'Behind The Text’ 24 Les Femmes Fatales

Behind The Text’ Part 24_Les Femmes Fatales

Scarlet Women

Hi,

Jonas Forbes is certainly one for the ladies but sometimes he gets not quite what he expects. In 7/16 books he has a sexual relationship which he later comes to forget. Here are three such women who, like Jezebel, tried to ensnare their man (i.e. Jonas Forbes).

Svetlana Ivanova Petrova (in ‘Lies Hunt In Packs’ – Book 10) is a historian (an expert on 19^th century British history) & a liberal in 1964 USSR, just after the fall of Khrushchev. Coached by his Russian wife, Lord Eustace Brimstone pulls strings in the Foreign Office to hire Jonas Forbes to get her safely to the UK. Jonas arrives in Moscow to find Svetlana has just slipped out of detention and they head for Finland. Jonas soon realises the KGB know about himself, his mission and are never far behind, however much he tries to throw off the pack. Svetlana proves at first uncooperative but they reach Finland where she's confronted by her fugitive husband whom she shoots. She explains it all to Jonas and they finish up making love.

Not quite the end and, if, Reader, you noted the title of this Post, you should realise one word in the first sentence of the previous paragraph is a lie. Was Jonas fooled? Who can say when ‘the old Adam’ is let loose.

Anne Demas is a black American with a seductive style who recruits Jonas Forbes (‘And Death Will Have His Day’ – Book 11 - the first thriller I wrote) to protect a radical politician and so prevent a race war in 1965 UK. He makes a gallant effort - & that also applies to his behaviour in bed with Anne almost from the word, ‘Go!’ – but narrowly fails. It takes much thought, and even more self-devaluation, to see what’s happened. At the end, even when she’s aiming a gun at him he still believes....... Well, I’ll leave it to you, Reader, to find out why Anne took all that trouble and how she got paid.

 

In ‘Endgame at Watergate’ (Book 16) Cettina Aita Gibellina is the niece of the ‘capofamiglia’ of a Mafia family involved in the 1973 Watergate Scandal. She hates & fears her brother, Vespasianu, and his acolyte, Miceli Vultaggio, and becomes sickened by an atrocity in which she played an ‘innocent’ part. To secure revenge for herself (& their victim, Antonietta  Paceco) she seduces Jonas to bring them down. As part of the deal she provides evidence re’ the murder of a UK diplomat – the investigation of which is why Jonas is in Washington. Is Jonas fooled? Perhaps at first but he’s soon getting most out of the relationship, which is to prove disastrous for them both.

Not all Femme Fatales suffered as a result when Jonas woke up from his stupor. There is one such woman, although she'd deny the description, who actually got away with it in 'HAVOK goes To Moscow' (Book 13) .

Bob Hyslop