Julian's Quest
Posted: Wed 26 Dec, 2007 12:10:53
This was the second book of Dennis WheatleyÂ’s that I became totally immersed into.
Having been enthralled with the first (The Devil Rides Out) I remember going to the Library near to the Bricklayers Arms at the junction of the Old Kent Road and New Kent Road to search for another. I was 15 at the time. The Library is no longer there.
Alas, I remember virtually nothing of the book except the big fire in the desert at the end of the story and I recall making a few notes on a scrap of paper as I wanted to keep a record of these excellent DW stories so that I would remember them in years to come.
It not surprising therefore that I now feel compelled to make amends and read the DW canon and write the book reviews that I should have done years ago.
The Quest of Julian Day revolves around Hugo Julian Du Crow Fernhurst. (Julian Day for short).
At the start of the book Julian is 26 years old and has been forced into resigning his post in the Diplomatic Service, as it seemed as though he had been responsible for passing jealously guarded, diplomatic secrets on to a group of wealthy international criminals. (Do they really get rid of high quality diplomats on the assumption that he might be involved? Guilty till proven innocent!!!)
The accusation was not true and Julian tries to put the record straight by foiling the criminal gang.
The leader of this Criminal fraternity was Sean O’Kieff who was at Oxford with Julian. Sean was a well known occultist and as Julian was “rather interested in such things” decided to sit in on a ritual connected with the Pan cult. “Nothing much really happened although towards the end of the sitting there was an unmistakable smell of goat”
Julian decides to take a break by taking a trip to the East. He happens to be looking in the window of Cook’s when he sees O’Kieff at the counter in the travel agents. He manages to ‘overhear’ that O’Kieff is planning a trip from Marseilles to Egypt. Julian decides to book a cabin on board the same ship but decides to board from Southampton in order to be ready for O’Kieff.
On the second day of the cruise Julian meets Sir Walter Shane (The famous Egyptologist) who is organising a dig to try to discover the remains of the vast treasure of the Persian Monarch Cambyses.
Shane had located two halves of a stone tablet on a previous dig in Egypt which gave details of the location of the Cambyses army and treasure. He took the top half of the tablet back to England to try and obtain funding for the next dig. He and it were now returning to Egypt with the two sponsors, Harry & Clarissa Belville. The lower half of the tablet was still in Cairo with his daughter Sylvia.
You may have already guessed the fact that OÂ’Kieff is also after the same treasure and so when Shane is found murdered on the ship and the tablet taken, a fast and furious race is then on for both parties through large areaÂ’s of Egypt and the Libyan desert to get to the treasure site first.
In January 1938 Dennis Wheatley and his wife (Joan) set out on a trip via Southampton and Marseilles to Alexandria and then Luxor (Thebes). It was here that DW viewed one of the temples in Karnak which contained a statue of the God, Set. When looking at it he felt a definite sense of evil. (TDRO readers may remember the connection with The Talisman of Set.)
In addition to the principal tombs, he visited one that is normally only visited by archaeologists. This being the tomb of Thotmes III, (the Napoleon of Egypt). It was very difficult to reach the Tomb as the entrance is at the bottom of a deep valley into which one has to descend by a rope ladder and the burial chamber lies 300 feet underground. Inside the tomb, part of the stairway had fallen away and in places the roof had cracked however the tomb had been there for three thousand years and so DW decided that the odds of it collapsing on the day he visited it was remote and so decided to risk it.
This tomb is the centrepiece of a fascinating section within ‘The Quest of Julian Day’ (Chapters 19 to 21 inclusive).
In Cairo, DW was introduced to Russell Pasha who looked after both DW and Joan. (In the book Essex Pasha is the Commandant of the Cairo Police).
Russell Pasha introduced DW and Joan to Count Almashley, an Austrian airman who had been engaged by the Egyptian Government to fly to and fro across the Libyan Desert, which is larger than Great Britain, in search of The lost treasure of Cambyses. He failed to find it.
This is a fast moving adventure story which really works. The characters are quite believable and with the exception of a few information dumps on Egyptian history, is a real page turner. I very much enjoyed it, even though I occasionally had visions of Michael Douglas and Katherine Turner in ‘Romancing the Stone’ .
The newspapers enjoyed it as well;
“Excitement is crammed into nearly every page and cleverly crammed, too.”
Philip Page – (Daily Mail).
“Mr Wheatley has never done better than in his Egyptian romance”
D.S. Meldrum – (Daily Telegraph).
“Nobody tells a story with the skill of Mr. Wheatley and the present reviewer can declare with his hand on his heart that he read the book, for all its 422 pages, at a single sitting.”
(Irish Times)
A few additional points;
OÂ’KieffÂ’s eyes were grey.
Some of the chapter names seem to have been partially used for later books i.e.
The birth of a Vendetta, A desperate business, The ancient valley.
