A Talent for Killing

Combine Donald Westlake's Parker, Max Allan Collins's Quarry, and Robert Ludlum's Bourne, and you have a pretty good approximation of Ralph Dennis's Kane.

A Talent for Killing, published in 2019, is a bit disjointed because it's really two books in one, combined and edited by Lee Goldberg decades later from the original manuscripts. The first story, originally published as Deadman's Game in 1976, tells the origin of John Kane, how he became an assassin for the CIA, had his memory wiped out by a suicide bombing in Vietnam, then was given a new identity and placed under surveillance by the Agency to ensure that no inconvenient memories come back to him. Though he has no memory of his assassin past, Kane naturally gravitates toward the same line of work and soon becomes a freelance hitman. The main plot involves Kane taking a contract to whack the killer of a rich man's son, which requires him to infiltrate the local mob and gain their confidence, while avoiding getting taken out by a renegade faction of his own Agency that has decided he is too much of a liability.

The second story was much better, as Kane has to do some detective work to find out who framed a dying man ten years ago for a hideous sexual murder of a child, track him down, infiltrate the military-industrial compound where he works and bring him to justice. This story was never published; it was supposed to have been the second book in a series but it was cancelled. Which is a shame, because Kane is a great character. He has the stoic, hardman personality of Parker, the efficient hitman skills of Quarry and the amnesia and Agency/'Nam backstory of Jason Bourne. I particularly liked how the Agency surveillance angle brought a 1970s paranoia and conspiracy vibe to the stories that you don't find in more conventional crime series like Parker and Quarry.

A Talent for Killing is not brilliant writing, and the two-part story doesn't always flow well, but it's an interesting and entertaining read for fans of 1970s-era hardboiled crime and spy fiction. Get a copy here.

Seven Days to a Killing

During the Cold War, Great Britain very much played second fiddle to the USA as a geopolitical power, but in the world of spy-fiction they reigned supreme. From the pulpy adventures of Ian Fleming's Bond to the tense action of Elleston Trevor's Quiller to the cerebral dramas of LeCarre and Deighton, the Brits set the standards for the genre. In addition to such well-remembered authors, there were many more who wrote quality spy-fi that are largely forgotten today—men like James Mitchell, Gavin Lyall, Ted Allbeury, Oliver Jacks (Kenneth Royce), Robert Charles, Desmond Cory, Christopher Nicole (Andrew York), Alan Williams, and the writer I'll be reviewing today: Clive Egleton.

Like most of the authors just mentioned, Egleton served in World War II, and this experience gave his writing a realistic edge that few peacetime writers can match.  No doubt it was this shared wartime background, along with the high English literary standard and cultural affinity for spycraft, that produced a golden age of British espionage fiction in the post-war era. Egleton actually served in the army for thirty years, until retiring to become a full-time writer in  the mid-1970s. His debut novel, published in 1973 and titled Seven Days to a Killing, was made into a movie called The Black Windmill starring Michael Caine the following year. The movie trailer looked interesting enough that I decided to track down the novel and give it a read.

As the story opens, a man named Andrew McKee, dressed in a paratrooper uniform, confronts two boys who are playing at an abandoned military airfield. Using a ruse, the boys are quickly knocked out, bound, gagged, put in crates and taken away in a Land Rover with military precision. A little later, as two of his hired heavies are driving away with their payments, McKee calmly presses a button on a radio transmitter, detonating a bomb in their vehicle and blowing them to smithereens. It's a chilling and well-done opening sequence that lets us know what kind of ruthlessly efficient villains we'll be dealing with.

One of the boys is soon released, but the other, named David, who is the son of an MI6 officer named John Tarrant, is held in captivity at a farmhouse. The kidnapper, who goes by the name "Drabble", calls Tarrant with a simple demand: deliver 500,000 pounds worth of uncut diamonds in two days time, or his son will come to harm. Tarrant must deliver them himself to an address in Paris according to Drabble's instructions. To show that he means business, he plays a recording of Tarrant's screaming son being tortured.

Drabble's demands bring in an intelligence officer named Cedric Harper, whose title is "Director of Subversive Warfare". Harper is highly suspicious by nature, and he wants to know why a man with Tarrant's modest resources would be the target of such a high-priced kidnapping plot. Tarrant seems to be an upstanding officer with a clean record, but is he somehow involved in the plot? Is it just a criminal extortion scheme, or is the KGB or other enemy agency involved? Harper agrees to provide the diamonds for delivery, but in return he puts Tarrant under close surveillance and a background investigation in hopes of finding out the answers.

What follows is part crime/espionage procedural, part race against time, and part the psychological struggles of Tarrant, his estranged wife, Harper and the kidnappers. The narrative got a little confusing at times, as so many characters were introduced that it became difficult to keep track of them, and the procedural parts of the story dragged a bit. But the final stretch of the book made up for all that, as the diamonds are en route for delivery, the kidnappers prepare to make their exchange and getaway, Harper prepares a team for a raid, and Tarrant desperately races to find his son, not trusting Harper to have his best interests at heart. The suspenseful and violent climax was absolutely riveting, one of the best I can remember in an espionage thriller.

The writing style and plotting of Seven Days brought to mind the classic work of Frederick Forsyth, particularly The Day of the Jackal. It has that sophisticated, sinister edge and realistic detail about espionage procedures that he and other British spy-fi greats excel at. The detailed backstories of the kidnappers, their operations and motivations, were quite plausible and very well done. This is apparently the first of a four book series featuring the cynical counter-intelligence man Cedric Harper. Based on the quality of this book, I will definitely be checking out further installments of the series and other novels by Clive Egleton. Highly recommended.

Get a copy of Seven Days to a Killing here.

Colorado Kill-Zone

Don Pendleton's Executioner series is without a doubt the most popular and influential men's adventure series of all-time, with hundreds of titles and spin-off books published and hundreds of millions of copies sold since it launched in 1969. Pendleton created a cultural phenomenon when he dreamed up the "dark knight" named Mack Bolan—a one-man army, holy warrior and vigilante fighting endless battles against the forces of organized crime and terror that took the lives of his family.

