Malko: West of Jerusalem

SAS à l'ouest de Jérusalem was the ninth of the Malko secret agent thrillers written by French former newspaper reporter Gérard de Villiers (1929-2013). It was published in 1967 and was translated into English as Malko: West of Jerusalem in 1969.

The Malko series ran to 200 novels and was hugely popular.

The hero is Malko Linge, an Austrian prince. He does jobs for the CIA but he isn’t actually employed by them. His motivation is money. The family castle needs to be restored and he needs a lot of money. Despite this he has a reputation for honesty and reliability.

The book opens with the Director of the CIA, Foster Hillman, jumping out of a window to his death. This causes a major crisis. He had no health or money problems and no entanglements with women. Is it possible he killed himself because he had turned traitor and was about to be exposed? This seems impossible. Hillman was an all-American patriot and all-round great guy. But it would be a plausible explanation for his suicide. There’s also the possibility he was being blackmailed.

The CIA decides to keep his death a secret and Malko is given the job of impersonating Hillman on the telephone, using a high-tech gizmo that can copy anybody’s speech patterns exactly.

After receiving a mysterious phone call from a woman Malko sets up a meeting with her but it all goes horribly wrong. He does however now have a lead, a lead that points to the Middle East. Soon there’s another lead - a woman’s amputated finger. There’s been a kidnapping and it is connected in some way with Foster Hillman.

Malko ends up in Sardinia, infiltrating the vast estate owned by a lecherous Middle Eastern emir. Malko knows he’s on to something when somebody tries to kill him.

It was 1964 when de Villiers started writing the Malko novels so there’s an obvious Bond influence. There are exotic settings and rich powerful men with evil plans, there are glamorous women.There’s that slight hint of sadism that is often associated with Bond. There’s also plenty of sex.

It takes a while for the action to kick in but when it does it’s pretty good. There are speedboat chases and helicopters, the occasional explosion and an abundance of gunplay.

There’s a cool scene with crocodiles.

There are also some rather dark and even grim moments.

The decadence of the Jet Set plays a major part in the story and there’s even an orgy.

Malko is a standard Bond-style secret agent hero - he’s debonair, always exquisitely dressed, he’s sophisticated and he’s tough. He definitely has an eye for the ladies and they find him very attractive.

Mercifully de Villiers doesn’t get heavily into politics. The Middle Eastern background adds an air of mystery and intrigue and an excuse for a solid espionage plot. That plot isn’t overly complex but it works.

There are clear-cut bad guys and they’re suitably sinister and vicious. And colourful.

Reading a book in translation obviously makes it impossible to say anything about the prose. It is however obvious that de Villiers knew how to handle action and suspense.

This is a very competent spy thriller and definitely belongs to the high adventure school of spy fiction rather than the dark and gritty and cynical school. Highly recommended.