The Head: A Johnny Fedora Espionage Assignment, Desmond Cory, 2022
Johnny Fedora is a resourceful secret agent for British Intelligence. This was back in the days when all that an agent could rely on was their own brain.
Part of a series, this novel has Johnny in a small village in Spain. One of the world's greatest sculptors has just finished a large stone statue. Broken into pieces, the statue is to be carried (by donkey) to the top of a local mountain, where it is to be re-assembled in time for a local religious festival. We're not talking Mt. Everest; the snow-covered mountain is about three thousand feet high.
The trek attracts an assorted group of helpers, including the village priest and mayor, a female Spanish film star and a London newspaperman. Johnny also goes along "just for the ride." It turns into a fiasco. The snow and extreme fog are constant. The groups get separated from each other. Getting lost on the mountain is easy. They have come all this way; do they continue to the top, or give up, and head back down the mountain? This turns into a story of survival, even for someone as experienced as Johnny. Does the statue get installed properly? Does everyone make it off the mountain alive?
Here is a really good story. It's also a really "quiet" story; there is no sex or violence. There is lots of good storytelling, and it is very much worth reading.
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