As book titles go, The Night of Wenceslas can conjure up just about any image in the mind of the prospective reader, especially things to do with Yule tide and winter. More educated and well travelled people will of course make the connection to the City of Prague where Wenceslas Square or Vaclavske Namesti is the centre point and most popular tourist attraction. It is, I suppose in comparative terms, the Czech equivalent of Time Square, but without the attitude.
This is a
good old fashion
spy thriller, micro film and all. It is
set back in the good old days of the cold war when Czechoslovakia was one happy country united under the helping hand of the then Soviet Union.
It reds under the beds all the way, and even hotel waiters can’t be trusted, or can they.
When young English blade Nicolas Whistler
finds himself broke and despondent, he is easily set up for a courier job, but as in all good spy stories, he is the last to realize this. Travelling to Prague to supposedly collect some blueprints of something to do with glass manufacturing, he becomes engrossed in a web of deceit and intrigue.
The scene is well set by author Lionel Davidson, who himself is no stranger to the genre of spy thriller and is a winner of the Gold Dagger award for best thriller of the year.
Our hero Nicolas gets into the sophisticated mood of western tourist in Soviet block state and even does a little
bit of sight seeing. Unfortunately he don’t even get the slightest bit suspicious when a local beauty shows him some sights of her own and before he knows it, he finds himself on the run from some very nasty people indeed.
A good and visceral part of the tale actually takes place in and around Wenceslas Square, so the title does have reference after all. Old school, low tech but great reading.
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