Ambush for Anatol

 Ambush for Anatol (1952) by John Sherwood

In an opening that might remind GAD readers of their introduction to Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, we are introduced to Philip and Diana Abinger. Like the Beresfords, they are a young couple who are in need of funds and Philip, at least, isn't adverse to a bit of risk if it will help the cash flow. A chance meeting with a former RAF man just may be the ticket. Count Jan Piatovsky and his friend Miss Lena Watson invite Philip and Diana for a drink. Piatovsky tells Philip that he may be able to set him up with a man named Anatol who can use men like Philip and the Count. They make an appointment to meet on Hampstead Heath where Piatovsky will make the introduction. But unknown to the Abingers...

The man known only as Anatol uses blackmail to pressure his associates into handling shady currency deals for him in the years following World War II. Even if he has to manufacture the blackmail evidence. Everyone from Polish refugees to members of the British aristocracy are fair game. He knows everything about them all and they know nothing about him. But when one of his band of fraudsters stumbles across some unsavory information about Anatol, the consequences are dire and Scotland Yard finds themselves with a pair of corpses in the middle of Hampstead Heath during the Bank Holiday. Inspector Lunt is sure it's going to be a long and fruitless search...

Meanwhile, Mr. Charles Blessington, a civil servant with the Ministry of the Treasury, is waiting for a man to show up for an appointment. An appointment that was made with Blessington's secretary after he had left for the long holiday and with a man about whom he knows nothing. When Count Jan Piatovsky is half an hour late, Blessington realizes that the name does sound familiar and goes back to the morning's paper. Count Piatovsky was one of the pair killed on Hampstead Heath. Soon our mild mannered civil servant is mixed up in a dangerous hunt for a very dangerous man as well as helping Diana search for her husband who has unaccountably disappeared. The trail leads from London to Paris (with murder and mayhem on the famed Blue Train) to the French Riviera. Blessington may look mild as milquetoast but he's on hand to help Scotland Yard and the Surete get their man. But he doesn't consider himself skilled (other than in financial matters. As he says in response to a compliment from Lunt on a previous investigation (after the inspector realizes who he is):

"Neat? My dear Inspector, it was far from neat. I have always reproached myself bitterly for strangling that poor fellow in the railway yard. If I had not bungled matters it would not have been necessary."

There is very little mystery here--we know who the bad guy is from the beginning and we know who has killed whom. The fun is in the adventure and watching Blessington work in his quiet way to unravel the whole of Anatol's plot. I also enjoyed the Philip and Diana subpot once it really got going. The first half is a bit iffy, but there are definite shades of the Beresfords in the second half--particularly as played by Francesca Annis and James Warwick. ★★★★

First line: Philip and Diana Abinger stood on a street corner in the West End of London.

In my next existence, if I have one, I shall take jolly good care to be a scarlet adventuress. (Julia Barclay; p. 69)

[the Surete's response to Mr. Blessington's despair over his inexpert shadowing attempt]
My dear fellow, you set yourself an impossible task. For really thorough work we like to use twelve men to one suspect. We sometimes manage with eight when we're feeling economical, but one--no. (Commissaire Special, Monsieur Lebon; p. 93)

The chauffeur joined in on a basis of easy conversational equality. He spoke the rich, garlic-flavoured southern French in which mute e's are not mut at all, and wonderful things are done with the letter r. Mr. Blessington soon gave up trying to understand. Instead he fell to admiring the easy and dramatic eloquence with which even the least educated Frenchman can tell a story. (pp. 171-2)

Last line: It was a relief to get back to humdrum work, in the orderly world he really understood.
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Deaths = 4 (three shot; one stabbed)