I started out Ann Bridge’s Julia Probyn series in the middle after reading two of her nonseries books, which I’ll say right now I preferred. The Lighthearted Quest is the first in the series, and if you can ignore some 1950s attitudes, is a fairly entertaining travel/adventure story.
Julia is a reporter who is able to pick her stories because she has her own income. She is a beautiful girl who has men following her around for most of the novel, but she is described several times as looking like a dumb blonde, which, as she is not at all dumb, does her some service in this adventure, but is also rather offensive.
Julia is summoned to her aunt’s house in Scotland because her uncle has died and so has the man who has been running the estate. Her cousin Edina has been doing the job in the meantime, but she is a highly paid advertising executive, and the family needs her salary in these hard post-war times. The family has lost track of Colin, the heir, who went abroad more than a year ago, reportedly sailing from port to port on the Mediterranean selling oranges. He hasn’t responded to any letters or advertisements asking him to return. So, a family friend, Mrs. Hathaway, has suggested they ask Julia to look for him, as, since she is a reporter, she’s allowed to take more money out of the country than the roughly $300 a year allowed to most Brits at the time.
Julia agrees, and the first thing she finds out is that nine months before, Colin had his bank account transferred to a bank in Casablanca. At this point, her bank informant, who had previously been very helpful, shuts up and advises her not to pursue it. Julia finds it interesting both that the transfer was allowed by the bank and that her source has dried up.
Finding that the best way to Morocco is to take a cargo boat, Julia departs. It’s not until she is telling her story to the first mate, Mr. Reeder, that she realizes her cousin is probably involved in smuggling (something I thought of right away and wondered why she didn’t).
Julia has booked to Tangier, which was listed as the ship’s first stop, but at the last minute it got a load for Casablanca, so she gets off there. She has left with the names of some contacts, but everywhere she goes, people either know nothing or get cagey.
The novel becomes a sort of travelogue as Julia goes from city to city—Casablanca, Tangier, Fez, Marrakesh—following up scanty leads and shocking various people with how much she’s figured out. She also takes a job on a Phoenician archaeology site so she won’t run out of money, as the search takes much longer than she expected. Near the beginning, she even sees Colin from a distance standing on a rooftop with a red-haired man but is unable to get to him.
Because her explanation of her search is not taken at face value, Julia finds herself being followed, and there are hints of a Cold War theme that is much more prominent in the other books in the series.
If you can put up with Julia calling a group of gay men “pansies” more than once and some patronizing attitudes toward the locals along with a discussion of what great things the French have done for Morocco that would probably send shivers down the spine of any Moroccans, the book makes quite a good adventure. What Colin is up to is patently ridiculous, but that is really a MacGuffin. And there’s a romance for Cousin Edina as well as a hint of one for Julia, and a bit of peril. Quite entertaining.
What? Me Read? 