The Night of Wenceslas

by Lionel Davidson

"THE NIGHT OF WENCESLAS, Lionel Davidson's first novel, concerns Nicolas Whistler--24 years old, debt-ridden and thwarted in his attempts to rise in what was once the family business. Nicolas is conspired to take a trip from London to Prague, ostensibly to smuggle out some industrial secrets. But the secrets are, in fact, atomic, and Nicolas lets himself in for more than he bargained. Davidson's award-winning novel is a crisp thriller which offers, as the careful plans unravel, glimpses of the Czech-emigre network in England, and of the inner workings of the British Embassy in Prague."

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Espionage, Mystery Thriller, Novels, Czech Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Aka David Line

Lionel Davidson was a three-times winner of the Gold Dagger Award (for The Night of Wenceslas, A Long Way to Shilo and The Chelsea Murders). His thrillers and adventure novels have won him enormous international acclaim. He also wrote children's books under the name of David Line.

See also Obituary at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu...
[this reference added 12-Aug-2013].

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. He’s no hero. He’s reckless and arrogant. He barely makes ends meet earning a pittance from his father’s old business partner in the glass business. His girlfriend is far more ambitious than he is pushing him to earn more money. His red MG convertible is his most prized possession, which is in hock. When Nicolas receives a letter about an inheritance from his rich uncle, he quits his job and takes a cash advance. Unfortunately, the money came with conditions. Nicholas returns to the land of his birth in Prague where he will either fail or succeed on his assignment. He is easily lured by the distraction of women and alcohol. He’s petrified but soldiers on. In moments of desperation he rises to the occasion either wisely or foolishly. Some dated vocabulary, which is not surprising as the book was published in 1960.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

NEVER HEARD OF HIM!!!!!
But after a bit of sleuthing, I found that I HAD heard of his books.

Picked this up in the local Trash 'n Treasure type store.
Attracted firstly by:
its cover (it was a green covered Penguin, the colour denoting it's old Crime Series);
by its age (printed in 1960);
by its being compared to Graheme Greene's "The Third Man" which I read recently, and which made me realise it wasn't a Crime novel at all, but an International Spy Thriller, and more, a bit of a send-up of that genre. No James Bond here.

Davidson's spy is no hero, but an innocent abroad, manipulated, and made to believe he's taking out information when he's actually bringing it in!!One is as ignorant and as set upon as he is, and when the violence begins one is just as shocked as he is!!!
This naivety somehow gives the story an air of total ordinariness that makes one identify with the hero who isn't a hero, so as much it develops into an exciting, fast-moving and mysterious tale it is also VERY FUNNY and human.
A wonderful blending of opposites and the contrary, so that the "hero" is constantly surprising himself...and us, but it is all so very plausible.

ALSO...
A First Novel which won two awards in 1960, and a further two from the British Crime Writer's Association which had awarded one of the initial awards...the other being for Most Promising First Novel.

What I really liked about this book
was a background thing which Davidson really picked up on
and described exactly, a credit to his powers of observation
and being able to place himself in another's shoes.
The main character, Nicholas Whistler,
child of an English father and a Czech mother,
has all the problems of a dual nationality
- feeling like one nationality,here his British persona,
but acutely aware of the more "foreign" one,
which he knows and understands, but not fully,
because he is really more British than he realises,
but also an insider in the Czech world,
an heir to so much, so much more than he realises.
But in Prague feeling even more British than he really is.

Probably NOT one of the 100 books to read before you die,
but definitely one to be buried with
as you'll need something diverting then most certainly!!!

PS Anyone who has ever been to Prague will LOVE
recognising all the places the hero visits or escapes/flees to.
Davidson was renowned for his sense of place,
applied as an integral part of the story.


AND YET MORE:
Even found a site dedicated to his books by his son,Philip, whom I intend to email...fascinating reading his comments about his father's books,
not a plot summary, but the circumstances of their creation.
Fascinating!!!

PRESENT PROBLEM???
Where can I lay my hands on another of his books???????????????????

[Julian Worker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicolas Whistler is a young man who lives in digs in London and spends most of his spare cash on his car. He has a girlfriend that he rather likes and a job he doesn't like. He regularly goes down to Bournemouth to see his mum and her friend who both live in the same hotel.

