THIRTEEN O'CLOCK

by Thurston Clarke ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 22, 1984

The basic thriller-plot here is one of the most familiar ones: in order to prevent long-ago dark secrets from coming to light, a prominent political figure seems to be killing off all sorts of people. (See Salinger, below, for yet another variation.) In this first novel, however, Clarke (By Blood and Fire, Lost Hero) adds twists and textures to the formula--mostly by connecting those long-ago secrets to one Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell, with an interlacing of themes from 1984. Gina Baldwin, estranged US-born wife of a shrill, ambitious Labour Party politico, is on the Scottish isle of Jura, where the dying Orwell wrote 1984; she's determined to revive her academic career by finishing her Orwell thesis (on the autobiographical roots of 1984), interviewing as many old Orwell contacts as possible. But why has someone hired a couple of hapless assassins to kill Gina? (The attempted murder fails miserably.) Why has someone stolen her manuscript? And why is someone impersonating Gina back on the mainland, terrorizing the elderly folks who've agreed to share their memories of Orwell in the 1940s? Well, the answer probably has something to do with the plot-line that emerges in Clarke's alternating chapters--about old US super-tycoon Victor Gore, the newly named Secretary of Defense, who has big plans for a computer/TV gadget called the ""R-Tube"" (a home-entertainment product with distinctly Big Brother-ish possibilities). And eventually the two plots start merging--as Gina learns about Orwell's shadowy doings in 1945 France and Germany: prodded by an eccentric artist/freedom-fighter named Dawney, Orwell was apparently on the trail of a traitor from his Spanish Civil War days--a US colonel who was really a KGB agent! The colonel's name? Victor Gore, of course. So everyone ultimately winds up on Jura, searching for the long-lost Orwell diaries that detail his 1945 confrontations with Col. Gore, his scrupulous search for the Truth about who-betrayed-whom in Spain. And, after some ordeal-at-sea action and the death of crazy old Dawney, there's a chase/confrontation at Gore's computerized Caribbean estate--with a few more revelations (unsurprising) and fatalities (ditto). Much of this busy concoction, then, is merely routine: the strung-out showdowns, the inevitable romance between Gina and Gore's most non-corrupt lieutenant. But the Orwellian themes add un-belabored weight to the jaunty suspense, the colorful old-timers add considerable charm--and this is finally a richly intriguing, modestly rewarding hybrid: just the thing for fans of fanciful thrillers who also have a more serious literary/political bent.

Pub Date: June 22, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION