enjoyable spy thriller and having a French spy as the hero adds interest. Highly recommended.
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