REVIEWED BY DAVID VINEYARD:
WILLIAM P. McGIVERN – The Caper of the Golden Bulls. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1966. Pocket, paperback, 1967. Movie: Embassy Footage, 1967, with Stephen Boyd, Yvette Mimieux, Giovanna Ralli, Walter Slezak. Screenplay by Edward Waters and David Moessinger. Directed by Russell Rouse.
All his life — all his grownup life anyway — Peter had dreaded solely three issues: going to jail; shedding his hair; and shedding his eager bodily curiosity in ladies. Now it appeared pretty apparent he had escaped — and would proceed to flee — these inhibiting disasters. He had come by way of — that was his phrase for it. He had come by way of the battle intact.
For retired financial institution robber and cracksman Peter Churchman — aka the Black Dove to Scotland Yard, Interpol, and the Suretè — dwelling in splendid retirement in Spain in contentment along with his lazy virtually lackadaisical way of life as a properly to do expatriate is paradise sufficient. It’s the snug reward for an clever and thoroughly managed lifetime of crime ended earlier than the inevitable occurred.
Neither grasping nor silly, Peter settled for simply sufficient. He has at all times settled for simply sufficient, and that’s about to show an issue as a result of life requires extra dedication than simply sufficient.
He may need identified that pipers need to be paid finally, and his piper is about to current the invoice within the type of caper Churchman desires no a part of: Grace, a stupendous married lady he gained’t decide to, and blackmail that leaves him no alternative in a violent and lethal sport.
Yearly the working of the bulls is held in Pamplona in Northern Spain. The ritual attracts crowds of American and European pleasure and thrill seekers made a form of literary wine soaked pilgrimage by Ernest Hemingway’s misplaced technology novel The Solar Additionally Rises (aka Fiesta) throughout which drunken revelers both run the streets of Pamplona in entrance of the wild bulls ending within the ring the place they play at novice matadors earlier than the true bull fights start or drink and watch the fools get mauled.
For the week of the fiesta Pamplona’s inhabitants balloons, vacationers get run down by the bulls and overcharged by the residents and the locals absorb an excellent portion of their yearly revenue. Alongside the best way is a real outpouring of religion and custom for the non secular vacation the week marks.
The working of the bulls coincides with a spiritual procession by way of the streets of the town displaying invaluable non secular artwork and delivered to the small metropolis for the Pageant of San Fermin, the entire purpose for the working of the bulls within the first place.
A part of the Fiesta is the statue of the Virgin and her diadem of jewels on show through the procession to the church, together with treasures from throughout Spain and Catholic Europe together with the Golden bulls of Avignon despatched by the Pope himself. A prize all briefly held in a financial institution vault in Pamplona.
Which is why the Black Dove’s previous companions in crime François Morel and Peter’s former mistress Angela have proven up with proof that ties Peter to an previous crime and with plans to crack the vault of the financial institution in Pamplona the place the treasure can be saved.
And if issues weren’t dangerous sufficient Peter’s married mistress Grace is pregnant, by her husband, and pressuring Peter to make issues everlasting and his good good friend Antonio chief of the native policia is simply too nosy for anybody’s good.
One thing has to present, and it could simply be the Black Dove is properly on its approach to having its wings clipped earlier than he can survive Morel and Angela and their crew, a lot much less the police and Grace.
William P. McGivern hardly wants introduction. Finest identified for his powerful suspense and crime novels like The Large Warmth, Rogue Cop, and The Odds Towards Tomorrow (all additionally traditional movies) he additionally wrote worldwide intrigue, and in his early profession had been a staple of the Science Fiction pulps. Late in his profession he even wrote a mainstream bestseller or two. Caper is a fast ebook to learn, round 60,000 phrases, 175 slender pages in paperback, however packs an amazing quantity of story and character improvement, in addition to particulars concerning the intricacy of cracking a financial institution vault, a lot much less outwitting blackmailers with murderous intent.
As must be anticipated with McGivern, the suspense is taut, the tempo quick, the folks involving, and the climax satisfying, all anybody can ask of a caper novel.
It was a pure to be developed for the massive display screen with Stephen Boyd properly solid as Peter, Yvette Mimieux as Grace (who performs a much bigger function in the end than Peter can anticipate), and Walter Slezak as Antonio the native police chief. It’s not an important movie, but it surely does handle to seize the characters, adults in emotion and motion for as soon as, and the suspense of the novel in addition to the colour and confusion of the crowded streets of the Pageant of San Fermin.
The ebook alternatively is a small gem, a pleasant caper novel that manages to be each powerful and sincere about crime and criminals and provides the reader an enthralling likable if not solely morally upright protagonist, someplace between certainly one of Eric Ambler’s in a position criminals and a extra reasonable trendy Raffles.
One of many nice pleasures of the ebook is simply how a lot McGivern sketches in with a couple of deft strokes with out turning the plot right into a travelogue or padding it out with overwritten asides. It’s extra picaresque than hard-boiled, extra To Catch a Thief than Richard Stark’s Parker, an appetizer and never a meal, however generally you might be within the temper for a properly chosen nosh and never a seven course feast.
This one ought to each whet and fulfill your urge for food.
