Snowball

Tad Anders #1

by Ted Allbeury

A member of British Intelligence spearheads a mission to stop the Communists from implementing a scheme that would render America powerless in world affairs

Genres: Espionage

215 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

1917 - 2005. Also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Butler and Patrick Kelly.

Ted Allbeury was a lieutenant-colonel in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, and later a successful executive in the fields of marketing, advertising and radio. He began his writing career in the early 1970s and became well known for his espionage novels, but also published one highly-praised general novel, THE CHOICE, and a short story collection, OTHER KINDS OF TREASON. His novels have been published in twenty-three languages, including Russian. He died on 4th December 2005.


See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/j...
and
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/t...

Reviews

[James Kinsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard as nails, moderately sexist, utterly gripping 70s spy stuff. Decent read.

[Riovogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

很像The Fourth Protocol,比它早出版10年.不知是否是删节问题(肯定有删节和改编,可上Amazon预览第一章对照,第一句说舞娘最骄傲的是38吋胸,中文版说身材不错),感觉每个步骤写的都很简略.Tad Anders很强,却又让那个法国姑娘被苏联人绑架了去(最后还惨死),殊难理解,只好说是小说家的安排了

[Tim Trewartha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping spy fi from the mid 70s, quite bleak but still high quality stuff. Allbeury is a very good writer, am looking forward to checking out some of his other books.

[David Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty and all too plausible sequence of events that may, in the 1970s, have led to a British and European backlash against the USA and Canada causing them to leave NATO with Europe at the mercy of a Soviet military invasion. Fortunately the much maligned (these days) Western alliance rallies to mitigate the possibility of a catastrophic falling out.
Tad Anders is the uncompromising hero who enlists the help of a (naturally) beautiful female French spy in order to infiltrate the unlikely-seeming French/Polish/Soviet axis of opportunistic evil. Against type, the Russians rather than the Poles emerge as pretty sensible, humane characters whose motivation to preserve the status quo and their jobs may outweigh their undoubtedly aggressive ambitions. I note that Allbeury considers that it was the Soviet politicians who backed off in 1945 when their army “could have rolled to the Channel ports in a week, against its exhausted Allies.” Perhaps, if Churchill had had his “unthinkable” way, the Allies would have teamed up with the Wehrmacht and driven the Soviets back to Moscow. We’ll never know.
The writer concentrates mainly on the oddly reassuring collection of specialists who quietly get on with the job of defusing the situation.
Nice turn of phrase about a heckling member of a strip club audience:
Some of the cognoscenti hissed him to be quiet as if he’d clapped between movements at a Mozart performance by the Amadeus.

[Jak60 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Snowball was not a very good read; the plot was a bit of a long shot and the characters a little soulless. Especially the protagonist, Tad Anders, was more of a James Bond or Matt Helm than the typical subdued, low profile intelligence officer of a classical old war espionage novels. And way too many shootings and killings for such kind of book.
There are also some errors of chronology: there are a few historical references which conjure up the fact that the events of the book take place between 1961-1962. Then, the story references as an event of the past the entry of GB in the European Common Market, which happened in 1975...
This is not like Ted Allbeury, as generally his books are very researched; this is just the proof that Snowball did not receive much attention by its author and editor.

[Sue Whitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 70's. What might have happened if Soviet army had tried to overturn the Communist Party rule. British espionage services discover plot. too many characters for me to keep up with

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

[Sara Delgado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprising! Cold war at full extent!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allbeury is becoming my new "must read" author - rather late in the day, I admit, as he died about 10 years ago. But he wrote 40 or more books, so there are plenty more to read. This is the first of 3 thrillers which featured an Anglo-Polish intelligence officer - Major Anders - in the British secret service. The plot is clever and the atmosphere of Cold War Britain is perfectly captured.