The Arena

The Arena is a 1961 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Washburn. It was Haggard's third of 21 books involving his urbane protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the head of the unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counter-intelligence 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 all of the other works by Haggard it is a standard novel of suspense, but combined, as usual with Haggard, with other elements: the reactions of those in high government positions who fear non-political events that could endanger Britain's place in the world, along with a tough-minded, even cynical depiction of financial shenanigans in the City of London. And like Venetian Blind, Haggard's previous book, it is very much a novel of character, albeit a bleak one.