It was late.
had finished reading my latest Seven Firefights in Vietnam installment but had neglected to pick out the next book I wanted to read. When I cast a quick glance across my bookshelf my eyes fell on one paperback title, one that seemed like it might suit my mood.
A few weeks back, I was cleaning up in my office and I found a book under my desk. We won’t go into the sordid implications of such an event but suffice to say I now held in my hand a book that I didn’t even know I owned. The title in question was The Judas Gate by Jack Higgins, author of The Eagle Has Landed, so influential in my formative years. I’m guessing I bought The Judas Gate a few years ago as part of a large thrift purchase during a library fundraiser. Likely I brought home a big stack of books, plopped them on my desk, and then never realized that one had fallen off and made its way deep underneath my filing drawers.
In the time that intervened, the book made its way from floor to my bookshelf, pretty much front and center. I didn’t much consider book’s subject. I did know it was set in the 2010-2011 timeframe and involved the Global War on TerrorTM. It was late, as I say, and as I know I like Jack Higgins, this seemed like an easy choice for some light-but-thrilling fiction.
My blunder was obvious shortly after I began reading. The first chapter introduces a rash of characters, all gathered at the White House for a meeting with the president. While some were dutifully introduced to the reader, others were referred to simply by name, as if no further introduction were needed.. “I should know who this is,” I thought to myself.
As the chapter went on, I realized there was much reflection on backstory and prior “missions” of these key characters. Clearly I had picked up a book in a series – and well into the series at that.
The next day I decided to go online and look up what I had. I learned that The Judas Gate is billed as the “Sean Dillon Book 18.” No wonder I found it all so confusing.
The day following all this, I happened to be perusing the literary landscape for other titles (so as not to be caught flat-footed next time around) and I decided to see what Jack Higgins books that same local library’s eBook selection had on offer. Turns out, they have The Judas Gate as an eBook. Looks like I could have saved myself 50 cents! They also have the “Sean Dillon Book 17”, The Wolf at the Door.
I can’t really believe that starting at Book #17 is that much of an improvement from starting with #18 but, well, why not?
Character-based serials are a very different animal from, say, a trilogy or other multi–volume set. Rather than building upon a story, volume after volume, they are created in a way to involve the character (or characters – Higgins seems to use more than half-a-dozen regulars here) in a series of stand-alone stories. It is an important distinction. There is, naturally, a creation of a “history” for those individuals. Also, a “universe” is built, even if only through that character development. For example, should someone become, say, President or Director of the CIA in one volume, future contexts will have that critical deviation from the real world, the world in which all these fictional stories might otherwise, ostensibly, take place.
It may go without saying that the continued development of characters requires that at least some of a current volume’s prose connects the reader with escapades past. At its worst, the characters spend page after page musing about their prior exploits. At its best, I merely get this vague notion that I should know a little more about a character than I do.
Either way, starting in with Book #17 is not a good way to evaluate a series.
The Sean Dillon series of books is Higgins most profligate, running to a total of 22 installments. The final book of his life, as it happens, was a Sean Dillon. I can’t yet say this experience with The Wolf at the Door will leave me wanting to dig into the Sean Dillon universe. While the first third of the book got a little Clanciesque and tedious, the second third, wherein some new villains are introduced, became much more enjoyable. Even while I’m barely into this exercise, I can’t see myself seeking out Sean Dillon #19 (A Devil is Waiting is you’re keeping score at home) once I’m finished. I CAN imagine, someday, getting a hold of Sean Dillion #1 (Eye of the Storm or Midnight Man, depending upon which printing you get).
So rather than try to evaluate this book, or the series, when I am but a half-a-book in, I’ll offer a few random musings.
First, one “first” that I encountered here. This is the only book I’ve read where Vladimir Putin features as a character. I don’t think he is meant to be a sympathetic one, either.
Also, so not to be deliberately obtuse, the title of my post is an oft-used phrase in The Wolf at the Door. A key to the book’s mystery* is a set of identical prayer cards found in the wallets of would-be assassins. This phrase is appended to a bit of the Hail Mary, and its wording suggests a request for divine intervention of a Catholic God into the activities of the Provisional IRA. You see, the phrase invokes the translation to English of the Irish term Sinn Féin.
Similarly, the source for the book’s title, “The wolf at the door is your greatest danger and not only in winter,” is a Russian proverb. Similarly to the Sinn Féin allusion, which clues the characters into who is doing what – this alerts in the reader, from page 1, about this upcoming bit of Irish misdirection. I have to say, though, I only “know” it is a Russian proverb because Higgins says it is (right there on page one). A bit of googling serves up no such folk wisdom.
To be honest I’m dubious. All the best Russian proverbs that I’ve been taught are shockingly vulgar.
*I suppose almost any decent book has to present a mystery of sorts. Why read the book if you’re not going to discover something in the reading of it. The Wolf at the Door is a little more standard in this regard. At the book’s outset, a series of crimes takes place. The characters must discover the connection between them and, from there, who is behind it. In a welcomed twist on the formula, the narrative switches perspectives about a third of the way through and just goes ahead and tells the reader what is going on rather than drag you through the discovery process. Whatever else I might like, or not, about this series, I’ll give Higgins credit for that one.
et tu, Bluto? 
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