A Taste of Terror

Martha Albrand (1914-1981, b. Heidi Huberta Freybe Loewengard) was a German-American novelist that earned France's highest crime-fiction award, Police Literature Grand Prize, for her 1948 novel After Midnight. The novel was adapted into film in 1950 as Captain Carey, U.S.A. starring Alan Ladd. Albrand's novels are critically-acclaimed high-tension novels that incorporated WW2 espionage themes. My only experience with the author is her late career effort A Taste of Terror, originally published in hardcover in 1976 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The book introduces readers to Kent, a commercial airline pilot living with his wife Kitty and their teenage daughter Kate in the American Northeast. Around three months prior Kent was forced to belly-flop his airplane due to icy conditions and runway gear that refused to descend on the approach to the landing strip. The landing created a fireball that fatally engulfed over 100 passengers and left many more crippled and hospitalized. As the book begins Kent himself is nursing a broken left hip and ankle. But the real pain is about to start. 

Kent receives a threatening letter in the mail. The anonymous sender states that Kent must commit suicide to atone for his errors in landing the plane. Further, if he doesn't commit suicide, the letter's sender will kill Kate. He's left with the choice of saving his daughter by killing himself or simply ignoring the threat and potentially risking his daughter's life. 

The plot of the book lured me right in. Unfortunately, that's the only thing Albrand could really cook up this late in her career. The plot is simply wasted as readers spend 200 pages succumbing to endless dialogue between Kent and Kitty over their marriage. Kitty has an affair, Kent pines over a female family friend, and Kate is semi-dating the 17-year old neighbor. Eventually, Kent hires a bodyguard that is completely out of her element and lets Kate become captured. The inept FBI (sure sure) doesn't follow up with leads, a private-eye is murdered, and all of these “highlights” of a tension-filled thriller are just one to two-page nods that should be important but aren't.

Overall, my first sampling of Albrand was a dreadful experience. However, this was a late career entry and should be a small sample size in the grand body of work. Her 1940s and 1950s novels are heralded as fine espionage thrillers and worth the price of admission. Let's call A Taste of Terror an experimental first bite that begs for a better meal.