Greece, Ambler, Stewart

My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart

published 1959

The Schirmer Inheritance by Eric Ambler

published 1953

I recently posted on a romantic thriller set in Switzerland – it’s here – and dug out a fashion picture which I think is the perfect illo for any book about a feisty young woman going off to Europe, second half of 20^th C, and falling into exciting adventures, and probably also into the arms of a handsome man. The one above is good too I think – always best to wear really practical dresses and shoes for an adventure.

I specifically mentioned the author Mary Stewart, though she is a cut above most of the romantic thriller writers. Stewart has been on the blog a few times, though not using that picture. Also loved by me for her books about King Arthur (see tags below).

In the comments, blogfriend JanW said it was Stewart who made her want to visit Greece, and I remember feeling exactly the same. The book she mentioned was My Brother Michael – which I hadn’t read since I was approx. the age of the heroine (ie a long time ago) – so I picked it up for a reread, and a very splendid book it is too.

In a strange coincidence, I happened to started reading an Eric Ambler book, The Schirmer Inheritance. This book starts with a prologue in Germany during the Napoleonic Wars. Then we move to contemporary US, where an inheritance case is being investigated – the family is traced through France, Germany and Switzerland.

And then – there is a sudden random & unexpected leap to Greece, where the rest of the action takes place (apart from a slight but important crossing of a border).

Both books are very much looking at what happened to Greece during and after the Second World War: German officers, civil war, Communists, money and loot, Partisans.

They are very different writers, and it is a joy to compare some of the different covers of these two books:

But both obviously were knowledgeable about the situation and the awful things that could happen. Both look at the way that war and unrest can destroy families and lives, and have unintended results. And how bad people can use these times to their own benefit. Honestly, by the time I was well into the Ambler, I half expected the two sets of characters to meet up with each other. (They are six years apart and in different parts of Greece.)

My Brother Michael loops back to Ancient Greece throughout, but tells a very modern story. Camilla, holidaying alone in Greece, ends up heading to Delphi, and hooking up with a young man called Simon: he has come to try to find out about the death of his brother, a soldier operating in the area at the end of the war. Michael is definitely dead, but what exactly happened 14 years ago? The answer is tied up in the disastrous falling-apart after the war, with (forgive me, this is going to be simplistic) the partisans dividing into two groups who turned on each other. There is also a question of something Michael seems to have discovered in the area.

Camilla and Simon go round together, and it is obvious the trouble is not over and they will be in danger.

This is a light-hearted book in some ways: there is a hilarious sequence where Camilla is trying to cope with Greek roads in an unfamiliar and very large car:

Eventually I reversed it into somebody’s shop doorway. The whole village helped to pick up the trestle table, re-hang the rugs, and assure me that it didn’t matter a scrap. I straightened up the car and reversed again, into a donkey. The whole village assured me that the donkey wasn’t hurt and that it would stop in a kilometre or so and come home…

[there are feathers on the bonnet of the car] I said guiltily: ‘That must be the hen just outside Levadia. At least, it was a cockerel… Well, it was asking for it. I even hooted the horn, and if you’d heard this horn you’d know that cockerel was bent on death…’

She is cool and calm and capable: after bashing a villain over the head she is thanked and has her reply ready:

‘They taught us a lot,’ I said sedately, ‘in the tough end of St Trinian’s.’

And her new friend is also relaxed:

He was looking almost dreamily up towards the cliffs. He looked about as tense and vigilant as in the fifth hour of the House Cricket Match.

Another young woman turns up in a ‘wide bell of scarlet cotton skirt’…one who is plainly trouble, and jealous of Camilla.

There are two scenes which linger in my mind for their harshness, scenes you wouldn’t expect to find in a light romantic book.

Simon’s brother was being hidden by a Greek family in 1945. The Germans came to their home:

‘They’d been told he was here, and so they took Stephanos’ son Nikolaos out and shot him, because his parents wouldn’t give Michael away.’

‘Simon!’

He said gently: ‘It was a commonplace. You don’t know these people yet. They stood and let their families be murdered in front of them rather than betray an ally who’d eaten their salt.’

I keep thinking about this, about the appalling choices people were faced with – how could you let your own son die to save someone else? But how could you give someone away? Dark times.

Later, the girl in the scarlet skirt has something very bad happen to her, in a dark cave, with Camilla nearby but not fully aware.

Both these scenes have haunted me since I finished the book, and I repeat, not what you find in an adventure thriller. [In this book #spoilernotspoiler there is a wartime scene in which a father takes the blame for something his son has done: he is shot by the Germans in front of the son – again a scene that I am unable to put out of my head, coming in an otherwise light-hearted book]

The famous (real-life) statue of the Charioteer of Delphi features – the links with Ancient Greece are fascinating and very well-done. (picture Wikimedia Commons)

Altogether a very good book.

The Schirmer Inheritance was a good read too. After explaining the complicated goings-on of people caught up in the Napoleonic wars – a new family created, name change, deserters – we jump more than 100 years to see that there is a fortune going begging, and thus a need to track down heirs. The Second World War has intervened, so everything is a mess. Many candidates have been coming forward for many years, and our hero George starts going through the thousands of files. But then he discovers a deed box with artefacts in it – new clues. Highly unconvincingly, this top lawyer is sent off to Europe by his firm to try to find out more about what happened to the family. One obvious claimant was killed while serving in the German army in Greece. But maybe he wasn’t? For no good reason that I could see, George doubts this, and heads off there to look again. If you gave me £100 I couldn’t really explain to you what is going on in the middle of the book, what decisions are being made and why, and nor could I draw you a family tree. At one point I couldn’t understand why one man seemed to be described in different ways, and it was because he was two men, I had just combined them in my head. But – a tremendous rattling yarn very easy to rip through. And – like the other book – not ignoring the difficulties and badnesses that were going on.

George is accompanied by a serious and severe female interpreter, Maria Kolin, who was an excellent character.

“But we do not talk politics, eh?” The Sergeant smiled as he filled Miss Kolin’s glass. “It is not interesting for the beautiful lady.”

She said something coldly in German and his smile faded.

Her ultimate fate was such as to confound the feminist reader in 2025. I have mentioned recently the phrase ‘little bit of homework’ used jocularly, man-to-man, about a female companion, and it is hilariously inappropriate when used here.

Ambler always has little jokes like this amid the action – I liked the Captain who has told them how busy he is with his appointments. “Well, Miss Kolin,” George said “what do you think?”

“I think that the Captain’s various appointments are almost certainly with his mistress.”

One of the American lawyers has this description of cases of lost heirs:

Is A an imposter? Is B out of his mind? Who died before whom? Is the old photograph Aunt Sarah or Aunt Flossie? Has a forger been at work with faded ink?

Which sums it up nicely and explains why I love books on this topic.

 

Impersonation – often in pursuit of an inheritance – has featured a lot on the blog: this gives an overview, and this post examines some books in detail.

Mary Renault’s magnificent Mask of Apollo is featured in this post on Ferdia Lennon’s equally wonderful Glorious Exploits – both set in ancient times.

Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley took on Greece, ancient and modern, in this splendid book.

Find more books by Ambler and Stewart using the tags below.