His father had an interest in a Bohemian glassworks in Czechoslovakia. Nicolas receives some disturbing news from a solicitor that his uncle has died and left him an inheritance. Before he can acquire this money, he receives an offer from the solicitor to go to Prague and bring back a formula for some glass that will make the maker of it a fortune as it will be almost unbreakable. All Nicolas has to do is leave a guidebook on a desk in a glassworks he will visit near Prague and the formula will be placed in the flyleaf of the book. Nicolas meets a statuesque girl and this complicates things slightly but he returns to London clutching his guidebook and hands it over thinking his mission is over.

It isn't.

The news about his uncle was a lie and unfortunately the formula he brought back is incomplete. He must go back to Prague and obtain the rest of the formula. This time his suspicions are aroused when he inspects the guidebook he's been given before he visits the glassworks. It turns out Nicolas is being used by the authorities and he's a spy, an unintentional spy. The Czechoslovak secret police interrogate and beat him, but he escapes and is on the run. He realises he can't trust anyone, no one is actually who they seem, not even the girl he fell for in his previous visit.

What happens...well that would be telling. It's a lovely book and I will read more by this author.

[Jack Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this fast paced thriller!
I couldn't help turning the pages; to think that it is now quite an old book, it is still relevant and captivating. It is one of the best spy thrillers that I have read!

[Teri-K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of old-fashioned spy/adventure novels where the MC is an innocent civilian who gets tangled up in international intrigue. That's sort of what this book is, but in a different way. This really is the tale of how a young, feckless Englishman finds himself twisted up in circumstances that turn him into a clever, conniving spy, for a few days. Then what comes next?

The opening of this book was interesting, but at the half-way mark I was bored. The problem is I didn't find it funny, or even amusing, so it didn't work for me. Then in the middle everything suddenly changed, and the cat-and-mouse game began. I did enjoy that quite a bit. So ultimately only 3 stars, but I did enjoy the last half quite a lot.

[Maria Carmo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this writer I did not know before... His book is funny, witty and surprising... The main character is helpless yet conquers the heart of the reader and ends up becoming quite shrewd... Loved the plot and can understand why they are re-publishing his books now!

Maria Carmo,

Lisbon 13 October 2017

[Milo Bitters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prague crime written in such a way that makes the conclusion impossible to follow! The important character names are only used in the beginning of the book and in the last chapter which makes the conclusion incredibly hard to understand since you don’t remember ANY of the character names discussed. This issue is compounded by reading on a kindle. Beyond that, it is so fun to be able to know and picture all the character movements and scene settings in the book. Also thought the statue on Wenceslas Square was Jan Hus but now that I type it out it sounds very stupid cuz it’s literally Wenceslas square

[Ashley Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Kolymsky Heights and the Rose of Tibet recently, it only seemed right that I track down the book that started Lionel Davidson's career as a novelist. And thus, a week ago, it arrived in the post - wrapped and ready for my reading pleasure! The first thing that surprised me was the length, the other two were at least 200 pages longer!

We open up with a view as to what dating was like in the 1960s - a decade I was forty years away from ever experiencing! At first I thought that the book may seem a little dated, but this wasn't the case and if anything it was lovely to read a portrayal of early sixties London - a city I'm very familiar with in its contemporary state.

The protagonist is Nicolas Whistler, a half Czechoslovakian (this is relevant to the plot) twenty-two year old who works for a glass company that used to be owned by his late father. Like many twenty somethings of today (I guess, myself included) - he lives life quite fast, likes a beer and has a tendency to burn money on cars and clothes. However (thankfully unlike myself) he's managed to get himself in a fair bit of debt - he's hoping to gain a better role at the glass firm, however his boss - who he aptly calls 'the little swine' - seems to have no intention of complying with his wishes. His lack of money and lack of common sense also irritates his girlfriend, Maura - she's sensible, down-to-earth and if he'd just listen to her his life would be so much easier!

Nicolas' one hope at getting some money is receiving an inheritance from his Uncle Bela, an elderly relative who has a business over in Canada. One day news breaks that Bela has died and Nicolas is invited to a solicitor's office to collect his inheritance. All seems good at first...however, things aren't as they seem - and it soon turns out that it was all a ploy by a tyrant of a moneylender to get Nicolas to work for him.

At the time of writing, Czechoslovakia was an iron curtain country - involved in the Cold War. Our intrepid 'hero' is, basically, blackmailed into entering (via connections to his late father) the country to help the moneylender steal some business secrets from a glass factory in Prague. Reluctantly he agrees to fly over there and...at first...things seem to go very well.

