Siniestra misión

Dark #4

by Peter Cheyney, Javier Hidalgo (Translator)

Novela de suspenso y espías de 1945 del escritor británico Peter Cheyney.

Plaza & Janés Policial #12.

235 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Born Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney, he trained as a lawyer before getting tired of legal office work and joining the Army. He fought at the second Battle of the Somme in World War I and was wounded but when he returned to England he wrote songs, poems and short stories for various newspapers and magazines and used many pseudonyms.

He also turned his hand to journalism, was a newspaper editor and also owned a detective agency, Cheyney Research Investigations.

His first published novel was This Man Is Dangerous and this began his prolific novel writing career. Thereafter he averaged two mystery novels a year with his best known characters being Slim Callaghan and Lemmy Caution and he became one of the best known and most successful of British crime novelists. His success also brought with it financial rewards and he was recognised as one of the richest authors of the time.

There have been many film versions of his works, which helped spread his popularity, particularly to the United States.

His life-style, one of hard-living, much like his characters, and hard work eventually took their toll and he died at age 55. He was buried at Putney Vale Cemetery.

Michael Harrison published a biography in 1954 entitled Peter Cheyney Prince of Hokum and there have been a number of biographical essays over the years.

Gerry Wolstenholme
December 2010

Reviews

[Tbfrank · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this novel under its original title "Sinister Errand" as a serial in the Sydney Morning Herald published in October, 1945. Told in the first person by agent Michael Kells, it describes his pursuit of a set of Nazi spies in London tasked with the job of pinpointing the actual landing places of the V1 bombs in order to improve their accuracy. The plot is simplistic and hinges on Kell's difficulty of identifying who is on which side. While it may have been a facet of the serialization, I found the author to be constantly repeating himself, explaining and re-explaining what had already taken place. I've not noticed this to any similar degree in other serials published at the same time. The story was apparently made into a movie in 1952, though considerably rewritten as a tale of American and Russian agents pursuing secrets in Eastern Europe, titled "Diplomatic Courier" and staring Tyrone Power and Patricia Neal. Certainly the novel suffers when compared to current standards and perhaps even those of a decade later. The amount of whiskey and soda Kells consumes is astounding. The novel smacks of a short story expanded to novel length and in my opinion suffers accordingly.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Od krimi pisaca izgleda da volim samo Ruth Rendell.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hero Michael Kells (a handsome dangerous sort who looks like George Raft) is supposed to meet up with his spy comrade Sammy who needs his help preventing some dirty business the local Nazi spies are plotting. So he tries to meet with Sammy but gets roaring drunk instead. Next day, he awakes with a hangover and the news his buddy is dead, buried beneath rubble caused by a buzz bomb. Michael’s mad, doesn’t know who he can trust, doesn’t even know what he should be looking for and worries that the Old Man of the spy bureau will be angry at him. Can he navigate a perplexing situation with his wits and maybe a colleague or two, like the old man expects?

If Daishell Hammett ever had written a spy novel, it might have turned out something like this. The style is very unemotional as our heroes take a businesslike approach to unraveling the Nazi spy ring and torturing the unlikely small fry that fall into their clutches. Emotional interest is supplied by the many beautiful women who are involved in the tangled plot and the somewhat psychotic assassin our hero brings in to help wrap up the operation.

Better than it’s obscurity would suggest.

[Eskil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Som den første Cheyney-boka jeg har lest på engelsk på ~seks-sju år skuffer ikke "Sinister Errand". Plottet går fra vendepunkt til vendepunkt og jeg følte at noe nytt alltid var på vei. Siste akt tar et par minutter å lese ferdig, og siden jeg ikke vanligvis sitter og prøver å finne ut hva som kommer til å skje passer tempoet meg helt fint. Jeg ville knapt klart å formulere en teori før den ble knust og et nytt moment ble introdusert. Etter denne boka blir det nok veldig mye lesing på skolen, så jeg er glad for at jeg fikk lest noe såpass letthjerta før jeg setter i gang med semesteret.

[Michael Keyton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is preceded by 'The Dark Street', which is now apparently so rare it can't be found via the options provided by Goodreads.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting writing style. The narrator presents everything so flatly, including finding murdered coworkers and contemplating others being murdered.