The Lady is a Spy
1 journaler for this copy...
I bought this book in a grab bag box from "Books Covered" in Woodstock, GA. The aim is to read it and then trade …
From front cover:
Original title: Two Ladies in Verona
"A merciless enemy hunts a beautiful secret agent in the most dangerous city in Europe!"
From back cover:
Secret agent Emma Greaves flies to Verona to meet a man - and finds a corpse!
Everyone believes Luigi Moretto died of a heart attack. Not Emma Greaves. She knows Luigi was silenced because he had information about a plot to start World War II.
Emma searches desperately for a clue to the secret information Luigi took to his grave. Just as she finds it, her identity is discovered.
Now it is Emma who must be silenced. Unable to contact her chief, wanted by the Italian police for a murder she did not commit and stalked by ruthless international killers, she fleets across Italy in the most deadly game of all - espionage.
c.1967
Paperback Library edition First Printing, May 1968
cover price 60c
This copy has two stamps in it from UBS's. "Book Exchange" in Lexington, KY & "Book Nook Book Exchange." (no location for the latter) I love to see some kind of history via stamps :)
Why am I reading such an old book? I bought a big box of books on Ebay for cheap. The fun of it is that I didn't know what was going to be inside it. It happens that there are some oldies and some newer ones. Anyhow I'm happy as I am reading stuff I would never have read otherwise.
From front cover:
Original title: Two Ladies in Verona
"A merciless enemy hunts a beautiful secret agent in the most dangerous city in Europe!"
From back cover:
Secret agent Emma Greaves flies to Verona to meet a man - and finds a corpse!
Everyone believes Luigi Moretto died of a heart attack. Not Emma Greaves. She knows Luigi was silenced because he had information about a plot to start World War II.
Emma searches desperately for a clue to the secret information Luigi took to his grave. Just as she finds it, her identity is discovered.
Now it is Emma who must be silenced. Unable to contact her chief, wanted by the Italian police for a murder she did not commit and stalked by ruthless international killers, she fleets across Italy in the most deadly game of all - espionage.
c.1967
Paperback Library edition First Printing, May 1968
cover price 60c
This copy has two stamps in it from UBS's. "Book Exchange" in Lexington, KY & "Book Nook Book Exchange." (no location for the latter) I love to see some kind of history via stamps :)
Why am I reading such an old book? I bought a big box of books on Ebay for cheap. The fun of it is that I didn't know what was going to be inside it. It happens that there are some oldies and some newer ones. Anyhow I'm happy as I am reading stuff I would never have read otherwise.
Just for interest sakes I'm going to share a couple of quotes from the book ...
Why have I chosen these particular passages? I take a look at the spot where I stopped
reading last night to see if there is anything to share... Often I am struck by the standard
cliches. If you stop and look and pretend you have not heard it before, things really come to
life. Anyhow enough babbling!
From last night:
She shut the door, moved across to the window, and pulled up a wicker chaise-longue. She reached through the window for the end of the microphone lead, fastened on the earpiece and pushed it into ear. She could only hear only the ticking of a clock - but, at least, that showed she hadn't connected the thing up wrong. Mayve it was all she would hear, so far as anything that went mattered. It was only a hunch that Barbaro would join Piombo in her room, and she could easily be wrong.
But is was pleasant enough to sit there by the open window on that hot evening, looking lazily out at the darkening lake, and the black mountains on the far shore. Serenity. Perfect serenity. Almost she was dozing in her chair. p48
-- my comments. I thought that this was a nice spot to stop -- the thought of someone dozing in the warm air made me sleepy! I guess that's the perks of being a detective ...
Why have I chosen these particular passages? I take a look at the spot where I stopped
reading last night to see if there is anything to share... Often I am struck by the standard
cliches. If you stop and look and pretend you have not heard it before, things really come to
life. Anyhow enough babbling!
From last night:
She shut the door, moved across to the window, and pulled up a wicker chaise-longue. She reached through the window for the end of the microphone lead, fastened on the earpiece and pushed it into ear. She could only hear only the ticking of a clock - but, at least, that showed she hadn't connected the thing up wrong. Mayve it was all she would hear, so far as anything that went mattered. It was only a hunch that Barbaro would join Piombo in her room, and she could easily be wrong.