However, as is the case with this type of tale, things spiral out of control and all really isn't as it seems. The hapless, self-absorbed Nicolas Whistler finds himself on the run from the secret police and trapped amongst the faceless streets of the Czech city.

It's a lot of fun, and as with Davidson's other novels - there's a great sense of place, I've yet to go to Prague (on the list) but it painted up such a picture that I almost felt as if I was there with the character.

I'll warn you though, it's a different type of man-on-the-run thriller than today's offerings. Don't go in expecting lots of gunfights and an ending where the 'good guy' has some kind of bigass showdown with the main 'villains'. It's a different type of story, and in many ways is also a spoof of the genre - some say it's the book that actually created the whole 'spy parody'.

It's a five star from me.

[Keith Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lionel Davidson has been compared favourably as a writer to Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling. I read all his books, pretty much as they were published, and I recall finding them to be fresh, of literary worth, and intelligently written. By “intelligently written”, I mean that he took the thriller type to a level that it seldom sees. The only other writers who I think have done as good a job as Davidson in that regard are Anthony Price and Graham Greene.

The Night of Wenceslas is a story of someone (Nicolas Whistler) who has been set up nominally to spirit commercial information out of Communist Czechoslovakia, but who was actually set up to for something very different. It is also the story of a rather feckless 24 year old whose life is adrift and who is forced by his life-threatening experience in Prague to sharpen up. It is the interplay between the action and the events of this impersonal plot he is caught up in, and his own act of taking stock of his situation and overcoming it, and in general his “smartening up”, that gives the book it bite.

I was particularly interested to see whether the book has stood up given that it was first published fifty-five years ago. It has stood up very well.

In particular, the writing still comes across as bright and crisp and not the least faded or dated. The action verbs are chosen imaginatively, the vocabulary is broad, the similes and metaphors flash informatively, and the dialogue has a nice combination of jadedness, cynicism, fine observation, and a pragmatic sense of living in the world.

Of the many characters – Imre, Maminka, Maura, Mrs Nolan, Cunliffe, the Little Swine, Vlasta, Pavelka, Vlcek, Galushka, and of course the statue of Wenceslas – quite a few are memorable. The contrast between Maura and Vlasta is extreme, and humourous in the sense that it says quite a bit about Nicolas: his willingness to be seduced by Vlasta, his state of indecision with regard to Maura, and the ability of both of them to lead him around by the nose.

There is nothing James Bond about the book, and there is very little derring-do or heroics. It’s just a story of someone being placed into a dangerous situation well beyond anything in his experience, how he rises to this challenge in the short term, and what permanent effect it has on him and his outlook.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay story, but like many of the somewhat-less-than-thrilling '60s "thrillers" I've read lately, this one took way too long to figure out what the story was actually about. Minimal actual excitement, although having actually worked in an embassy and seen how slowly the wheels of diplomacy spin, I found the ending kind of interesting.

Do, however, have a favorite line, after our reluctant hero reluctantly conked numerous people on the head with various metal pipes and hammers:

"My only legacy of three dangerous and demented months was a bill for rent and a certain facility with a blunt instrument."

This was my third Davidson, and I have one more on the shelf — The Menorah Men. I first “discovered" this author via The Rose of Tibet, which I really enjoyed; but then Kolymsky Heights was just so-so, and now this kinda iffy one…so while I will eventually read Menorah (since I already own it), that's probably gonna be it — at least as long as I have demonstrably better books waiting for me to get to.
___________________________________

(This was the seventh and last of the used/cheap "read and toss" books brought along on my current trip back to Taipei — and perfect timing, as we head home tomorrow!)

[Yuvaraj kothandaraman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Night of Wenceslas" is a brilliantly plotted thriller that uses misdirection, psychological manipulation, and genuine suspense to trap a reluctant ordinary man into becoming a spy. Published in 1960, Lionel Davidson's debut novel deserves recognition as one of the finest spy thrillers ever written not because of gadgets or action sequences, but because of how expertly the protagonist is manipulated into an impossible situation and how his resourcefulness emerges when he has nowhere else to turn.

