In many ways Larry Forrester's
A GIRL CALLED FATHOM may be read as a complimentary companion volume to Jimmy Sangster's
TOUCHFEATHER. Or to be more accurate the reverse could be judged to be true; Forrester's book having been published a year earlier. Both concern themselves with the adventures of grief burdened women being recruited by clandestine intelligence agencies to act as secret agents. And yet in other ways the books are distorted reflections of each other.
TOUCHFEATHER, with its jet-setting scenario and spectacular set-piece finale, is very much of big screen proportions; whereas
A GIRL CALLED FATHOM, with its Costa del Sol location, is of more modest tv dimensions: (even allowing for the fact that Torremolinos and Malaga possessed a cachet of glamour in the 60s that is entirely absent now). Additionally where
TOUCHFEATHER overcomes the absurdity of its general premise, its balsa wood characters and the innate stupidity of its heroine to leave the reader with a lingering impression of pleasure, Forrester's book takes its interesting idea, its eye-catching cast of eccentrics and its beguiling title character and squanders them all in the pursuit of a climax which is as inept, ham-fisted and dreadfully drawn out as it is possible to imagine. It is not a development designed to foster a benevolent memory where the book is concerned. And yet up until the moment that the action switches abruptly to Paris this is a hugely entertaining read.
Jane Harvill is a strapping 6ft plus blonde; hence her nickname of Fathom, being literally the nautical measure in height. She is also fantastically well equipped, even before she takes possession of Mick Driscoll's compliment of Q-Branch style gadgetry. "She's
magnificent!" is Colonel Dunsmore's euphoric assessment of her when he first sees her sedated and stripped for his inspection. This has graduated to an even more ecstatic "sight for all the gods" when he and his team are using hidden cameras to spy on her in the shower over a round of beers. "Dear God" he despairs as she "did something deliciously personal with the sponge", commenting regretfully in his pronounced Scottish burr "if only I still had the equipment".
If this all sounds like some arch parody of a Bond film then surprisingly, perhaps, it isn't. There is vital substance as well as statistics to Fathom's character. To start with she is the daughter of a British diplomat whom it is believed defected and died in ignominy behind the Iron Curtain. The loss of the father to whom she was devoted left Fathom vulnerable to the advances of a lecherous Hollywood producer who wasted no time in getting her hooked on drugs and acting in stag films. That is until the moment when some residual remnant of pride and self-respect motivated her to pump four bullets into him while he lounged by his swimming pool. And it is at this critical juncture, with her own life now forfeit to the authorities, that Fathom's story really begins. Because instead of being arrested for murder she finds herself unceremoniously abducted by operatives of an Anglo-American black ops intelligence agency called the Counter-Espionage (Long Term Security), or CELTS for short in keeping with the obsession with acronymic organisations in 60s spy fiction.
Fathom is flown to a remote facility in the Arizona desert called The Pueblo where she is subjected to a brutally truncated rehab before being offered the stark alternative of handing herself into the authorities or joining CELTS herself. As a CELTS agent she will have the chance of finding death or redemption in the shadowy gladiatorial arena of international counter-espionage. It would be a pretty short book if there was ever any question over what her answer is. What follows next constitutes the most compelling section of the entire book as Fathom is given a crash course in how to be a secret agent. This comprises partly of tutorials in the use of ingenious gadgetry, part practical exercises in survival techniques and weapons training and, perhaps most disturbingly, part overt brainwashing at the hands of the sinister Doctor Forsch.
None of us these days needs any convincing about how easy it is for the weak-willed and the gullible to be programmed into becoming cold-blooded killers. At the time of the book's publication though it must have seemed a pretty far out idea. Or at least it did until Robert Kennedy was gunned down shortly afterwards by someone who to this day insists he remembers nothing whatsoever about it.
The assignment which Fathom undertakes upon the completion of her training is pretty routine material and pales into comparison besides the marvellous stuff which has preceeded it. That said it does still boast a pleasing quota of glamour and gun fights. And some moments of wry humour too. I particularly enjoyed the moment when Fathom describes herself as the girl from Auntie, therein acknowledging one of Forrester's more obvious inspirations. Where it suffers though is in the removal for much of its duration of the amazing cast of emotionally, as well as physically, crippled characters who populate The Pueblo. These include the bitter and morose Steve Arrow, haunted by the dereliction of duty that allowed the snipers nest of Lee Harvey Oswald to go undiscovered. Then there is the Mexican Jesus Calvo, the sad and reflective former priest turned vicious killer. Most memorable of all is the M like figure of CELTS Colonel Alan Dunsmore: blown up by a mine on the Hungarian border and systematically reconstructed by the clinical and emotionless Forsch:
"From the neck down he was said to be more metal than man: two artificial legs of stainless steel and aluminium, a steel-braced spine with several titanium vertebrae, and titanium hip joints. Operation of the limbs was power-assisted by compressed gas from a small cylinder strapped under his left arm. He had a built-in pace-maker for the over-taxed heart, and a newly developed blood pressure stimulator. He never sat down. No one knew how he slept. And no one knew what lay under the skull-cap:"
Compensation for the loss of these characters comes in the form of Lady Elspeth Akers-Wrottiesley, Fathom's contact on the Costa, who quotes scripture whilst packing an Army Colt revolver in her purse.
As I said, this is a really great read right up until the fiasco of a finale when all of Forrester's painstaking efforts at investing his story with a level of plausibility entirely absent in
TOUCHFEATHER for instance completely go to pot. Forrester's loss of focus here is utterly unfathomable.
In closing I must say that I can't be the only one to notice the parallels between Fathom's junkie-murderess turned agent and
La Femme Nikita/The Assassin and their various associated tv spin offs. To my mind the similarities exceed the boundaries of inspiration and trespass into outright artistic theft.