45. The Notch on the Knife by William Haggard

This is a propitious find as I had been under the impression until recently that Haggard was really a writer of the post-war period, but it turns out he wrote books about Colonel Russel right up until the early 80s.  I think mainly the reason I had that impression was because the only books of his I could ever find were those lovely old green Penguins. So I was pleased to find two of his books from the 70s in the recent Plattsburgh haul, under the Walker British Mystery imprint (which I believe is American).

Haggard's post-WWII conservative pragmatism comes out even more starkly when you know it takes place in the 70s.  Colonel Russel is retired now, has a flat and is on the board of a big mining company.  Milo, an old friend from his war days in the Balkan mountains who also happens to be the president of the country where the fought comes to visit.  It is purely social but he does let on that there has been a significant discovery of iron in those hills and that he has come to England to negotiate with Russel's company about getting the rights to mine that iron.  Upon leaving, Russel saves Milo from his own booby-trapped hallway where somebody planted a mine.  

Haggard does a lot of telling rather than showing.  This is often done by the internal thoughts of various characters.  On top of that, he never names any specific countries, except England.  Milo's country is a kind of lesser Yugoslavia, divided up into three barely held together (by Milo's charisma mostly) regions.  It is, like Ukraine today, caught between the west and the east.  The iron is a big factor in the tensions of such a nation, as Milo selling the rights to a British mining company is seen as selling out to capitalism.  This is only intensified when the big secret comes out that there is also significant gold.

I had trouble understanding the economics here, but this was before we got off the gold standard and currencies were struggling for some reason.  A single country getting a lot of gold could then use that somehow to destabilize other countries' currencies, which triggers the Americans to get involved.  Russel goes to the country, meets a hot young badass security agent when she knocks out a burglar in his hotel room and throws him off the balcony before acrobatically jumping down after him), gets involved in several adventures and assists the situation which climaxes in actually quite a crazy ending from which the title of the book comes.

There is a lot of action here, but it doesn't feel very exciting as much of it is sandwiched between long strategic soliloquies from the minds of the various players.  Haggard seems to have it in particularly for economists, diplomats and young hippies.  It's a decent book and the action saved it, but the plot felt simplistic and abstract and the politics is starting to show its age.