The High Wire
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The High Wire is a 1963 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Ives Washburn. It was Haggard's fifth of 21 books involving his protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the head of the unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counter-intelligence agency clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service, where he moves easily and gracefully along C.P. Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. It has noticeably less detailed examinations of character and motivation than Haggard's four earlier books and considerably more elements of standard suspense thrillers, particularly regarding action and gun-play. Haggard had achieved a certain critical reputation by 1963, and High Wire only added to it: the Crime Writers' Association of the United Kingdom gave it runner-up status for that year's Gold Dagger, their annual award for the best crime novel of the year. Gun Before Butter by Nicolas Freeling was the other runner-up, while the Gold Dagger itself went to one of the most famous thrillers ever written, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré. Haggard's book is also notable for its sardonically malicious depiction of the leader of an unnamed country across the English Channel, a tall, grandiose, and mystique-driven Marshall who clearly evokes Charles de Gaulle.
Plot
Protagonist is perhaps too strong a word to describe Colonel Russell. As Haggard himself wrote about his fiction:
My novels are chiefly novels of suspense with a background of international politics. A Colonel Charles Russell of the Security Executive, a not entirely imaginary British counter-espionage organization, while not a protagonist in the technical sense, holds the story line together in the background by his operations, while the characters in the foreground carry the action."[1]
Reception and/or Appraisal
The New York Times review was highly favorable:
...now appears THE HIGH WIRE (Washburn, $3.50) to appeal to all who are willing to detach themselves from James Bond and enjoy something more nearly approaching the melodramatic realities of the secret war against security. More of a straight spy-thriller and less of a novel of character than most Haggard books (though its people are by no means scanted), "The High Wire" is especially commended to those who are weary of the standard villains of most tales of intrigue... This is precisely managed thriller-mongering, sardonic and acute.[2]