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The Content Assignment
"An astonishing don't miss it." — The Boston Globe
On a rainy night in postwar Berlin, British journalist John Terrant encounters Ellen Content, a young civilian typist in the American Army's office of information. Their romance quickly blossoms, but as soon as Terrant realizes that Content is a spy, she abruptly vanishes into the divided city's treacherous maze of ruined streets. Terrant's anguished inquiries receive only bland assurances from the authorities that Content will contact him when her job is finished.
Two years later, Terrant's compulsively close reading of newspapers uncovers his first clue since Content's her name appears in a list of passengers recently embarked on an ocean liner headed from London to New York. Within a few hours, the reporter is headed for the United States, despite dire warnings from the CIA and Scotland Yard to desist in his pursuit. After long months of inactivity, suddenly every minute counts as Terrant races to solve the mystery, find his lover, and avoid becoming the latest victim in a string of killings.
"Definitely exciting." — The Observer
On a rainy night in postwar Berlin, British journalist John Terrant encounters Ellen Content, a young civilian typist in the American Army's office of information. Their romance quickly blossoms, but as soon as Terrant realizes that Content is a spy, she abruptly vanishes into the divided city's treacherous maze of ruined streets. Terrant's anguished inquiries receive only bland assurances from the authorities that Content will contact him when her job is finished.
Two years later, Terrant's compulsively close reading of newspapers uncovers his first clue since Content's her name appears in a list of passengers recently embarked on an ocean liner headed from London to New York. Within a few hours, the reporter is headed for the United States, despite dire warnings from the CIA and Scotland Yard to desist in his pursuit. After long months of inactivity, suddenly every minute counts as Terrant races to solve the mystery, find his lover, and avoid becoming the latest victim in a string of killings.
"Definitely exciting." — The Observer
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1955
2 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Holly Roth
37 books5 followersHolly Roth (1916-1964) was born in Chicago and grew up in Brooklyn and London, but regarded herself as a New Yorker. Her education was the product of many schools, colleges and private tutors, but she emerged with a BA. She worked as a model, then moved on to newspaper and magazine work. She was married to Joseph Franta. She died after falling off a small yacht in the Mediterranean, and her body was never recovered. She also wrote as K.G. Ballard and P.J. Merrill.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 2, 2024
Written right after WWII, when the Cold War was really gearing up.
A reporter lost his love during the war, and meets her a gain some years later and is scooped up into espionage, never knowing what the heck is going on.
Pretty typical for the time, but if you've never read anything of that vintage, it might be a real eye opener.
A reporter lost his love during the war, and meets her a gain some years later and is scooped up into espionage, never knowing what the heck is going on.
Pretty typical for the time, but if you've never read anything of that vintage, it might be a real eye opener.
September 23, 2014
How’s this for an opening paragraph! “The minute I saw those few words at the bottom of one of the long coloumns in the previous Friday’s Times I had the answer to the question of what I would do with my life. I had had the answer for two years of course, but until that hot July morning I hadn’t been able to do anything about it.”
British journalist John Tarrant is determined to find Ellen Content who went missing in Berlin in 1948 under mysterious circumstances, soon after he meets her. At the time she disappeared he was warned off by several senior officers. An acquaintance is killed the night Ellen disappeared and one of the Military officers soon after. It is not till two years later he notices the mention of her in The Times. We flashback to Berlin before the wall went up and I love the depiction of the divided Berlin at that time - the intrigue (so much simpler than now) the telling details, and Roth’s skilful characterisations. “We walked in the beautiful Tiergarten, and in spite of the war’s damage and the wet early-autumn weather, it was a lovely walk. Once as we sauntered along, following the winding lanes and lakes, a child’s ball hit me and cannoned off into the thick underbrush. I went after it and tossed it to the youngster. As I started back across the fifteen feet of grass separating me from Ellen I saw again, as I had each time we approached each other, the defenceless look, the aloneness of her.”