But is was pleasant enough to sit there by the open window on that hot evening, looking lazily out at the darkening lake, and the black mountains on the far shore. Serenity. Perfect serenity. Almost she was dozing in her chair. p48
-- my comments. I thought that this was a nice spot to stop -- the thought of someone dozing in the warm air made me sleepy! I guess that's the perks of being a detective ...
from last night:
The quay was crowded, as everywhere is in Venice, with phalanxes of strolling sightseers, small platoons of soldiers or sailors looking out for girls, old women sourly seeing oranges done up in clusters, men in narrow-brimmed straw hats with concertina-like letter cards of Venetian scenes in brightly coloured photography dangling from their arms, touts for gondoliers, touts for motor boats, touts for hotels, and a few simple touts for themselves. p106
I wonder if the image of Venice has changed in literature, or even the people themselves. Haven't been, so have no idea.
The quay was crowded, as everywhere is in Venice, with phalanxes of strolling sightseers, small platoons of soldiers or sailors looking out for girls, old women sourly seeing oranges done up in clusters, men in narrow-brimmed straw hats with concertina-like letter cards of Venetian scenes in brightly coloured photography dangling from their arms, touts for gondoliers, touts for motor boats, touts for hotels, and a few simple touts for themselves. p106
I wonder if the image of Venice has changed in literature, or even the people themselves. Haven't been, so have no idea.
From last night:
"There's a lovely garden behind an empty palazzo on the outskirts of Verona - the Giusti garden. It's open to the public, but nobody ever goes much on ordinary weekdays anyhow. I'll drop you off there, you can wait in the garden, and I'll pick you up on the way to the autostrada."
He swung off the motorway and eased up as they came towards Verona. In one of the side streets he halted the car outside a heavy building with a huge arched entrance. The caretaker, a small old woman who hobbled out from the building to take their hundred lire and issue them with tickets, then led them through the archway, across a gravelled courtyard, to a gate in a tall wrough-iron fence of intricate beauty, with a fountain smoothly pouring a stream of water into a stone trough by its side. Before she opened the gate to let them in, the caretaker rang a loud note on a large handbell hanging from the wrought iron.
"It's the signal," explained Joe, "for the gardener's wife to come from that house over there to collect the tickets and admit us. Complicated, eh? But that's the way they run things in the Giardino Giusti." p133
"There's a lovely garden behind an empty palazzo on the outskirts of Verona - the Giusti garden. It's open to the public, but nobody ever goes much on ordinary weekdays anyhow. I'll drop you off there, you can wait in the garden, and I'll pick you up on the way to the autostrada."
He swung off the motorway and eased up as they came towards Verona. In one of the side streets he halted the car outside a heavy building with a huge arched entrance. The caretaker, a small old woman who hobbled out from the building to take their hundred lire and issue them with tickets, then led them through the archway, across a gravelled courtyard, to a gate in a tall wrough-iron fence of intricate beauty, with a fountain smoothly pouring a stream of water into a stone trough by its side. Before she opened the gate to let them in, the caretaker rang a loud note on a large handbell hanging from the wrought iron.
"It's the signal," explained Joe, "for the gardener's wife to come from that house over there to collect the tickets and admit us. Complicated, eh? But that's the way they run things in the Giardino Giusti." p133
As I get closer and closer to the end of the book I read less and less. I get attached to the characters and plot and don't want it to end. So I just stall :)
From last night:
He wriggled back to the nearest strong tree, and began to rope the block and pulley to its trunk. "Commandos'd go up and down this cliff like the escalator at Piccadilly Circus." p160
update: 9.13pm Just finished. Will get it to WickedWordz shortly.
From last night:
He wriggled back to the nearest strong tree, and began to rope the block and pulley to its trunk. "Commandos'd go up and down this cliff like the escalator at Piccadilly Circus." p160
update: 9.13pm Just finished. Will get it to WickedWordz shortly.
