Another well written book about how well the enemies of freedom skillfully work at undermining the peoples' trust in the American government and principles which we have historically held to among our own people and the world. They do not care for truth, they do not care for freedom, and they hold no regard at all for the lives of anyone except themselves. Even though this was written in the early 1960s, I feel the ideas about manipulating public opinion through carefully manufactured "evidence" and press releases by "respected" individuals still are valid and still being carried out. Even though the Soviet Union is no longer, Communism is still alive around the globe, and it is still a danger to the principles we hold sacred & which are (supposed to be) guaranteed through the Constitution (& which wouldn't be negated or tossed out the window today if "We the People" understood the Constitution & held our elected officials accountable (from BOTH parties) for not honoring their Oath of Office...but all that is a deeper subject for a different place & time.)I just really enjoy MacInnes' books, and have been reminded that it takes vigilance, knowledge & courage to retain our freedoms.
Helen MacInness wrote a number of espionage novels during her career. The enemy changed according to the times. During the Cold War the Communists are clearly the bad guys and anyone who listens to them are dupes. Her books from the 1940s had the Nazis as the villains and her books from the 1970s used terrorists.I have held onto my paperback copies of a lot of her books and re-read them periodically, because the plot and the action hold my attention even when I'm cringing at the McCarthyite tone about communists.The Venetian Affair, written in 1963, features an American journalist who stumbles into a plot while traveling to Paris. He travels to Venice with a young woman to help the "good guys" (CIA, British Intelligence, Surete) foil the evil communists. I hadn't remembered much of the story, but did remember the train scene.
I was very pleased when the Helen MacInnes novels began to appear as ebooks in 2013. I marked over half of them as books I wanted to re-read.I discovered Helen MacInnes when I read the paperback of Snare of the Hunter in 1975, and I was hooked. Reading at least seven more of her novels that year, including The Venetian Affair.I needed something different this weekend, and found Venetian Affair in my Kindle stash. So here I am, 40 year later, reading one of my favorite espionage authors. I had forgotten how fluid MacInnes was with both her description and dialogue. Her characters are interesting, believable, and relevant to the story being told. This novel is a cold war thriller written at the height of the cold war--it still works.
—Jeff Crosby
Time for some fast paced Cold War-travelogue-romance fiction! MacInnes gives us enough interior landscape of the characters - their inner dialogue with themselves - to make the people sympathetic to us. The extremely thorough descriptions of Venice were a little too thorough - every canal and alley and crumbling building! It did, however, bring back memories of a brief and unpleasant visit I made to Venice, once, which made the setting all the more threatening. The Cold War plot, written by a woman who was deeply committed to the US and democracy, is still thrilling. I wonder how MacInnes, who died in 1987, would treat Islamic terrorism, the newest threat to democracy?
—Marilou
