M.G. Braun’s That Girl from Istanbul

That Girl from Istanbul is the fourteenth in M.G. Braun’s long-running and extremely popular series of Al Glenne spy novels. In was originally published in French, as Pas de bonheur pour Spyros, in 1959. The English translation dates from 1966.

M.G. Braun (1912-1984) was an amazingly prolific French writer of pulp fiction.

The French police stumble upon something big when they shoot a top Soviet spymaster by accident. It’s a plot to kidnap a Turkish girl. She seems like a very pleasant very ordinary girl and there’s no reason why the KGB would want to kidnap her.

Eventually the French begin to suspect that the kidnapping could have unexpected international repercussion. They send their ace counter-espionage agent Al Glenne to Istanbul.

Al runs into his old buddy Jeff Cavassa. Jeff is a CIA agent. He’s in Istanbul on another mission but their respective missions seem highly likely to be connected.

As so often they will be working together, but not quite as a team. The Americans don’t trust the French and the French are certainly not silly enough to trust the CIA. Al can never be sure that Jeff is telling him everything he knows, and Al likes to tell the CIA only what he absolutely has to tell them. The CIA wants the mission to be a coup for them. The French very naturally want it to be a coup for themselves.

They find the girl, and then lose her. There’s something very odd about her behaviour. She seems like she’s been drugged but she hasn’t been. Or maybe it’s some new drug.

The plot provides various twists and turns and becomes a chase across Turkey. Al and Jeff have to find that girl but of course they can’t let the Turkish counter-intelligence people know what they’re up to.

Much mayhem ensues.

There are double agents and there’s one guy who might be a triple agent. You can never be sure where a spy’s loyalties lie. The ones who are ideologically dedicated can be more untrustworthy than the ones whose motivations are purely mercenary.

I’ve been reading quite a bit of French spy fiction recently. They tend to be very cynical and quite open about the brutality of the world of espionage. How do spies deal with inconvenient witnesses, such as some poor schmuck of a truck driver who isn’t really involved in espionage and isn’t really involved in any serious crime? Jeff has the answer to that. You shoot the guy in the back of the head. OK, he’s unarmed and he’s promised to keep quiet and he’s running away but witnesses are always a worry. Al isn’t bothered by this. He’d have done the same thing himself.

French spy fiction also tends to be very good. They don’t take a simplistic good guys vs bad guys approach.

I’ve reviewed a couple of other M.G. Braun Al Glenne thrillers including Apostles of Violence (which is extremely good) and Operation Atlantis (also excellent). I have to be honest and say that That Girl from Istanbul isn’t quite as good as those two titles. 

But That Girl from Istanbul is still a fine spy thriller and it’s highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed several of Gérard de Villiers’ Malko spy thrillers - West of Jerusalem, Man from Kabul and Operation New York. They’re also interesting and very very good.