The novel opens with masterful character building. Nicolas Whistler is a 24-year-old man stuck in limbo: he works for his father's family business run by "the Little Swine," Karel Nimek, earning just seven pounds a week with no real prospects despite owning 30% of the company. He's in debt, driving an M.G. sports car he can barely afford, and increasingly uncertain about his future, especially with his girlfriend Maura pushing him to "make something of himself". The characterization is precise and sympathetic, Nicolas is neither particularly ambitious nor naturally brave, just a young man drifting through life, caught between his mother's outdated expectations and his own inadequacy.

Davidson makes us live in Nicolas's financial anxiety. Every detail contributes to his desperation: his landlord Mrs Nolan expecting rent, Ratface the garage owner demanding payment, even small gaps between earning and spending creating psychological pressure. This careful groundwork pays off explosively when Nicolas receives a letter from a solicitor about his Uncle Bela in Canada dying and leaving him a fortune seemingly £140,000. The moment of euphoria is perfectly captured before the rug gets pulled out.

The novel's masterstroke is how Cunliffe, the fake solicitor (actually a money lender), cons Nicolas. There is no inheritance, it was all a scheme to place Nicolas in debt through a fake loan so he'd be controllable. Cunliffe then offers Nicolas a way to cancel the debt and earn money: travel to Prague as a supposedly legitimate businessman/glass buyer and carry back a formula for unbreakable glass that Czech scientist Pavelka (whose factory was seized by communists) wants. What makes this so diabolically clever is that Nicolas is already emotionally invested in the false fortune, already spending money he thought he had, already vulnerable to the suggestion that he can solve everything.

Davidson keeps readers guessing about what's really happening. Is Cunliffe actually an intelligence agency? A criminal? Playing all sides? The ambiguity persists perfectly throughout, even Nicolas never quite knows, and neither do we. The "formula" that Nicolas is supposed to pick up in Prague turns out to be something far more dangerous than simply glass-making information.

The pacing once Nicolas arrives in Prague becomes nearly unbearable. He's meant to collect a formula from Pavelka's old factory (now the state-controlled Zapotocky Works) by "forgetting" his guidebook on the manager's desk but instead of a simple pickup, everything goes catastrophically wrong: he gets drunk with mysterious Czechs, wakes up in a warehouse with no memory of how he got there, is threatened with a pipe by a caretaker, and discovers he's been used as a pawn in a much larger game involving Soviet agents, Western intelligence, and people willing to kill for whatever he's supposedly carrying.

What distinguishes this thriller is that Davidson never abandons character for plot. As Nicolas becomes increasingly desperate and trapped, his resourcefulness is terrifying and convincing, he lies brilliantly when cornered, improvises escape plans, trades on his partial Czech language skills. The famous "Night of Wenceslas" sequence, where Nicolas hides in a building, narrowly avoids capture, and must navigate Prague while being hunted showcases his growing realization that his only weapon is his ability to think fast and play a role.

The setting of 1950s Prague under Soviet control adds texture and danger. Davidson clearly researched post-war Czechoslovakia's oppressive atmosphere, the paranoia about spies, the Party officials, the surveillance, the way an ordinary mistake becomes life-threatening. Nicolas must navigate not just physical danger but ideological checkpoints and political paranoia where any foreigner is automatically suspect.

The characterization of supporting players is economical but vivid. Maura, Nicolas's girlfriend, is relegated to the background but effectively portrayed, she represents the life he's abandoning, though her exact role in his manipulation remains deliberately ambiguous right to the end, keeping readers uncertain whether she was complicit or innocent. Pavelka, the displaced Czech businessman, has tragic depth, he's spent 27 years trying to perfect unbreakable glass, driven by loss and nostalgia for pre-war Czechoslovakia, and his willingness to manipulate Nicolas comes from desperation rather than villainy.

Cunliffe, the book's primary villain, is one of fiction's most terrifying manipulators precisely because he operates through reasonable-sounding logic. He genuinely likes Nicolas, recognizes qualities in him that make him perfect for espionage work (his ordinariness, his resourcefulness under pressure, his lack of obvious training that makes him unsuspicious), and treats the whole operation almost as a game where Nicolas is a chess piece being positioned. The horror is that Cunliffe isn't wrong in his assessments.

Where the novel shows its age is in its assumption that Eastern European spies and Western intelligence agencies have equally ruthless approaches to getting what they want, with Nicolas caught as collateral damage between them. This was true enough in 1960, though the novel predates the later clarification of exactly how Western and Soviet espionage worked. Also, the female characters, while not badly drawn, function primarily as obstacles or complications rather than as actors with their own agendas.

