Mr Williams has written a rather good story, based partly on his and his wife’s experiences of wandering alone and camping like gypsies through Communist Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria in the summer of 1956. In this story Roger and Kate Starte are on a driving holiday in their 4WD, like the author, through the communist countries, because simply “it’s there”! On the way they run into a local Rumanian who is looking after the distinguished archaeologist Professor Burt Carter, and this professor from once being a communist sympathiser now, in his mind, sees the ugliness of the local system and wishes to defect back to the West. The problem is the borders, as you expect in these countries, are tightly monitored and communist countries do not see the merits of letting critics escape. So the Startes and the professor attempt to escape whilst they also make time to culturally and politically explore the countries and remain one step ahead of the States agents.

Overall:
According to the book, who would win the cold war: The West. This book does come across with a strong sense of being capitalist propaganda. It does espouse the merits quite often of the British way of life, that a man can choose what to say or do without fear of retaliation from government organisations. The communist countries depicted in this book are run by a cartel which does not value human life, instead they will quite happily change history, use slave labour whilst oppressing the people to maintain the good image of communism. The population of these countries are seen as downtrodden, but waiting and willing for the overthrow of communism so that they can lead a happy and prosperous life.

Explosives/fight scenes etc.. : None really, couple of chase scenes and near misses with the local authorities and smugglers.

Believability of the goodies (UK): Mr and Mrs Starte are mostly believable, however they seem to have a charmed life, as they always manage to get through any obstacles that the communists state try and put in their way. Roger Starte does come across as a bit of a goody-goody two shoes, as he firmly believes in the righteousness of his actions and his beliefs, and the determination to share with the world his views on communism and capitalism. Kate Starte is portrayed as someone who sees good in all people and will be willing to take risks, without deep analysis of those risks, in order to do what is right. Yes, it is morally right to help people escape from totalitarian regimes, but at what level of risk to yourself that you say enough is enough?

Believability of the baddies (Communism): They are seen as a formidable force as they tightly control the populace, but their own incompetence and evilness will bring about their downfall. For instance, it is repeated a few times throughout the book, that “If they were efficient, they could conquer the world”, however the strength of character of a few key persons, such as people exposed to the British way of life and old priests, coupled with the yearning of the masses will eventually defeat the communist ideology. Are the communists portrayed in this book believable? Yes, but they are seen as misguided fools in most instances. Are communist states evil and only produce evil leaders? All political systems are open to abuse and to have a ruling class. In some ways, it may be argued that we are all prisoners of our political system, but the communism cage was more basic and spartanly furnished, where a capitalist cage may be golden with luxuries, yet it still is a cage. Will communism be defeated in the fictional world? No, it will always survive and most sci-fi television programmes and books seem to point to us becoming evolved to a socialist state, where we are all equal and interested in the good of mankind. Also, at the end of the world, didn’t the races in H.G.Wells book The Time Machine live under a communist state, meaning that communism will win in the long run?

This book also brought to my mind the role of propaganda and how it has evolved over the years. Briefly, as this has nothing to do with the book (and I’m rambling), World War I the Germans were portrayed as raping nuns and killing babies (maybe eating them too), Nazi Germany then evolved the art of propaganda by bringing in different tactics to harness the power of the media available whilst maintaining a couple of single core messages. In this book the communists are at the backward Nazi Germany stage, whilst the West is portrayed as having only one message and that’s freedom and that will trump any communist propaganda. But all propaganda is about Us versus Them, like two different teams or tribes. For instance, you oppose G.W. Bush and you are unpatriotic, you oppose Obama and you are racist. But what has changed throughout the years is how you join a team/tribe. Obama was very clever in that he accepted millions of donations of small amounts as it became a massive group who supported him and had a stake in him, where the Republicans were portrayed as accepting money from large sponsors. So it was Big Business represented by a white old patriotic war hero, versus a black young Harvard graduate lawyer supported by the people. Anyway, back to the book…..

In summary, the book was good, it did evoke the spirit of the times where communism was seen as the evil bogeyman and that the West has the moral right to defeat it. After thinking about it, I’m not too sure whether the book was an escape thriller or a political thriller. Well worth a read.