Lee Crosley is a travel writer and she’s doing a story on a playboy billionaire and then mayhem erupts in the guy’s penthouse apartment. Explosive mayhem. Literally explosive. This billionaire had a few secrets. Lee is lucky to get out in one piece.
Lee Crosley has a few secrets as well. She’s actually a secret agent, working for S.I.S., an all-female international counter-intelligence agency. That billlionaire’s secrets have a connection with several other cases of rich men who have suffered curious and unexpected fates. S.I.S. suspects there’s a plot afoot with very very high stakes indeed. So high that Lee’s mission has Code One status. That means she is to consider herself expendable. The double 0 number gives Bond a licence to kill, but a Code One gives Lee a licence to get herself killed.
In this case she also has a licence to go to bed with the chief male suspect.
Any self-respecting lady spy will have a few gadgets at her disposal, such as a high-tech girdle and deadly high heels.
The basic setup is good.
The conspiracy in this case is very high level. Very close to the top. And Lee’s cover might not be as air-tight as she’d hoped.
There’s a reasonable amount of action. The plot is sound enough but doesn’t have enough of the outrageous elements required for a really good lighthearted spy romp.
The major weakness is that for a sexy spy thriller it’s just not very sexy. It’s not sexy at all. It’s much much too tame.
The second book in the series, The Chic Chick Spy, is an enormous improvement. It has the essential ingredients that the first book lacks. It also has a lot more energy and much more of a sense of zany fun. It’s a whole lot sexier. I get the feeling that for the second instalment Tralins decided to change direction fairly radically.
Of course there is sometimes doubt about the authorship of pulp novels. Publishers often had several writers all using the same house name. The change of style here is so noticeable that you might suspect that this is such a case but as far as I now Robert Tralins did write all three Miss from S.I.S. novels.
I have yet to read the third book but I have a copy on order.
The Miss from S.I.S. is by no means terrible. It’s a breezy lightweight spy potboiler. It’s just that there are other similar books that do the same sort of thing with a bit more panache. But it’s worth a look.
I’ve also reviewed the second book, The Chic Chick Spy (which I wholeheartedly recommend), as well as a fairly interesting Robert Tralins SF novel, The Cosmozoids.
Fans of sexy lady spies might want to check out some more of my reviews. James Eastwood’s The Chinese Visitor is the first of his Anna Zordan spy novels. Lust, Be a Lady Tonight kicks off The Lady from L.U.S.T. series. And Jimmy Sangster's Touchfeather is a delight. And for fans of sexy spy thrillers in general there’s Clyde Allison's outrageous Gamefinger (Man From Sadisto 6).
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