The ending is satisfying precisely because it's not comfortable. Nicolas survives and escapes Prague, but he's fundamentally changed, he's tasted danger, discovered capacities for deception and violence in himself he didn't know existed, and realizes he can never go back to his old life of drifting and self-pity. Even his reunion with England and attempts to return to normalcy reveal how impossible normalcy has become.

Davidson trusts his plot to carry the suspense rather than relying on elaborate descriptive passages. The first-person narration from Nicolas creates identification with his mounting terror and allows readers to be surprised exactly when he is. When major betrayals occur, and they do occur,readers feel them because we've been inside Nicolas's head and share his shock.

The moral complexity deserves mention. Nicolas is not heroic, he survives through luck, quick thinking, and ruthlessness that horrifies him. He becomes involved in violence and deception that he never would have chosen, and while he justifies his actions as self-defense, the novel never lets readers relax into the comfortable assumption that he's purely a victim. The story suggests that under sufficient pressure, ordinary people reveal capacities they didn't know they possessed, some admirable, some terrifying.

The novel works for readers who appreciate: intelligence over action, character-driven suspense over plot mechanics, ambiguity about who the "real" good and bad guys are, foreign settings that feel genuinely researched, and protagonists who are resourceful rather than heroic.

My rating:4.5/5 stars

[Tim Trewartha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this book to be quite disappointing. Was recommended Davidson by someone why said he wrote spy fiction, but this is nominally spy fiction, more crime. No sense of urgency or tension, main character is a dick. Don't bother.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Young Nicholas is trapped. Invited to Prague on what seems to be an innocent business trip, he finds himself caught between the secret police and the clutches of Vlasta.
Best seller of its year.

[Connie Greenleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice read after a trip to Prague. Not Le Carre, but only Le Carre is.

[Michael Smyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It has a great humorous theme throughout and reminds me of the old PG Woodhouse books. It was refreshing to read and a very enjoyable holiday companion!

[Sam Reaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lionel Davidson wrote some really interesting thrillers in the sixties and seventies, and then his production tailed off; he didn't do much in the eighties before producing one last novel in 1994. His books are in the great British thriller tradition of Ambler, Household, et al., which usually does not involve professional spies but rather men in some other line of work who get swept up in espionage intrigue by misadventure.
This is Davidson's first novel, from 1960. Nicolas Whistler is a young Brit with connections in Prague through a Czech mother and hopes of inheriting money from a rich uncle in Canada. In the meantime he's not up to much, stuck in a low-level job at the import firm founded by his deceased father, having trouble making ends meet, a bit of a wastrel. He is roped into a scheme to go to Prague to bring back a formula leaked by an industrial spy; naturally things are not what they seem and when things go wrong he finds himself on the run from the Czech secret police, trying to make it to the British embassy while dodging trench-coated thugs on every street corner, with the help of a lusty Czech amazon who takes him under her wing after a night of passion.
That's pretty much the plot; there are no explosions or car chases and the stakes really aren't very high. Will he make it to the embassy? Who can he trust? Who set him up back in London? It's fairly tame stuff by Hollywood standards, but it's witty and entertaining enough with its evocation of Cold War Prague and early sixties London.

[Sue Benn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book whilst on holiday in Prague, as I felt I wanted another picture of that city. The main character finds himself in trouble with the Secret Police in 1960s Czechoslovakia. He's a very flawed character who doesn't really know what he wants from life but an easy route, and sees this trip to his parents' homeland as an easy way to finance a future with more frills. He has been deceived, and continues to be deceives. His almost comedic relationship with a seemingly disillusioned Czech girl complicates things. Despite all signs to the contrary, he does escape back to normality - but will he ever know who to trust again? A surprisingly enjoyable read for a book picked up randomly at a book swap, intended as an appropriate read for my short break. I also enjoyed noting each day some of the streets and landmarks mentioned in the book!

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book was quite boring. In the beginning, I was curious what would happen, but then, it seemed that nothing was happening. Ater Nicolas’s first arrival from Prague, I read about 50 pages, only because I didn’t understand what it would be about when everything that should have happened, had obviously already happened.

Then, it became good. I read the second half at one sitting. The story was not as foreseeable as in the first half (where it was clear what would happen), I was still asking what Nicolas would do now...