The term Plot and Counter Plot also gets used in the text of this story.
Nowadays a lot of authors tend not to name their chapters at all. (Easier, I suppose)
Two of the criminal associates of OÂ’Kieff are;
Zakri Bey an important Egyptian who has a falsetto voice - reminiscent of the Eunuch of Stamboul.
Lord Gavin Fortescue – Whose name has cropped up before in ‘Such Power is Dangerous’ & ‘Contraband’.
(Hutchinson hardback)
Page 204 - Chapter 24 starts – “On each of my dashes along the passage several of the doors in it had been opened a crack but on my appearance they had been shut each time with the rapidity of a row of tickled Oysters”. That’s a new one on me!!!
Page 235 – A reference by Julian to one of the other main characters (Princess Oonas Shahamalek) states, “the fact she was not pure white did not bother me in the least as she was an aristocrat to her finger tips and her abnormally large blue eyes put her right outside the category of a ‘Coloured woman” Iffy statement!!!!
Page 238 – Another statement by Julian about the same Princess - “I had half a mind to follow her and administer the spanking she undoubtedly deserved…” Another iffy statement!!…though not unusual.
Page 317 - A frequently held belief of DW is the afterlife and reincarnation. I have copied these extracts below as I know its what he believed and I certainly gain reassurance in believing heÂ’s right.
“I have never been afraid of death; since it can only be one of two things; either a complete black-out into nothingness or a passing on, as all religions encourage us to hope, into some more pleasant state.
The black-out theory is argued very soundly by materialists but it has always seemed inconceivable to me that life should be quite meaningless and, if it is governed at all, the laws which govern it should be logical; in which case all effort towards mental growth automatically leads us somewhere and, as there is no adequate reward for striving visible in this present life, this postulates another where we shall reap what we have sown. Having once arrived at the conclusion that all the probabilities lie in favour of there being some form of life after death I had long since come to regard death as the beginning of the greatest adventure of all.”
Page 378 - Sylvia Shane states, “I don’t believe that any of us are ever called on to suffer more than we can bear…and although we should avoid suffering by any normal mans we can, we’ve got to take it when its thrust upon us, because it’s a kind of test of our spiritual strength; and if we can succeed in passing we get good marks for it later on……. It would be unfair to judge everybody on just one microscopic span of about sixty-odd years and then award them either a harp and crown or eternal damnation for the countless millions of years which go to make up eternity.
For Bob Rothwell.
My thoughts go out to Sue Rothwell at this time of year.
Having been enthralled with the first (The Devil Rides Out) I remember going to the Library near to the Bricklayers Arms at the junction of the Old Kent Road and New Kent Road to search for another. I was 15 at the time. The Library is no longer there.
Alas, I remember virtually nothing of the book except the big fire in the desert at the end of the story and I recall making a few notes on a scrap of paper as I wanted to keep a record of these excellent DW stories so that I would remember them in years to come.
It not surprising therefore that I now feel compelled to make amends and read the DW canon and write the book reviews that I should have done years ago.
The Quest of Julian Day revolves around Hugo Julian Du Crow Fernhurst. (Julian Day for short).
At the start of the book Julian is 26 years old and has been forced into resigning his post in the Diplomatic Service, as it seemed as though he had been responsible for passing jealously guarded, diplomatic secrets on to a group of wealthy international criminals. (Do they really get rid of high quality diplomats on the assumption that he might be involved? Guilty till proven innocent!!!)
The accusation was not true and Julian tries to put the record straight by foiling the criminal gang.
The leader of this Criminal fraternity was Sean O’Kieff who was at Oxford with Julian. Sean was a well known occultist and as Julian was “rather interested in such things” decided to sit in on a ritual connected with the Pan cult. “Nothing much really happened although towards the end of the sitting there was an unmistakable smell of goat”
Julian decides to take a break by taking a trip to the East. He happens to be looking in the window of Cook’s when he sees O’Kieff at the counter in the travel agents. He manages to ‘overhear’ that O’Kieff is planning a trip from Marseilles to Egypt. Julian decides to book a cabin on board the same ship but decides to board from Southampton in order to be ready for O’Kieff.
On the second day of the cruise Julian meets Sir Walter Shane (The famous Egyptologist) who is organising a dig to try to discover the remains of the vast treasure of the Persian Monarch Cambyses.
Shane had located two halves of a stone tablet on a previous dig in Egypt which gave details of the location of the Cambyses army and treasure. He took the top half of the tablet back to England to try and obtain funding for the next dig. He and it were now returning to Egypt with the two sponsors, Harry & Clarissa Belville. The lower half of the tablet was still in Cairo with his daughter Sylvia.
You may have already guessed the fact that OÂ’Kieff is also after the same treasure and so when Shane is found murdered on the ship and the tablet taken, a fast and furious race is then on for both parties through large areaÂ’s of Egypt and the Libyan desert to get to the treasure site first.
In January 1938 Dennis Wheatley and his wife (Joan) set out on a trip via Southampton and Marseilles to Alexandria and then Luxor (Thebes). It was here that DW viewed one of the temples in Karnak which contained a statue of the God, Set. When looking at it he felt a definite sense of evil. (TDRO readers may remember the connection with The Talisman of Set.)
In addition to the principal tombs, he visited one that is normally only visited by archaeologists. This being the tomb of Thotmes III, (the Napoleon of Egypt). It was very difficult to reach the Tomb as the entrance is at the bottom of a deep valley into which one has to descend by a rope ladder and the burial chamber lies 300 feet underground. Inside the tomb, part of the stairway had fallen away and in places the roof had cracked however the tomb had been there for three thousand years and so DW decided that the odds of it collapsing on the day he visited it was remote and so decided to risk it.
This tomb is the centrepiece of a fascinating section within ‘The Quest of Julian Day’ (Chapters 19 to 21 inclusive).
In Cairo, DW was introduced to Russell Pasha who looked after both DW and Joan. (In the book Essex Pasha is the Commandant of the Cairo Police).
Russell Pasha introduced DW and Joan to Count Almashley, an Austrian airman who had been engaged by the Egyptian Government to fly to and fro across the Libyan Desert, which is larger than Great Britain, in search of The lost treasure of Cambyses. He failed to find it.
This is a fast moving adventure story which really works. The characters are quite believable and with the exception of a few information dumps on Egyptian history, is a real page turner. I very much enjoyed it, even though I occasionally had visions of Michael Douglas and Katherine Turner in ‘Romancing the Stone’ .
The newspapers enjoyed it as well;
“Excitement is crammed into nearly every page and cleverly crammed, too.”
Philip Page – (Daily Mail).
“Mr Wheatley has never done better than in his Egyptian romance”
D.S. Meldrum – (Daily Telegraph).
“Nobody tells a story with the skill of Mr. Wheatley and the present reviewer can declare with his hand on his heart that he read the book, for all its 422 pages, at a single sitting.”
(Irish Times)
A few additional points;
OÂ’KieffÂ’s eyes were grey.
Some of the chapter names seem to have been partially used for later books i.e.
The birth of a Vendetta, A desperate business, The ancient valley.
The term Plot and Counter Plot also gets used in the text of this story.
Nowadays a lot of authors tend not to name their chapters at all. (Easier, I suppose)
Two of the criminal associates of OÂ’Kieff are;
Zakri Bey an important Egyptian who has a falsetto voice - reminiscent of the Eunuch of Stamboul.
Lord Gavin Fortescue – Whose name has cropped up before in ‘Such Power is Dangerous’ & ‘Contraband’.
(Hutchinson hardback)
Page 204 - Chapter 24 starts – “On each of my dashes along the passage several of the doors in it had been opened a crack but on my appearance they had been shut each time with the rapidity of a row of tickled Oysters”. That’s a new one on me!!!
Page 235 – A reference by Julian to one of the other main characters (Princess Oonas Shahamalek) states, “the fact she was not pure white did not bother me in the least as she was an aristocrat to her finger tips and her abnormally large blue eyes put her right outside the category of a ‘Coloured woman” Iffy statement!!!!
Page 238 – Another statement by Julian about the same Princess - “I had half a mind to follow her and administer the spanking she undoubtedly deserved…” Another iffy statement!!…though not unusual.
Page 317 - A frequently held belief of DW is the afterlife and reincarnation. I have copied these extracts below as I know its what he believed and I certainly gain reassurance in believing heÂ’s right.
“I have never been afraid of death; since it can only be one of two things; either a complete black-out into nothingness or a passing on, as all religions encourage us to hope, into some more pleasant state.
The black-out theory is argued very soundly by materialists but it has always seemed inconceivable to me that life should be quite meaningless and, if it is governed at all, the laws which govern it should be logical; in which case all effort towards mental growth automatically leads us somewhere and, as there is no adequate reward for striving visible in this present life, this postulates another where we shall reap what we have sown. Having once arrived at the conclusion that all the probabilities lie in favour of there being some form of life after death I had long since come to regard death as the beginning of the greatest adventure of all.”
Page 378 - Sylvia Shane states, “I don’t believe that any of us are ever called on to suffer more than we can bear…and although we should avoid suffering by any normal mans we can, we’ve got to take it when its thrust upon us, because it’s a kind of test of our spiritual strength; and if we can succeed in passing we get good marks for it later on……. It would be unfair to judge everybody on just one microscopic span of about sixty-odd years and then award them either a harp and crown or eternal damnation for the countless millions of years which go to make up eternity.
For Bob Rothwell.
My thoughts go out to Sue Rothwell at this time of year.