Taking up the chase for Ellen, Tarrant rushes to New York and uses some good old fashioned detective work to track her down. Along the way there is another murder. Russians are hot on his heels and he is in pursuit of someone calling themselves Ellen Content and dancing in very nondescript American small towns. Here is Tarrant (a very likeable character) pondering on his own behaviour:
“One doesn’t exist for thirty-two years untouched by the slightest impulse towards marriage, then find somebody one loves deeply and immediately - and dismiss her disappearance, whatever the purported reasons for it, with a shrug.”
The Content Assignment is Holly Roth’s first book and after reading this novel I really am intrigued by her life. It is much more obvious from this book (than The Shadow of a Lady) that she has indeed lived in both the US and the UK. She knows something of the British character and the American - enough anyway to write convincing portrayals of both. I am still trying to pin point what attracts me (someone who virtually never reads crime fiction) to embark on reading all of her work. I think it the strong voice of her characters, particularly her main characters, even such minor characters as the private detective in The Shadow of a Lady. All are imbued with a distinctive voice that draws the reader in. This isn’t quite as polished as The Shadow of a Lady but it’s an enjoyable and quick read - a valuable thing when you are stressed and very busy! Holy Roth definitely delivers a world that we can retreat to.
British journalist John Tarrant is determined to find Ellen Content who went missing in Berlin in 1948 under mysterious circumstances, soon after he meets her. At the time she disappeared he was warned off by several senior officers. An acquaintance is killed the night Ellen disappeared and one of the Military officers soon after. It is not till two years later he notices the mention of her in The Times. We flashback to Berlin before the wall went up and I love the depiction of the divided Berlin at that time - the intrigue (so much simpler than now) the telling details, and Roth’s skilful characterisations. “We walked in the beautiful Tiergarten, and in spite of the war’s damage and the wet early-autumn weather, it was a lovely walk. Once as we sauntered along, following the winding lanes and lakes, a child’s ball hit me and cannoned off into the thick underbrush. I went after it and tossed it to the youngster. As I started back across the fifteen feet of grass separating me from Ellen I saw again, as I had each time we approached each other, the defenceless look, the aloneness of her.”
Taking up the chase for Ellen, Tarrant rushes to New York and uses some good old fashioned detective work to track her down. Along the way there is another murder. Russians are hot on his heels and he is in pursuit of someone calling themselves Ellen Content and dancing in very nondescript American small towns. Here is Tarrant (a very likeable character) pondering on his own behaviour:
“One doesn’t exist for thirty-two years untouched by the slightest impulse towards marriage, then find somebody one loves deeply and immediately - and dismiss her disappearance, whatever the purported reasons for it, with a shrug.”
The Content Assignment is Holly Roth’s first book and after reading this novel I really am intrigued by her life. It is much more obvious from this book (than The Shadow of a Lady) that she has indeed lived in both the US and the UK. She knows something of the British character and the American - enough anyway to write convincing portrayals of both. I am still trying to pin point what attracts me (someone who virtually never reads crime fiction) to embark on reading all of her work. I think it the strong voice of her characters, particularly her main characters, even such minor characters as the private detective in The Shadow of a Lady. All are imbued with a distinctive voice that draws the reader in. This isn’t quite as polished as The Shadow of a Lady but it’s an enjoyable and quick read - a valuable thing when you are stressed and very busy! Holy Roth definitely delivers a world that we can retreat to.
January 27, 2019
Kind of a thriller/mystery/espionage novel. I spent parts of the book annoyed at being given too little to go on but ended up loving the characters and the denouement.
November 18, 2021
The Content Assignment is the first book written by American author Holly Roth and the second book I've read and enjoyed by her. It was originally published in 2 parts in The Saturday Evening Post in 1953.