I've read several Executioners from the early "New War" period in the 1980s, after Bolan had shifted his focus from fighting the mafia to fighting international terrorists and the KGB with the backing of a "black" US government agency, but I'd never actually read any of the original 38 installments authored by Don Pendleton until I picked up a battered copy of Colorado Kill-Zone (Executioner #25, 1976) from a small-town store recently to see what all the fuss was about. I guess I'd assumed that stories about Bolan hunting mafia goons across the USA would be boring and repetitive compared to him hopping around the globe fighting terrorists and enemy agents, so I never tried the early books. Based on the quality of Kill-Zone, I think it's safe to say that this was a bad assumption.

As the book begins, Mack is rolling down a remote road in the Rockies in his "war-wagon", gearing up to do battle with an enemy he can't see but knows in his gut is very close. The battle is soon joined, and to Bolan's shock and dismay, this enemy is using military equipment, tactics and discipline, much unlike the mafia thugs he's used to dealing with. Mack manages to surprise them with the war-wagon's awesome firepower, destroying some and driving the rest away; he wins this round but knows a larger battle is soon to come. Investigating the wreckage and doing some scouting around, he soon discovers that there is a secret base nearby that houses hundreds of what appear to be US military personnel, all focused on trapping Bolan in a Colorado "kill-zone". Further detective work, with assistance from his old friend from the Justice Department, Hal Brognola, and high-ranking mafia informant Leo Turrin, uncovers the identity of the enemy paramilitary's leader and the existence of a conspiracy to take out someone very, very big.

More exciting action soon follows, as Bolan pulls off one of his trademark deceptions to evade the net the enemy forces have drawn around him and makes his way through a snow storm to a deserted ski lodge where the enemy leader supposedly wishes to meet him. There he meets the nordic beauty Giselda, whose brother has been taken hostage by the paramilitary, and together they make a narrow escape by snowmobile and skis but are unable to get off the mountain.

At this point Bolan, realizing that he's trapped on the mountain, surrounded by the paramilitary force, gets philosophical while deciding on the best course of action. He again opts for the strategem of deception from inside the enemy net, impersonating troopers and officers, discovering their radio codes, gathering intel about their larger plot, and sabotaging their operations from within. The enemy objective is revealed to be something worthy of a James Bond novel, the paramilitary commander makes Bolan an impressive offer, and the story moves a little too quickly and smoothly to a satisfying conclusion.

I don't know how typical Kill-Zone is of the Pendleton Executioners, but it was a much bigger plot than I expected, more like something from the New War and Stony Man era where Bolan routinely defeated super-villains and saved America. I certainly enjoyed the book; I liked how Bolan relied on deception and detective work as much as sheer firepower, which made it more realistic. The conclusion felt a bit rushed and inconclusive though, almost like it was the first act of a larger story arc.

There is something brilliantly unhinged about Pendleton's Bolan, the way he fearlessly and obsessively pursues his one-man war, creates his own stateside reality every bit as lethal as his days in 'Nam, obeys his warrior's "gut" like it's a mystical superpower, and justifies his endless spree of murder and terrorism in the name of personal vengeance and protecting society. I love Bolan's high energy and focus on his mission; it reminds me of another favorite fictional character, the super tough armed robber Parker, who is just as obsessive about his own personal war to enrich himself and take revenge upon anyone who crosses him.

Another attractive thing about the early Executioners is the beautiful cover art of Gil Cohen. Here the cover scene is one of the most exciting moments of Kill-Zone, as Mack is skiing away from a squad of snowmobile Bolan-hunters, weapons strapped to his parka, one pursuer being obliterated while another grenade is about to be hurled at the others, the beautiful Giselda by his side. You don't see covers like that any more, in these days of dull, generic, lifeless, photographic cover art that looks like it has been generated by an algorithm.

There is just something addictive and wildly entertaining about these books. Partly I think it's the 1970s setting, when there was a kind of freedom, adventure, creativity and cynicism in paperback fiction that you don't really see today. But more so I think it's the compelling character of Mack Bolan and the genius of Pendleton's world-building and story-telling. The upshot for me is that I will probably have to collect and read the entire run of 38 Pendleton books (and probably many more), just as I have done with other favorite series such as Parker and Quiller. Stay tuned for more reviews of this all-time classic men's adventure series.

Get a copy of Colorado Kill-Zone here.

The Shadow in the Sea

Like the the previous book I reviewed, The Shadow in the Sea is an obscure Cold War spy thriller from the early 1970s about a Soviet super-weapon and a daring mission to infiltrate Soviet territory to investigate and sabotage it. Written by the forgotten Welsh author Owen John and published in 1972, this is the fifth novel in John's series about Scottish super-spy Haggai Godin. No suave James Bond knock-off or grim Quiller-like killer, Godin is a giant oddball of a man who eats to excess, loves brandy, laughs often and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything related to his profession. The son of a Russian émigré, he speaks Russian like a native and is a master of disguise and social manipulation.

The first thing that grabbed me about this book is the cover. The beautiful illustration, of a man dangling from a rope just below the edge of a cliff, a grappling hook barely holding him, rifle strapped across his back, with a huge, menacing submarine lurking in the sea far below, is the kind of classic men's adventure cover art that Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks were famous for. If you like this kind of artwork, browse all the Gold Medal covers by clicking the book numbers on the left side of this page.

As Shadow opens, a lighthouse operator reports seeing a huge black submarine briefly surface off the coast of Wales. Based on the unusual description and the fact that British Intelligence thought they had accounted for the whereabouts of the entire Soviet fleet, this leads to concern that the Soviets have a new sub prowling around U.K. waters of an unknown design. To solve the mystery, the agency's top operative, the ultra-confident and -competent Haggai Godin, volunteers to undertake an infiltration mission into northwest Russia to investigate a submarine base and find out what's going on. Accompanying Godin as usual will be super-spook Colonel Mason of the CIA.

The dynamic duo infiltrates Soviet waters by fishing trawler from Norway, Mason hiding the boat in fjords to avoid Soviet patrols while Godin goes ashore alone to reconnoiter the base. Godin's first challenge is to climb the four hundred foot cliff (!) up from the sea pictured on the cover, which he does by firing a grappling hook attached to very long rope over the cliff edge, then climbing without any special gear—just sheer strength and willpower. It's an exciting scene, but one which let me know early on that this wouldn't be a highly realistic espionage adventure.