I put aside all the small nonsense about Prague in the 1950s and the language mistakes in Czech. It disturbed me, because it is my language, my town and my coutry, but it wouldn’t disturb anybody who doesn’t know it.

[Martin Pilkington · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Lionel Davidson book I’ve read. In both I have disliked the main character and as in both the main character is also the person telling the story, this affects my reaction to the story.

This book was written in 1960 and it does have that feeling of paranoia that seems to have been prevelant in writing about the Eastern European countries within the Soviet block. Some of the book does feel very dated, but this one was better than A long way to Shiloh.

There does seem to be problems with either the editing of this edition or the original writing at the very end of the book that is a bit annoying. The main character is talking to one person, then suddenly it’s another. Sloppy whatever the reason is.

[Paulibrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of Czech origin, Nicolas Whistler, who now lives in England, is a cad. Broke, an unreliable car, living in a boarding house and working for the family company. From out of nowhere he finds himself on a mission on behalf of this company. Whisked off to Prague with a pivotal piece of cargo, he meets a swathe of pleasant and downright unpleasant folk in Prague. Whilst Prague itself is a main character, which is painted very clearly by Davidson, it is Whistler himself who provides the vividness of an ordinary Joe Blow caught up in a twisted plot straight out of a British 1960s TV show, complete with gender assumptions and misogynies. (Written in 1960) NB; Wenceslas is a statue in the central square of Prague.

[Dave Clarke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this, having read Kolymsky Heights a few years back on the recommendation of a friend .. that was a fairly good thriller, this on the other hand was lot less polished ... and that's not getting into the casual racism and misogyny littered liberally throughout the book ... female characters with descriptions such as 'bomb like breasts', is odd once, but repeated throughout the book, the repetition becomes more unseemly to the eyes of a modern reader ... to the point where it detracts from the narrative IMHO ... still, my moral indignation helped take my mind of the plot and it's culmination ... happy to have finished is the best I can say of it ...

[Sadie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 100 pages...
I wanted to love this book and was generally interested in the concept however, despite its small size, it just seemed to drag on for way too long. I was uninterested in the plot and the main character was extremely unlikeable which made the book a chore to pick up. There was also a great deal of sexist language and cheating that made me very uncomfortable, neither of which were addressed as a bad thing at any point in time.
Overall, I found this book to be quite a bore and disliked how the author portrayed women and as a result would not recommend it.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

Best thing about this book is that the geography is recognisable. Unappealing main character with no redeeming features, occasional accidentally funny lines e.g. "minutes afterwards the adrenalin aftertaste still tickles the roots of the tongue". Also (surprise!) misogynistic with little to no attempt at seeing women as human (though I'm sure some can pretend that of course that was only the CHARACTER not the author).

[Karina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slyly subversive, this both sends up the spy genre and is a shining example of what it can do.

Discovering a classic book like this is like finding buried treasure, and one of the reasons I haunt second-hand bookshops for out of print titles.

Absolutely brilliant - I'll be watching out for more Lionel Davidson books!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-told tale about a naive Londoner of Czech background who is caught up in a network of Czech spies stealing British nuclear secrets. Davidson gives the unwitting spy a good journey with plenty of excitement who is forced to develop his wits to outsmart his opponents. A little too much repetitive description of the upper body of the female anatomy.

[Shaun Hand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being generous with 3/5 because it was interesting enough to finish. Found it on a shelf of second-hand books on the first day of my holiday and finished it on the last morning (it rained a lot).

The setting and tone are pretty dated, there are plot holes and some latent, of-its-time misogyny. But the plot is half-decent - I can see how it would make an alright afternoon film.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

25 years after reading The Rose of Tibet (which I loved and must re-read), I was thrilled to find a copy of The Night of Wenceslas in a local charity shop.
Have polished it off in the space of two days and thought it a "jolly spiffing" read, engaging, fast-paced and wittily comedic at times.

[Purplet · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
É um livro com um bom ritmo em termos de ação. Talvez tenha colocado as expectativas bastante altas porque me foi recomendado e, por isso , acabei por ficar um pouco desiludida.
Overall recomendo.

[Masayuki Arai · Rating 4 out of 5]

simpleton lol

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rip-roaring read! Kept me in bed all morning (it IS Sunday) racing to the end. Enjoyed it immensely.