I really enjoyed this novel, an intriguing, entertaining, 'lost girl' thriller with spy intimations. The story follows English reporter John Terrant as he travels to America to find Ellen Content. Terrant had been working in postwar divided Berlin and along with a friend met Ellen, who says she works as a secretary at the US Embassy. Over the course of the next week or so, he meets with her a total of 4 times. In the last meeting, he gets involved with Ellen as she tries to rescue a Russian man and his wife. The find the man dead. Ellen orders John to save the wife and take her to Ellen's boss. John does this and then loses track of Ellen.
John has fallen deeply in love with Ellen during these short meetings and over the next years he continues to try and find her. He does discover that she has worked for the CIA and that she seems to have disappeared on a ship to New York. When John discovers a new article that seems to indicate Ellen is still alive, he heads to New York, against advice / orders from the American FBI and even Scotland Yard, to try and find Ellen. There you have the crux of this entertaining thriller, as John stumbles around New York city and state, trying to find clues to Ellen's existence.
The story moves along nicely. It's not perfect as there are moments that seem inconceivable, but to Roth's credit, everything is explained satisfactorily. The characters are well - crafted, John is likable and intense. The FBI and police aren't idiots and act reasonably and sympathetically. It's a nice introduction to Roth. She has a clear writing style, the story is logical and well-crafted and just plain enjoyable. I will explore Roth's works further as I do enjoy her style and story-telling. (4 stars)
I really enjoyed this novel, an intriguing, entertaining, 'lost girl' thriller with spy intimations. The story follows English reporter John Terrant as he travels to America to find Ellen Content. Terrant had been working in postwar divided Berlin and along with a friend met Ellen, who says she works as a secretary at the US Embassy. Over the course of the next week or so, he meets with her a total of 4 times. In the last meeting, he gets involved with Ellen as she tries to rescue a Russian man and his wife. The find the man dead. Ellen orders John to save the wife and take her to Ellen's boss. John does this and then loses track of Ellen.
John has fallen deeply in love with Ellen during these short meetings and over the next years he continues to try and find her. He does discover that she has worked for the CIA and that she seems to have disappeared on a ship to New York. When John discovers a new article that seems to indicate Ellen is still alive, he heads to New York, against advice / orders from the American FBI and even Scotland Yard, to try and find Ellen. There you have the crux of this entertaining thriller, as John stumbles around New York city and state, trying to find clues to Ellen's existence.
The story moves along nicely. It's not perfect as there are moments that seem inconceivable, but to Roth's credit, everything is explained satisfactorily. The characters are well - crafted, John is likable and intense. The FBI and police aren't idiots and act reasonably and sympathetically. It's a nice introduction to Roth. She has a clear writing style, the story is logical and well-crafted and just plain enjoyable. I will explore Roth's works further as I do enjoy her style and story-telling. (4 stars)
December 4, 2017
Roth's first book. An engaging mystery (despite the stereotyping) that opens in post-war Berlin.
*
First Line: The minute I saw those few words at the bottom of one of the long columns in the previous Friday's London Times I had the answer to the question of what I would do with my life.
Source: Open Library
*
First Line: The minute I saw those few words at the bottom of one of the long columns in the previous Friday's London Times I had the answer to the question of what I would do with my life.
Source: Open Library
June 25, 2018
Started out well but then slowly deteriorated. Unusually inadequate ending
December 30, 2021
Literally the worst thing about this book is the title, which sounds a bit like something from the MST3K Ludlum Library in Being From Another Planet. I assume it’s meant to be a neat pun, because our heroine is essentially raw data in human form, but instead sounds like the sort of name you get in the TV show Toast. But that is literally a quibble, because otherwise this is one of the tautest noir novels I have ever read, like the essence of a crime b-movie boiled down to the bones. There’s no fat here, instead a rollicking thriller plot which never for a moment lets up, to the extent that when the narrator suddenly realised how exhausted he is you realise that in some way the relentless march of plotting has also left you feeling pretty shattered too. It’s no pulp masterpiece, but in the same way that film noir could never be the same without something like Ida Lupino’s films to counter the more obvious Bogarde films, you need this kind of thing to balance out the Chandlers. Excellent stuff
March 30, 2023
Hero is a British reporter. The guy that always gets the story and, somehow, puts a little special inspiration in it. The heroine is a simple ex-schoolteacher attached to the American military in 1948 Berlin. Of course it’s love. And it’s still love when the heroine reveals she’s got a photographic memory, knows lots of languages, and seems caught up in the active spy life of postwar Germany. Naturally, she disappears. Fortunately, hero is just the lovesick lunkhead to go find her after two years pass and a clue to her whereabouts shows up in the shipping news of the Times. Will love triumph over the Red Menace?
