Assignment The Cairo Dancers

Sam Durell #21

by Edward S. Aarons

'Durell got his orders from McFee, Chief of K Section of the CIA.
"This time," McFee told Durell, "it's really hot, Sam. All signals are red - everywhere."
"And it's up to me -"
"It's up to you. Find that underground railway or whatever it is that the best agents in the world can't trace. Find it, buy a ticket on it, and ride it to its final destination."
Durell said, "They might not let me in the station, so to speak."
"I don't care how you get aboard, Sam, but you must find the other terminal. Be a decoy. Play it dumb. Blunder about a bit." McFee looked haunted. "Of course, Sam, you could get killed . . .

Despite the image of beautiful, scantily clad women dancing seductively while lustful men lounge on cushions eating dates, the Cairo Dancers are a powerful, deadly organization determined to take control of the entire Middle East, even if they have to bring destruction to the rest of the world to do it.

Genres: Espionage

Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

AKA Paul Ayres, Edward Ronns.

Edward Sidney Aarons (September 11, 1916 - June 16, 1975) was an American writer, author of more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1962. One of these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (Dead Heat), and 30 were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote numerous articles for detective magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Scarab.

Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree in Literature and History from Columbia University. He worked at various jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a student. In World War II he was in the United States Coast Guard, joining after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He finished his duty in 1945, having obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reworking of Girl in the Gondola. But maybe worse. I'm guessing sales for Gondola were below expectations, so Aarons simply shifted the setting from Venice/Greece to Munich/Middle East. In the first case, China plots a world war between the West and USSR, launching stolen nuclear missiles against both sides from a complex of caves in Albania. In Dancers, a would-be Mahdi organizes the kidnapping of scientists from around the world to build a laser "death ray" that will cause global conflict and give rise to a new caliphate. The laser is being built in an abandoned Byzantine monastery in the Sinai, on a mountain top fortress with a warren of caves hiding the headquarters. The missiles are blown up and destroy the mountainside in Gondola; an over heating atomic reactor destroys the mountain in Dancers. The difference? Durell, the CIA protagonist of Aarons' Assignment series, subcontracts the sabotage of the Albanian caves, while going into the lair of the fanatics to destroy them in Dancers.

A few other frills decorate Dancers. There is a false lead about Nazi war criminals. Much preaching about the Arab-Israeli conflict--Dancers was published in 1965, two years before the Six Day War changed the geopolitical map of the Middle East drastically. And a cliffhanger at the end, where one of the villains escapes presumably to work his evil in a later Durell story.

[John Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sam Durell's at it again, this time searching for a kidnapped laser scientist with a rather dubious past. Was he a Nazi war criminal? His daughter thinks so, and has helped in his abduction. Then she has second thoughts and cooperates with Durell to try and get him back again.

It's a nice idea, and there are some good bits, as always. But this story seems very forced, and there's a very dull chunk in the middle where Sam is held captive for several chapters to no obvious purpose. No "Assignment" book is bad, but there are many of them much better than this one.