Godin dons the winter uniform of a Soviet soldier and proceeds east toward Murmansk by bus, using his genius for disguise and socializing to gain information and blend in with the locals. So bold and confident is Godin that he prefers to draw attention to himself, using his mastery of "yo-nin" overt infiltration to walk right into the base, rather than "in-nin" covert creeping around in the shadows. Without providing any spoilers, let's just say that the way Godin infiltrates the base and gets information about the top secret sub is rather far-fetched, but entertaining. He does manage to discover the nature of the sub and the insidious mission it is embarked on.

The most tense and exciting part of the novel was Godin's escape from the naval base and exfiltration from Soviet territory. Walking many miles cross-country in the bitter cold of a Siberian winter, evading security forces, attacking them only when necessary, using deception to get assistance from local villagers—I like how Godin applies the "make war by way of deception" motto of real spooks and ninjas, rather than taking on large armed forces single-handedly and defeating them without taking a scratch in the manner of Mack Bolan and other over-the-top shadow warriors. While Godin's methods weren't always totally believable, and he was a bit too confident and competent for real life, they didn't quite turn the book into a cartoon for adults like some men's adventure/espionage series.

Meanwhile back in the UK/USA, spooks are working overtime to decode intercepted signals to and from the sub, and a desperate strategem is devised to attempt to avert the dastardly intentions of the vessel. I won't say any more, except that, like The Tashkent Crisis, the climax was a bit of a letdown compared to the infiltration and exfiltration scenes, and the super-weapon seemed a bit science-fictional and far-fetched for 1972.

All in all, this was an entertaining but not stellar read. I may try more Haggai Godin novels if I run across them, but I probably won't go out of my way to acquire them. Recommended for fans of old-school spy/adventure fiction.

Get a copy of The Shadow in the Sea here.

The Tashkent Crisis

The Tashkent Crisis, published in 1971 and written by William Craig, is an obscure Cold War thriller that brings to mind classic Alistair MacLean adventures of the 1960s and Tom Clancy "techno-thrillers" of the 1980s. Based on a few positive online reviews and a cover blurb by Donald Hamilton, I picked up the hardback for six bucks and gave it a quick read.

As the novel opens, an American scholar on his way to the Moscow airport is approached by a Russian journalist, given a package and implored to deliver it to an old friend in the State Department. The American doesn't know it, but the package contains technical documents describing a devastating new Soviet weapon system, the existence of which Washington only dimly suspects. Apparently the Soviets have successfully tested an energy weapon that will enable them to incinerate any city on the planet at will. To make matters worse, a hardline general has covertly seized power in Moscow and is preparing to force America's surrender by demonstrating the awesome power of the new death ray. He soon issues an ultimatum to the President: surrender to Soviet forces in 72 hours, or Washington D. C. will be annihilated.

Desperate for an alternative to surrender or mutual nuclear destruction, the President authorizes a seemingly suicidal sabotage mission into the heart of Soviet Asia to destroy the secret weapon before it destroys them. A four-person team is quickly assembled, consisting of a bad-ass Russian-speaking Green Beret of Czech heritage, a KGB defector who had plastic surgery and is now working for the CIA, an ex-Soviet tank commander with experience running cells behind the iron curtain, and a five foot tall Jewish female assassin who grew up near Tashkent.

The sabotage mission was the heart of the story, and the most exciting part by far. The quick assembling of the team; the stealth, low-altitude insertion by helicopter from Pakistan over the Hindu Kush mountains into Uzbekistan; the tense jeep ride across the steppe, dressed as Soviet soldiers, to the vicinity of the secret base; the hideout at the ruined mosque; the intrigue as a traitor in their midst is revealed; the scouting of the secret base; the desperate attempt to complete the sabotage mission despite heavy security—while it's highly implausible that such a mission would be attempted on such short notice with such a team, it made for a gripping tale.

Meanwhile in D.C., the president masterminds a grand deception that involves setting off natural gas explosions throughout D.C. to provide cover for his emergency evacuation of the city, while Soviet provocateurs manage to convince anti-war protestors that the president is on the verge of launching an all-out nuclear attack on Russia. The ultra-hawk Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is pushing for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Tashkent base, there is still no word from the sabotage team, and the President, under intense pressure from all sides, holds the fate of America and the world in his hands.

It was fascinating to read how many of the American political divisions described in this book are still going strong after more than 50 years, as well as the international tensions. While this is definitely a snapshot of America in the early 1970s, with an unpopular war winding down, war-hawks rattling sabers and anxious to prove that the military can still win, paranoia about mutually-assured mass destruction, governments deceiving their populations and protestors being manipulated by shadowy powers, in many ways it is still very relevant to our time.

This was a good read, but I think it would've been even better as a more streamlined men's adventure novel focused on the sabotage mission, with less of the political intrigues, drama with the protestors, government cover-ups, etc. Also, the Soviet death ray and the weapon the saboteurs brought to destroy it both seemed rather unrealistic and science-fictional, and took me out of the story a bit.

Apparently Craig only wrote one more novel, which is surprising because this was an entertaining debut effort that, despite some far-fetched elements, had all the ingredients of a successful espionage thriller. Recommended for fans of the genre.

Get a copy of The Tashkent Crisis here.

Russian Roulette

Russian Roulette, authored by James Mitchell and published in 1973, is the second in a series of novels about British government assassin-spy David Callan. Callan works for The Section—a shadowy agency of the UK government responsible for eliminating threats to the nation. He's a working-class answer to James Bond: cynical, streetwise and antagonistic to his upper class bosses. Unglamorous, not a ladies man, he takes his drinks straight without any "shaken, not stirred" nonsense, lives in a modest flat in London with his prized collection of war game miniatures, keeps a passport, gun and cash in a box under a floorboard, and never trusts anyone—least of all his bosses. He's also a master of his trade: lethal with firearms, deadly with karate-trained hands, skilled at lockpicking and adept at disguise. An orphan whose parents died in the London Blitz, veteran of the Malay Uprising guerrilla war, ex-thief, Callan has the kind of backstory that makes him almost ideally suited for the job of gray man government killer.

