The Arena (novel)

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.

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.

The plot itself is straightforward: a small British company has made developments in the fields of radar and electronics that will be valuable assets for the country.

An unscrupulous, and highly murderous, Swiss financier is aware of this situation and determines to take over first the bank that made the loan, and then the company itself, thereby gaining control of the technological developments.

One of the families involved has a deep Italian heritage and so the action moves from England to Italy and back and finally ends with a deadly dénouement on the island of Capri.