Kathleen Moore Knight (1890-1984), who also wrote as Alan Amos, was an American author who started her crime fiction career by writing amateur detective novels and then transitioned into international thrillers. Her series detectives were first Penberthy Island selectman Elisha Macomber somewhere on Cape Cod, and then Margot Blair, partner in a public relations firm. She published 38 books under both names between 1935 and 1960.
Knight gave a rare interview to the Boston Globe in June 1946, which is produced below. She expresses disinterest in the conventional mystery tropes and her preference for suspense and intrigue, which explains her change in direction. John Norris wrote an informative post about her work on his blog a few years ago. https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2014/03/ffb-death-goes-to-reunion-kathleen.html?m=1
Knight has been on my intended reading list for awhile. As usual, I often read what I can easily locate and this time one of her thrillers popped up in a Detective Book Club anthology. Intrigue for Empire was published in 1944 by Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc.
The story takes place near the end of World War II. Patricion Torreon, a Mexican national with U.S. ties., is a former Franco political prisoner who made his way to Morocco and is anxious to return to his home. The war has embargoed any but essential flights and sea traffic. He is stranded in a tiny town, where one night at dinner he watches a man collapse over his meal and die. He learns from the dead man’s female dining companion that they are both foreign correspondents heading back to the U.S. via unofficial means. Torreon takes the dead man’s place on the private flight, no one asked many questions, it was that kind of flight, and lands in Cuba.
There Torreon becomes embroiled in a sweeping conspiracy that the dead man had been investigating, one that intended to replace the governments of Central and South America with a single one unified under Spain.
Isacc Anderson summarized the plot in his mystery review column for the New York Times, 23 July 1944, saying there were “stirring incidents at every stage of the journey.” There is indeed considerable action but none of it seems particularly credible from the distance of 80 years. In fairness, any number of crackpot schemes were hatched during the war and some were well on their way to being realized, so perhaps this one isn’t as unrealistic as it sounds now.
The characters are original and the historical context intriguing. The school history books focus largely on the war in western Europe and glide over the fronts in Africa and the Mediterranean, where action was also underway. This story fills in some background there. I was especially struck by the convincing detail for the Moroccan village, Cuba, and Mexico. Knight plainly did her research first hand.
For fans of international thrillers and espionage. Probably not the best introduction to this versatile author.