As the story opens, Callan's ruthless boss, Hunter, informs Callan that he has made a deal with the Russians that will get his most prized agent in that country, who has been captured, returned to the UK. In exchange, he will give them Callan. But to avoid a demoralizing scandal, he won't be apprehending his top operative and handing him over to the Soviets. He'll just be cutting him loose, giving him no support, taking his gun, freezing his bank accounts, and making it almost certain that he'll be taken out by enemy agents in short order. He further informs Callan that three of the KGB's top assassins have been sent to London to do the job, and wishes him good luck. To make Callan's plight even more dire, he suffered an eye injury on his previous mission that causes double vision, and needs special eye drops administered regularly to keep from going semi-blind.

Callan soon learns just how bad his predicament is, as he returns to his flat, pulls up the concealed floorboard and finds his gun, passport and cash gone. He obviously can't stay at his flat, and with no weapons, only a few pounds in his pocket and some spare clothes, he has to face the KGB killers alone, unarmed, homeless and nearly broke. It's a fantastic setup for a cat-and-mouse, assassin vs. assassin thriller that will test Callan's skill, resilience and resourcefulness to their absolute limits.

The loner Callan does have one ally in this awful predicament: an old friend, lovable loser and petty thief called "Lonely". Lonely is absolutely terrified of, yet loyal, to Callan; he provides hideouts, money and contacts in the underworld that prove very useful. He also tries to get Callan a gun, which in firearm-phobic England in those days was apparently very difficult indeed. Unfortunately, the Section has put out word to gun dealers that they are absolutely not to do business with Callan or Lonely, so he has to find some other way to arm himself.

What follows is a fascinating man-on-the run narrative, as Callan moves around London discreetly, trying to obtain a gun, looking out for tails, utilizing disguise, wary of both the KGB men and his own agency—all punctuated by brutal violence as he encounters the assassins or the bodies of those who crossed them. Callan also makes one other contact: a beautiful nurse from Barbados who administers his eyedrops and becomes his romantic interest. There's plenty of action, tradecraft, suspense, twists and personal dramas as Callan navigates the dark underbelly of London and has to kill or be killed.

This was a great read. I absolutely loved this character Callan; he's like a cross between the working class smart-aleck Harry Palmer of Len Deighton's famous novels and the ultra-competent and lethal Quiller of Adam Hall's brilliant series. If you took Quiller and gave him more backstory and personality, along with a firearm, you'd basically get Callan. I also liked the setting: the swinging sixties are over, and it's now the grim world of economically depressed and demoralized 1970s England—a world tailor-made for the cynical tough guy Callan. I will definitely be tracking down the other books in this series, and maybe even watching some episodes of the popular TV show where it all began. Highly recommended.

Get a copy of Russian Roulette here.

The Great Train Hijack

I had little information to go on when I picked up The Great Train Hijack (originally titled The Gravy Train), published in 1971 by Whit Masterson. All I knew was that it featured a prison break, a train hijacking and a heist, and that sounded good enough for me to give it a read.

The novel's antagonist is Anthony Heaston, the brilliant ex-leader of a Special Forces unit called "Heaston's Hellions" that raised a lot of hell in the early days of the Vietnam War. Once a promising young colonel, Heaston was blamed for the murder of a South Vietnamese leader and relegated to a Pentagon basement, his career ruined. Bitter at the president and the military establishment for not backing him up, Heaston resigned and turned to outlaw mercenary work around the globe. But eventually he was captured leading revolutionaries in Columbia and sentenced to prison for life.

As the novel opens, Heaston pulls off a clever escape from the Columbian prison using a bold deception and outside help from some of his men. Soon he's back in the USA, and ex-president and Heaston nemesis Carson wants to know where he is and what he's up to. Carson puts Jake Duffy, a brilliant young agent for the FBI's Special Assignment Division on the job. Duffy is a hip, long-haired, rebellious new type of G-man--very much like an FBI version of CIA man Ronald Malcolm from Six Days of the Condor.

Duffy tracks Heaston to a ranch in southern California, where he and some of his old Hellions are training to hijack a train using an old coal-powered model that was previously part of a Western movie production. Duffy, ever the bold and creative agent, gets himself into the ranch using a cover as a representative of a movie production company interested in making a film on the property. He meets Heaston, with whom he has a surprising rapport, as well as his brutal henchman Branko, with whom he shares a girlfriend. He also uncovers the group's connections to a shadowy billionaire who is apparently funding them, and learns about a priceless art collection being shipped across the country. He also meets a beautiful but rather icy art museum director and Women's Libber named Leslie, and they strike up a hip early '70s relationship. Meanwhile Heaston and his men get wise to Duffy's deception and make moves of their own to deceive him.

Following some clever investigative work where Duffy oversteps his authority to learn more about the heisters' plans and some minor romance between Duffy and two of the female characters, the novel rolls to its climax aboard trains in the desert Southwest. There's a surprise twist toward the end as Duffy realizes what Heaston's crew are really after, and his entire operation to entrap them falls apart. Duffy, acting independently of the Bureau, decides to make a desperate last-minute gambit to try to resolve the situation that could cost him his career and his life.

I was expecting a story centered on Heaston and his heist crew, like a Parker or Drake novel, but as it turns out it's more of a detective story about Duffy's efforts to figure out what Heaston's crew is up to and stop them. This isn't necessarily bad, it's just not the type of novel I prefer, being inclined toward the point of view of the shadow operators more than the lawmen. I would have liked this novel a lot if "Mad Anthony" Heaston had been the focus of the narrative rather than Duffy, because for me he was a much more compelling character. My other criticism is that there wasn't a lot of action or intensity. Duffy carries out his investigation a little too flippantly; there's never a sense of real physical danger, and the violent crew does little actual violence. While this is a well-told tale with an intriguing plot, Masterson doesn't have the Jack Higgins flair for suspense and action that could have turned this detective story into a real thriller. If you like trains, heists and crime procedurals you'll probably enjoy it, but otherwise it's not that exceptional and I can see why this novel is now obscure.

Get a copy of The Great Train Hijack here.

The Domino Principle

The Domino Principle, published in 1975 by Adam Kennedy, is another semi-forgotten classic from the golden age of paranoid thrillers. Like The Parallax View, Six Days of the Condor, The Killer Elite, Telefon, and Flashpoint, it was made into Hollywood movie—this one starring Gene Hackman, which I haven't seen but am told wasn't particularly good. Like Parallax and Pay Any Price, Domino imagines a world where shadowy agencies recruit patsies from among the general population to carry out assassinations, while keeping them in the dark about the nature of their work.

As the novel opens, Roy Tucker, the underprivileged son of generations of manual laborers, is in the early stages of a twenty year murder rap. He has stopped writing his devoted wife and resigned himself to spending his best years behind bars. Things look hopeless when one day a well-dressed, high-powered man named Tagge shows up at the prison and offers to get Roy released and re-unite him with his wife. All Roy has to do in return is whatever Tagge tells him to once he's on the outside. Tagge just has a few questions for Roy, re: his murder rap (Roy was framed by a jealous employer), his contacts on the outside (a lawyer and a doctor), the status of his family (all deceased except a sister) and his wife Thelma (no longer in contact), and his military service in Vietnam (excellent discipline record, combat record and skill as a marksman). Otherwise, Roy is kept in the dark about what Tagge expects from him. Desperate to get out of prison and figuring he has nothing to lose, Roy accepts blindly.

Roy is let out of the prison as planned, but a violent twist soon lets him know that Tagge's crew are utterly ruthless and not to be crossed. Holed up in Chicago, Roy is given cash, new clothes and a new identity. Though he's a fugitive, there's no sign that the authorities are on his trail. His lawyer and doctor want nothing to do with him and can't help him, and his wife is out of reach. Roy may be out of prison, but he's totally alone and at Tagge's mercy.

Roy is soon jetted off to a luxurious Central American villa for some post-prison R&R with Thelma. He's briefly tested to make sure his shooting skills are up to snuff, then his actual mission starts to come into focus. Not too keen on his assignment and realizing that he has traded one prison sentence for another, Roy attempts to escape the clutches of Tagge's men. I don't want to reveal too much about the story, so I'll keep this review short. Let's just say that it races to a dark and dramatic climax in the best noir tradition.

This is not the typical men's adventure or spy story featuring a superman protagonist who saves the world and gets the girl. This is all about one poor man's struggles against the forces of control—against poverty, the military, his employer, the law, the prison system, and finally Tagge's shadowy group. The latter are seemingly all-powerful: they control prison personnel, military men, policemen, hotel employees, airlines, customs agents and phone lines almost at will. And every attempt by Roy to escape their control only reveals more of their power. Who exactly this group is is not clear; from Roy's everyman perspective they are simply the Man, and can do whatever they want.

Domino is fast, lean and well-written; it reminded me of a Dan Marlowe novel with its noir atmosphere, fast pace and immersive action. Kennedy puts you right in the shoes of Roy Tucker—a simple guy who never quite knows what's going on but who, like Earl Drake, knows when to trust his gut and how to survive. This is an excellent novel that deserves to be read by all connoisseurs of assassin, noir and conspiracy thrillers. Apparently there is also a sequel called The Domino Vendetta published in the 1984, which I will definitely track down and review at my earliest convenience

Get a copy of The Domino Principle here.

Circus

Alistair  MacLean is one of the greats of old-school adventure fiction and one of the best-selling authors of all time. Though most of his novels involve shadow operations of some kind, I've found them a bit less compelling than those of his fellow great, Jack Higgins, and haven't read too many. I recently picked up MacLean's 1975 novel, Circus, which combines a "mission impossible"-style op with Cold War espionage, and gave it a quick read.

The story's protagonist is Bruno Wildermann, a superstar trapeze performer, tightrope walker and mentalist. Bruno is an immigrant to America from an undisclosed eastern European communist country where members of his family were killed by the regime. Not only can he perform seemingly superhuman feats of balance and agility on the high-wire, but he has a photographic memory. This makes him the perfect candidate for a daring CIA operation: to penetrate a top-secret laboratory in Bruno's homeland where a scientist is developing a devastating anti-matter weapon, take "mental photographs" of the technical documents contained therein and then destroy them.

The first part of the novel sets up the operation, as we're introduced to Bruno, some of his talented circus mates--including the strongman Kan Dahn, the knife-thrower Manuelo and the lasso-master Roebuck--and his CIA handlers, which includes the beautiful Maria, whose role is apparently to look pretty, admire Bruno and occasionally get hysterical. A couple of murders early on let us know that treacherous parties have infiltrated the circus and are on the scent of the CIA plot.

Things start to get interesting around 100 pages in, as Bruno is finally let in on the details of the mission he is being asked to undertake. He's to infiltrate the Lubylan laboratory and prison facility where the scientist works and lives. There's a power line stretching from a power station 300 yards away to the top of the Lubylan building, which Bruno is to walk across without getting fried by the 2000 volts of electricity. If he manages that, he then needs to get into the building without getting shot by guards or eaten by killer Doberman Pinscher guard dogs. His challenge is nicely illustrated in a two-page schematic at the beginning of the book:

As the circus sails across the Atlantic and rolls toward the target country the intrigue ramps up: spies are killed, sleeping compartments are bugged, shady characters are seen tailing Bruno and his mates, and a nasty secret police chief named Colonel Sergius learns of Bruno's scheme and schemes to take him down. Meanwhile, Maria's cover as Bruno's love interest begins to get all too real--a corny romantic sub-plot that I could have done without.

Finally they get to the destination, where Bruno, who has more skills than you would expect of a trapeze artist, pulls off an absurd deception to fool Sergius and throw him off his trail. Then Bruno and his three circus mates undertake the audacious heist, each using his particular skills to climb, walk, rope, knife and muscle their way into the building. This was definitely the novel's highlight, though the realism was a bit lacking; Bruno and his crew subdue the guards and get inside too easily to make it a really tense scene.

But all of this is just a setup for what MacLean really excels at: not Shadow Op believability, but plot twists, treachery and shock endings. Without spoiling it for you, let's just say that there are traitors close to Bruno, surprise guests in the Lubylan building, and Bruno's operation and he himself are not as they appear to be. It's all a bit too much, like a murder mystery where you're not entirely clued in and everything ends too tidily to be believable. My other criticism is that MacLean doesn't bother giving his characters different voices and personalities; they all speak like cynical Oxford-educated Englishmen, including the Eastern European immigrant Bruno and the American CIA men.

It's too bad, because MacLean had a clever "Mission Impossible" story idea here, the execution was just a bit lacking. This is probably why I haven't read many of his novels and prefer Jack Higgins, though I understand that MacLean's best work came years earlier. It wasn't a bad novel, just very old-school and not as good as it could have been. Get a copy of Circus here.

100 Megaton Kill

After the rather subdued, cerebral novel of my previous review, I was in the mood for some good old pulpy spy-adventure fiction, and I found just the ticket on my bookshelf: 100 Megaton Kill, by Ralph Hayes. Published in 1975, it's the first in a series of six novels about "Check Force": an unlikely pair of spies who team up to take down a sinister global cabal.

That this was not going to be a highly realistic novel of shadow warfare was made clear at the outset, when a bad guy, having nearly killed a secretary who surprised him while he was burgling some documents after-hours, decides that the expedient thing to do is to feed her body into a paper shredder. It's apparently a very heavy-duty paper shredder, though he acts surprised when there's a lot of blood and he has a little trouble with the job. And when he's confronted a few minutes later by a co-worker, instead of killing him so there's no witnesses, he plays it cool and claims he just saw two strangers leave the office, then proceeds to throw paper shreds over the human hamburger, wipe off his fingerprints and pretend like nothing happened. This is the kind of zany stuff that makes men's adventure fiction from that era so much fun!

The spared witness turns out to be Alexander Chane, an ace agent and crack shooter who was already thinking about leaving the Agency due to its corrupt and war-mongering ways. When Chane's boss tries to frame Chane for the gruesome office killing, and Chane learns that the boss is connected to a mysterious conspiracy called "Force III" that involves Russian missile bases, Chane goes on the run from the Agency until he can sort everything out. Meanwhile, a top Russian agent named Vladimir Karlov has defected from the KGB for similar reasons as Chane and is hiding out in the British embassy in Paris.

The globe-trotting action is fast and furious from here on out. Karlov is attacked in Paris, Chane in New York, and both flee to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to hide out. Realizing that they have no allies and a common enemy in Force III, the two join forces to defeat the cabal. More assassins show up, more information about the conspiracy is uncovered, and Chane even finds time for meaningless sex with two horny hotties, because it's 1975 and it's a men's adventure novel, so why the hell not? The action then shifts to Russia, where the dynamic duo have to infiltrate a missile base to stop a Force III agent from launching a devastating thermonuclear ICBM attack on New York City. This was easily the highlight of the book; the way Karlov infiltrates the base and the dramatic scene at the missile silo was tense, exciting and almost believable.

We also go inside a few meetings of Force III, who, like any self-respecting evil cabal, have a massive secret complex from which they're plotting world domination. Their base is underground in the Argentinian outback, where they're working to unleash nuclear terror on the USA and trigger World War III. Their leader is a nasty Nazi-like character named General Streicher, whose junta has recently taken over Argentina. The Brazilian President, the Chilean Defense minister, a Greek shipping magnate and a very rich Arab are also involved. While this all sounds very cartoonish, it may have been inspired by a real conspiracy called Operation Condor that was going on in South America at the time. The novel's climax takes place at this complex, and the ending strongly suggests that Force III is not defeated, but like SPECTRE will return to haunt the world and our protagonists again soon.

100 Megaton Kill reminds me of a Robert Ludlum story stripped down to its essentials and told in 200 pages instead of 600. In particular, it brings to mind Ludlum's 1979 novel The Matarese Circle, with its idea of an American and a Russian intelligence officer teaming up against a third global force that is sabotaging both sides and trying to provoke world war; it also has (pre-)echoes of The Bourne Identity and The Aquitaine Progression. While I rather doubt that Ludlum read this novel, for me it shows that he was really just a puffed-up pulp/men's adventure novelist who somehow became a mega best-seller.

Anyway, this was a fun, quick read. It's not going to win any literary awards, but if you like Nick Carter/Mack Bolan style men's adventures and aren't overly concerned with realism, there's no reason why you shouldn't enjoy this one. It's also apparently a collectible, judging by the price in excess of $50 on the used market (I lucked out and got it as part of a large lot at a buck a book). And note the cover, a masterpiece of 1970s men's adventure pulp--I'll be damned if the villain isn't a dead ringer for Laurence Olivier/Szell from Marathon Man.

Get a copy of 100 Megaton Kill here.

XYY Man

Combine cat burglary and espionage and you get the "black bag op"--anything from a "mission impossible"- or ninja-style building infiltration to a Watergate Hotel B & E job. Any story that incorporates black bag ops in a believable way is going on my to-read list.

The XYY Man, published in 1970 by Kenneth Royce, is such a story. It's the first of a series of eight novels about William "Spider" Scott, a skilled "creeper" (cat burglar) and occasional British government operative. The novel was adapted as a 3-part British TV series pilot in 1976 and returned for 10 more episodes in 1977.

The story starts slowly as we're introduced to the protagonist, a second-story man who has just been released from his third stay in prison and is determined to go straight. We also meet his devoted girlfriend Maggie and his square cop brother Dick, whose influence is the only thing keeping Spider from going back to his old life of crime. Meanwhile, a nasty copper named Bulman with a personal grudge is harassing Spider, accusing him of another burglary and preventing his brother from advancing in the force.

Things look bleak for Spider when a man named Fairfax approaches him out of the blue and makes him an offer he can't refuse: Bulman will be called off, Dick will be given a promotion, and Spider will receive 15000 pounds to set himself up with a legitimate business and a new life with Maggie. All Spider has to do is steal some documents from a safe in the Chinese Legation in London—which turns out to be the most secure, unfriendly building Spider has ever seen. And if he's caught, his sponsors will deny all involvement and Spider will have to face the music like a common criminal.

Spider initially refuses, considering it a mission impossible and not wanting to spend his best remaining years in a tough prison, or six feet under if the Chinese get him. But after casing the building carefully, the sheer challenge of it gets his juices flowing and he decides to give it a go. It's the same old story we see time and time again with Shadow-oppers: the safe, square, daytime life just can't compete with the buzz of breaking the law, living on the edge and operating in the shadows.

The story kicks into gear as Spider goes ahead with the op, breaking into the Legation building from an adjoining rooftop, creeping past alarms and into the safe room. But things go sideways when he discovers the shocking information the documents contain, and the next thing we know Spider is a fugitive—from British intelligence, the police, the Chinese, Maggie, Dick and soon, the CIA and the KGB. Spider has to evade them all and figure out what to do when you have nowhere to go and you're the most wanted man in London, if not the world. In other words, it's a Shadow operator's worst nightmare, but a shadow-fiction reader's dream scenario.

I liked the first-person, real-time perspective this novel gives you of the creeper Scott as he tries to complete his mission, evade his pursuers and extricate himself from an epic international clusterf*k on the streets of London. We get an up-close look at some of the tricks of his trade, the quick wits required and the intensity of being a most-wanted fugitive on the run. There were some twists at the end that I found a little confusing and the story wrapped up a bit too quickly, but otherwise it was a gripping story.

My only other criticism is that the writing was a bit awkward and difficult to follow at times, particularly for an American reading in 2021. It reminded me of an early Jack Higgins novel, with its unpolished style and street-level view of British Shadow operatives of a bygone era. But the plot was compelling, the action exciting but never over the top, and the main character Spider the kind of protagonist the shadow-fiction fan has to root for. I enjoyed The XXY Man and will be reviewing other installments of the Spider Scott series in the near future. Recommended for fans of old-school crime, spy and adventure fiction.

Flashpoint

Flashpoint is yet another obscure thriller from the 1970s remembered only because it was made into a film--a 1984 adaptation starring Kris Kristoffersen which, I vaguely recall, was quite good.

This novel is intriguing in the way it connects two fronts of the Shadow War that are usually distinct: the Border War and the Assassin War. The protagonists, Logan and Ernie, are two good ol' boy Texas border patrolmen who enjoy nothing better than patrolling the very desolate "section 7" of the U.S.-Mexico border in their jeeps, tracking down illegals across the desert and taking them back to Mexico. They don't do this out of any spite toward the illegals, but simply for the challenge, solitude and outdoor adventure the job affords them. Both men are military veterans with experience operating in dangerous territory--Ernie in Korea and Logan as a Green Beret in 'Nam--and patrolling the Mexican border is a good peacetime test of their skills. Author La Fountaine does a good job of fleshing out their backgrounds and motivating their behavior; while they may be obnoxious "bubbas" at times who like to get drunk and visit Mexican whorehouses in their spare time, they are full of life and love adventure in a way you can't help but respect.

As the story opens, the patrolmen learn that a new high tech border security system is going to be implemented in their region, which would turn these border cowboys into glorified desk jockeys, watching for beeping lights on computer screens instead of riding out under the sun looking for "Indians" to apprehend. This puts them in a depressed and desperate state of mind, but that soon changes when Logan, taking a shortcut through an untravelled desert wash, discovers a crashed jeep buried deep in the sand. Digging it out, he finds a skeleton and a box full of cash--$850,000 in small, sequentially numbered bills. At this point the novel becomes a detective story, as Logan and Ernie try to discover the identity of the driver, the source of the cash, and whether it is safe to spend it without alerting authorities.

Things soon become even more confusing--and deadly--as shadowy forces and corrupt players converge on the patrolmen's turf. People connected to the cash are being killed off, and the patrolmen feel the noose tightening around them. Should they take the money and run for the border, or play it cool and deny everything? Who exactly is looking for the money, and why? Who can they trust? What was a jeep doing loaded with cash in the south Texas desert, who was the mysterious driver, and why is someone willing to kill anyone who knows anything about them? Everything is answered in the final pages, as the narrative gets increasingly dark, violent and desperate and a sinister conspiracy is revealed. While some of the plot developments seemed a little far-fetched, I think the shock ending was appropriate and should come as no surprise to veteran Shadow Warriors. 

Flashpoint is one of those cynical, paranoid, pessimistic stories that could only have been written in the 1970s--a period I love because I think it dealt more realistically with the nature of society and humanity than what came before or after. It was a unique era, in the wake of the 1960s, when Americans were free to be simultaneously politically incorrect, sexually liberated, and very cynical of the powers that be. Logan expresses the spirit of the times well when, after Ernie denies that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy, responds:

"Ernie," Logan cried in anger, "how can you say that after all the shit that's come out about Watergate and the CIA and the FBI and the assassination plots over the world? How can you still say that?"

Everything that happens subsequently in the story only vindicates Logan's cynicism. If you enjoy novels like Six Days of the Condor and films like Parallax View, where ordinary people are caught up in the machinations of sinister forces that go right to the top of the power structure--which is revealed to be hopelessly corrupt--you should add Flashpoint to your reading list. This book is a good reminder that the Shadow War is not just a war on the ground between spies, criminals and covert operators, but a war of the mind against the vast apparatus of lies and illusions that daytime society runs on.

While I wouldn't call La Fountaine a great writer, and some of the plot twists were a little implausible, overall he's spun a very compelling tale here that kept me turning the pages until the end. If you like good old adventure thrillers with a heavy dose of 1970s paranoia and political intrigue, you should enjoy this as much as I did.

Get a copy of Flashpoint here.

Telefon

Continuing with novels in my current favorite genre--espionage and assassin fiction from the paranoid 1970s--today my selection is Telefon, published in 1975 by Walter Wager. Like The Killer Elite, this book would probably be forgotten today had it not been made into a Hollywood movie two years later, starring Charles Bronson.

I was intrigued by the novel's premise, that dozens of Soviet sleeper agents embedded in American society at the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s were still active in the mid 1970s, and could be activated by a simple telephone call. Wager gives this an additional Manchurian Candidate twist by making the agents unaware of their own status and mission. Through deep hypnosis and drugs, the sleepers have been programmed to forget that they are Russian agents, and given specific sabotage missions that they will perform robotically when they receive telephoned code phrases. The missions are designed to destroy key military-industrial facilities so as to spread chaos in the United States in the event of total war.