The novel’s title seems like a Robert Ludlum reject and the content is an unfortunate attempt at a combination of a Saturday Evening Post love story and spy yarn. The only virtue is this story’s brevity.
The novel’s title seems like a Robert Ludlum reject and the content is an unfortunate attempt at a combination of a Saturday Evening Post love story and spy yarn. The only virtue is this story’s brevity.
August 12, 2025
A freelance news writer in England gets an assignment to follow a dancing instructor (surnamed Comfort) on tour and goes to America. Where he has to bribe Customs people to know if the lady got off her boat (is that illegal?), and ask whether New York and Manhattan are synonyms, what boroughs are, how to address a letter to someone in NY, etc. Why wouldn't he look that up in a library or ask someone while he travelled? Then he is phoning people who might tell him the taxi she took, the train... why would he not have paged her on the boat, station etc?
Later in the story the dancer seems to be (still) entirely missing and we are in NY getting debates about Paris, Berlin, Korea, Albany, Binghamton etc. with three-letter agencies and thugs beating up the writer. And a woman has been killed. Very muddled and nobody to like.
Later in the story the dancer seems to be (still) entirely missing and we are in NY getting debates about Paris, Berlin, Korea, Albany, Binghamton etc. with three-letter agencies and thugs beating up the writer. And a woman has been killed. Very muddled and nobody to like.
Read
November 12, 2024The Content Assignment is the debut novel of Helen Marjorie Holly Franta (nee Roth), who published it under the name Holly Roth.
The story follows John Terrant, a jounalist, who meets, and falls in love, with Ellen Content. Ellen disappears until, after two years, John notices a message in The London Times leading him on a dangerous trek to find Ellen in the U.S.
An enjoyable mystery/spy film that, whilst stretches credulity at times, moves along as a brisk pace and is easy to read.
Helen Roth was born in 1916. She published works under J. Merrill and K.G. Ballard as well as Holly Roth. She also wrote short stories. She was presumed deceased after she fell off the ketch she was on with her husband off the coast of Morrocco in 1964.
The story follows John Terrant, a jounalist, who meets, and falls in love, with Ellen Content. Ellen disappears until, after two years, John notices a message in The London Times leading him on a dangerous trek to find Ellen in the U.S.
An enjoyable mystery/spy film that, whilst stretches credulity at times, moves along as a brisk pace and is easy to read.
Helen Roth was born in 1916. She published works under J. Merrill and K.G. Ballard as well as Holly Roth. She also wrote short stories. She was presumed deceased after she fell off the ketch she was on with her husband off the coast of Morrocco in 1964.
October 26, 2017
Quite a short book, engrossing to begin with, but hampered by a very unlikeable protagonist and a plot that resolves itself into amateur nonsense. The end is ludicrously bad, and the author is so far gone in her worship of the CIA and FBI that she presents them as heroic demi-gods. Ultimately this is low-brow cold war propaganda, probably ghost-written in Langley.
August 19, 2024
Terrifically pacy Cold War thriller. Simple yet totally absorbing, it had the feel of a Hitchcock movie throughout.
October 3, 2024
espionage thriller that feels too long and too detailed for what it actually has to offer.
Want to read
September 23, 2018Synopsis: a journalist encounters obstacles trying to find Ellen Content who went missing in Berlin in 1948.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews