It takes a special man to resist Hilda von Einem. A German spy in John Buchan's Greenmantle (1916), she is a 'known man-eater', who tries to inspire a rising of 'Muslim hordes' against the British Empire. 'With her bright hair and the long exquisite oval of her face she looked like some destroying fury of a Norse legend.' She also has a mesmeric smile, devouring eyes, a cloud of fair hair and 'a bosom that rose and fell in a kind of sigh'. It's hardly surprising that Sandy Arbuthnot falls for this sex goddess of espionage; even Richard Hannay is tempted: 'I hated her instinctively, hated her intensely, but longed to arouse her interest.'

LRB 8 January 2004 | PDF Download