Operation Destruct (Jonathan Anders #1)

Author: Christopher Nicole

First Published: 1969

Pages: 209

There is an old saying, "never judge a book by its cover". George Eliot used the phrase in The Mill on the Floss in 1860. It was further popularised in a 1946 murder mystery novel by Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller, Murder in the Glass Room, when they had a character utter "You can never tell a book by its cover." It feels most appropriate for Operation Destruct by Christopher Nicole.

I was drawn to this novel by the rather attractive cover with its title design vaguely reminiscent of Doc Savage paperbacks by publisher Bantam Books. A seated man that looks to me like actor Lee Majors with a pistol in his hand, an attractive young woman behind him, and a burning boating slowly sinking. Looks like it might be up my street I thought. A little investigation turned up information; there are three Jonathan Anders books in the series by Dell. This being the first, the second being Operation Manhunt and third Operation Neptune. All three were produced with the same composition (see foot of this blog entry). I think you'd agree they are quite attractive.

Christopher Robin Nicole, is an extremely prolific writer with over 200 books to his credit. Nicole was born in 1930 and is still rocking at 88. The latest book I could spot was published in 2012. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana and moved to the United Kingdom in 1957, to live on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. He was published for the first time in the same year, with a book about West Indian Cricket and begun to be published regularly a few years later. A lot of Nicole's early work takes place in his native Caribbean, but he has branched out over the years to cover a broad spectrum of genres, including Romance, Historical Romance, First and Second World War and Spy fiction. With a penchant to write series and sagas he has certainly not been unsuccessful in his craft it would seem. One of his sagas that has peaked my interest in anything Japanese, is called The Sun of Japan series; its not available in eBook (why not Christopher!?) so I'll have to hunt it down in physical form.

It has to be said, Christopher likes to use a pseudonym. He has written under a bewildering number of them. In fact, Nicole's most well known action/adventure/spy books may be those that he wrote with the pen name of Andrew York. The Jonas Wilde series of novels were published between 1966 and 1975 - I will be reviewing one of these very soon.

The Jonathan Anders books as presented by Dell, had in fact been published earlier under the Andrew York name with different titles:

The Doom Fisherman (1969) aka Operation Destruct
Manhunt for a General (1970) aka Operation Manhunt
Appointment in Kiltone (1972) aka Operation Neptune

I think these may have been available only in the UK and in hardback format. If I had seen the cover to the hardback before starting Operation Destruct, I think I might have hesitated? There is something about it that doesn't quite sit square. It seems to have a rather juvenile illustration on it.

Pretty soon after starting the book I began to get the strangest impression. Jonathan Anders was quite young. In his early twenties - a bit too young to be a spy I thought. The characters dialogue was strangely very 'english' and quite precise. The females were attractive, but not alluring in a sexual way. Anders referred to James Bond by name and on a number of occasions asks himself "what would Bond do in this situation". Then it clicked. This is what would now be considered a Young Adult book, but from the very early 1970s. I doubt there were many books like this at the time. Once the penny dropped, and I got over my initial disappointment, I had to accept the fact that it would follow a certain set of rules and settled down to finish it.

The plot of the novel is a strange one, takes strange turns, and has some coincidences that strain credibility. Anders is working for the British Government as a spy in training. The book opens with him on a training exercise, and escaping by using his initiative with a self-created weighted handkerchief (no, really). This brings him to the attention of a higher up known as Mr Craufurd (pronounced Crawford I presume).

Craufurd tracks Anders down at a Chess competition in Bognor Regis, and commits him to his first official assignment. He is to travel to Guernsey (Nicole was living in the Channel Islands by this time) to investigate the mysterious wreck of a Russian fishing trawler off the coast there. However, the British are aware that it is not that mysterious. The boat was conducting experiments involving shoals of fish (no, really) and they have an agent on the inside, who had communicated that they would take over the boat and ensure its safe delivery to a naval base close by. It appears the plan went awry and eleven men were drowned. Craufurd knows there was a top Russian scientist on board by the name of Madam Cantelna and he wants to know what happened to her. Anders is a keen skin diver, and Craufurd wants him to pose as an out of season tourist wanting to dive down to the wreck for kicks.

The treatment of Anders by older men and women in the story are tell-tale signs that you are reading something for a younger audience. He is constantly criticised for his lack of experience or rashness. He meets a cute American and her brother - both apparently journalists but way too naive - at the airport and befriends them. Pretty soon after arriving at his bed and breakfast accommodation, the young spy books a boat to take him to the wreck - unfortunately he has picked the one boat that is in on the whole caper, and he is immediately captured by the soviet spies!

There now follows a meeting with Madam Cantelna, who in time honoured fashion spills the whole operation "destruct" to our hero before deciding to kill him by staging an overly elaborate drowning back at the wreck. The first half of the book spends a lot of time with characters talking to each other to explain the plot, and describe every decision in detail. However things do pick up slightly in the second half.

We get a very 39 Steps trip to Scotland via the overnight express from London, even down to the point where someone pulls the emergency cord in order to stop the train so they can escape across the countryside. There is a very strange introduction of a new character who is a 'pop star', complete with Castle and a publicity manager who arrives via his own personal plane to save the day (wow, that's handy, lets jump in the plane because one of us is actually a pilot and we can catch up with the baddies!).

The final rather implausible coincidence concerns running out of fuel and crashing the plane into the sea - and then being rescued from drowning by the Russian fishing trawler they were hoping to intercept in the first place. At least the story finishes with a bit of action, with Anders finally getting a chance to fight and shoot his way out of impending doom on the boat.

Overall, not really a bad book in itself. It was clearly written for a burgeoning YA audience at the time. But man, those covers do not really represent the type of book within their pages. Even in eBook format I would argue they are rather blatantly hiding the true nature of the novels. I would not recommend these if you are after an action/adventure story - unless you want the YA version.