The Unquiet Sleep

(CC) Photo: Clayton Evans
William Haggard on the back cover of The Conspirators, 1967

The Unquiet Sleep is a 1962 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Ives Washburn. It was Haggard's fourth of 21 books involving his protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the urbane head of the unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counterintelligence agency clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service, where he moves easily and gracefully along C.P. Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. Like Haggard's earlier books it has standard elements of suspense thrillers along with detailed examinations of character, but with more scenes of direct action and somewhat less dissection of character and motivation than in the first three books.

Plot

Protagonist is perhaps too strong a word to describe Colonel Russell. As Haggard himself wrote about his fiction:

My novels are chiefly novels of suspense with a background of international politics. A Colonel Charles Russell of the Security Executive, a not entirely imaginary British counter-espionage organization, while not a protagonist in the technical sense, holds the story line together in the background by his operations, while the characters in the foreground carry the action."

A leading British pharmaceutical company has released a new tranquillizer, Mecron, that has very positive and pleasing effects upon its users and is selling well. A former board member of the company, Henry Leggatt, is now a Member of Parliament for the political party in power, as well as being the Parliamentary Secretary for Robert Seneschal, the Minister of Social Welfare and a striver who thinks that he should rightfully be Prime Minister. Leggatt is made aware, however, that there may be dangerous, unintended side-effects to Mecron, and he and his senior take quiet steps to see that the drug is withdrawn from the market until more conclusive studies have been carried out. A disgruntled underling, however, discloses this to a notorious newspaper and Mecron immediately becomes a scandalous public issue. Colonel Russell of the Security Executive, in this book without his "invaluable" aide, Major Mortimer, and without consultations with his Minister, Gabriel Palliser, the Home Office Secretary, is alerted to the fact that a lucrative black market has quickly come into being to sell small quantities of the now-illicit drug. A beautiful young Frenchwoman, Rachel Borrodaile, is his chosen operative for this book; she has been in the French Resistance during World War II, where she had known Henry Leggatt, then serving in the British forces. Captured by the Gestapo, she has been severely tortured and spent two years in hospital afterwards. Now she is a highly trained, highly dangerous British operative, given carte blanche by Russell to do whatever is necessary to shut down the black market. A small gang of ruthless Cypriots, already known to the police, has secured a supply of Mecron and, while their chemist in Turkey attempts to duplicate the drug, has killed at least one man in London and then kidnapped and begun to torture Henry Leggatt, hoping he will lead them to stockpiled supplies at his former pharmaceutical company. Rachel Borrodaile, however, has recently renewed her friendship with Leggatt after 16 years and is both motivated and determined to thwart the Cypriots. By the time the story comes to Haggard's usual violent dénouement, the originally quiet investigation into the side-effects of a drug has had, ironically, strong side-effects upon the once-regular lives of all the story's characters with the exception of Colonel Russell.

Reception and/or Appraisal

Reviews were favorable:

The New York Times: With all the recent controversy over the side-effects of such drugs as Percodan, Enovid and thalidomide, the theme of William Haggard's THE UNQUIET SLEEP (Washburn, $3.50) is unusually timely. Evidence indicates that a new tranquillizer, Mecron, is probably addictive. One of Her Majesty's Secretaries is connected with the company manufacturing Mecron—which makes for political intrigues and scandal. A Cypriot black-market gang wants to exploit the new addicts and only Col. Charles Russell of the Security Executive can cope with all the resultant complications. Haggard may prove a little intricate for the hasty reader, but will richly reward the discriminating.

Kirkus Reviews: The evidence that a new tranquillizer is addictive threatens not only the Ministry of Social Welfare but one of its members, Leggatt, a former director of the firm now distributing it. Col. Russell of Security and his fearless, attractive assistant Rachel are assigned to check the continuing availability of the drug on the black market, and a traffic which leads to murder. There's a sotto voce romance as well. Brisk, literate excitement.