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The Meat
A fairly dumb protagonist is essential for a good mistaken
identity story. A normal person would probably notice something amiss with the
initial delivery of a strange package or furtive encounter with Peter Lorre. But for a
mistaken identity story to get anywhere, it should take the protagonist a
minute to figure things out, to learn that she’s unknowingly walked into
something serious, and that she should get a gun somewhere. Maybe a fake passport. If things are cleared up too quickly—no, I am most certainly
not the person you’re supposed to meet at this train station—then the story
ends. The right person gets shot. Roger Carr, fortunately, is slow on the
uptake. Don’t let his Harvard law degree and job at a fancy New York City firm fool you: he’s
pretty dumb. People mistakenly call him to schedule meetings, he obliges;
someone gets shot while talking to him, he’s nonplussed. He’s dumb. But an
American kind of dumb. Earnest dumb.
I would hate this guy in real life.
Scratch One is one
of Michael Crichton’s early novels, written under the name of John Lange.
Crichton was a medical student at the time who chose a wise plan B: write hacky
novels. We all know how that turned out for him. Scratch One is the work of a journeyman storyteller: a terse,
formulaic spy novel done well. The story revolves around Roger Carr, an
American lawyer mistaken for an American assassin. It’s the late sixties and
Israel is looking to buy arms on the European black market. Some agents
working for “Arab nations” (Syria? Iraq? there are a few of them) need to stop
this from happening, as well as to stop the Americans and French from stopping
them from stopping the arms purchase. Everyone involved thinks Carr is a CIA
assassin who is there to kill the agents looking to kill the arms dealers. There’s a car chase, a girl, sulfuric acid, the Monaco Grand Prix, Cannes, car
rides, lunches, drinks, tailored suits, cars.
Crichton’s deftness as a storyteller is on display
here. His prose is pure economy. There’s an unadorned terseness in
the writing, clear description and snapping dialogue drive the novel. The
storytelling is effortlessly paced right from the opening series of murderous vignettes. The book gets bogged about a
third of the way through once Carr meets the love interest Anne—she’s charming,
but their endless first date involved no gunplay or attempted poisonings. It takes
Crichton about twenty pages too many to get back to the intrigue, but he then keeps that up for the rest of the book.
Bonus points for a really well-written car chase, which is always an achievement.
The problem with this book is its hero, Roger Carr. He’s not
only dumb, he’s a bit of an asshole. A spoiled rich kid, the son of a senator,
a Harvard legacy who got hooked up with job well beyond his capabilities. Towards
the end of the book he becomes somewhat sympathetic, once the dipshit realizes
his life is in danger—so I cared a bit whether he lived or died. While Carr
might be unlikable, the rest of the book’s characters are an entertaining lot: Liseau, the cultured torturer; Brauer, the principled hitman; the
cynical French intelligence officer, Vascard; Gorman, the boofonish
American spymaster. And Anne, the well-read, car enthusiast dancer from
Australia who has a thing for American rich guys who flirt like the internet.
Despite myself, I enjoyed Scratch One. There’s nothing terribly special or innovative about
the novel. And I’ll probably forget the specifics by my second cup of coffee in the morning. But I read it in three quick
hours, the surest mark of a good story, or at least a not terrible story.
The Math
Objective Score: 5/10
Bonuses: +1 each for '60s French cool and a well-written car chase
Penalties: -1 for rich assholes
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10
The Math
Objective Score: 5/10
Bonuses: +1 each for '60s French cool and a well-written car chase
Penalties: -1 for rich assholes
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10