The plot hook is that a maniacal Stalinist traitor within the KGB has gone rogue, made off with a book containing the sleeper agents' phone numbers and activation codes, and is systematically activating them in an attempt to provoke World War III. The novel's protagonist is a KGB super-spy named Tabbat, who has been sent to the States to stop the maniac before he brings nuclear retaliation upon mother Russia. Tabbat is like a Russian James Bond but better: smooth with the ladies, deadly with handguns, tactically brilliant and possessed of a photographic memory. He's also hip to American culture, loves Frank Sinatra and exchanges witty banter and plenty of sex with his beautiful female KGB assistant "Barbi". 

The novel is basically a manhunt story, as Tabbat and Barbi race across America trying to catch the maniac before he destroys more targets, without arousing the suspicion of American authorities or getting taken out by hostile Russian agents. There's a twist or two along the way and some amusing cultural commentary on 1970s America that keep things interesting.

Overall, this was a competent and a stylish Cold War thriller, reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth and Trevanian. Though the plot was somewhat far-fetched and it read more like a screenplay than a novel at times, I found it a fast and entertaining read.

Get a copy of Telefon here.

Wilderness

After reading many novels about professional assassins targeting civilians, it was fun to read a thriller where the tables are turned: amateurs target a professional killer for death. That's the plot of Wilderness, published in 1979 by mystery writer Robert B. Parker (creator of the Spenser: For Hire series).

The book hooks the reader from the first page, as protagonist Aaron Newman witnesses an execution-style murder of a woman while out jogging on the railroad tracks. He notifies the police, and learns to his horror that the killer is a well-known gangster and murderous psychopath named Adolph Karl. Karl soon lets Newman know in the strongest possible terms that he shouldn't testify about the murder, by having his thugs tie up his wife, sexually abuse her and threaten further retaliation. Newman decides that rather cowering in fear or allowing a killer to walk free, his only honorable option is to go on the offensive and kill Karl himself. He recruits his neighbor, a big, tough Korean War vet named Chris, and they start stalking Karl and his gang. 

It was funny reading how these amateurs plan and execute their hit. Some of Newman's tactics were ridiculous, like posing as a deaf beggar and walking right into Karl's office to reconnoiter his defenses. Since Karl had immediately fingered Newman as the rat despite the police report being confidential, why would Newman not assume that Karl knew what he looked like? Also, targeting his entire gang seems a little ambitious for amateurs; wouldn't they at least consider going into a witness protection program?

This is really a story about the relationship between the emotionally needy Newman and his rather cold and domineering wife, and how Newman feels the need to prove his manhood by standing up to Karl. I didn't like either character that much, but Parker paints a believable picture of their personal drama and dysfunction. The only likeable characters were a sexually charged hitman and wife sent to take out Newman; they would have been right at home in a Quentin Tarantino film.

The novel really gets exciting about halfway through, when Newman, his wife and Chris decide to hunt down Karl and his gang while they're on a hunting trip to a lake in the Maine wilderness. It becomes a tense tale of wilderness survival, manhunting and sudden death that was gripping all the way to the end.

Overall, I enjoyed Wilderness; it was a fast-moving, fairly believable tale of how ordinary people might become ruthless killers if put in a horrific enough situation. And that's why I enjoy shadow-fiction so much: because it lets us imagine how we might be if we ever fully embraced our shadow selves.

Get a copy of Wilderness here.

The Killer Elite

The Killer Elite by Robert Rostand is best known for being made into a 1975 film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall -- a decent movie that was very different from the novel (though it did feature one of the first appearances of ninjas in American media!).

This is another story from those cynical, paranoid 1970s, when, in the wake of the high-profile assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, failed revolutions and revelations about the CIA's nasty antics around the world, every thriller seemed to involve shadowy government or corporate entities scheming to overthrow regimes, assassinate leaders and deceive humanity (sound familiar?). The works of Robert Ludlum, James Grady's Six Days of the Condor, and the film Parallax View are good examples of the genre; The Killer Elite adds an assassination storyline reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's classic The Day of the Jackal.

The novel's protagonist, Mike Locken, is an operative for SYOPS--a secret American agency tasked with transporting and securing Soviet defectors and other VIPs who may be targets of enemy action. As the story begins, three international assassins have been identified entering England following an anonymous tip-off. Their target is a popular African leader named Nyoko living in exile in London, whom his homeland's strongman leader wants to eliminate to defeat a popular uprising. 

The premise of the novel is an intriguing one: what if a government used a "killer elite" of assassins to take care of problems instead of military forces? It was inspired by an actual proposal made by a member of the British House of commons, as related in the novel to Locken's boss:

Tell me, Collis, have you ever heard of John Lee? ... Member of Parliament here a few years back. Absolute terror on military spending. Made a brilliant speech in the Commons in sixty-nine with a radical proposal on how to cut the size of the British Army. Lee's idea was to turn it into a small elite of political assassins. ... His logic was that a small power like Britain couldn't hope to compete militarily with the superpowers. Lee thought in this day the political assassin was more fearsome than the Bomb, hence a better tool of diplomacy. His speech made quite a splash in the dailies.

The African strongman has decided to adopt this policy, employing mercenary assassins in place of a standing military to take care of problems like Nyoko. The other major plot element driving the narrative is the fact that Locken was nearly killed during his previous assignment, by an assassin who happens to be one of the three hunting Nyoko. So Locken has an opportunity for revenge, and his new assignment becomes very personal.

After this intriguing setup, the novel becomes a chase story, as Locken has to safely escort Nyoko and his daughter out of Britain while luring the hated assassin out so he can kill him. There are twists and turns as treacheries and deceptions are discovered, and a fairly dramatic final confrontation. But just as the story climaxes, Rostand decides to give us several pages of exposition explaining exactly how the plot twists and machinations led to this point, which I found jarring and not very good story-telling. I also found several of the characters improbable, like the old man Nyoko and his city girl daughter, who suddenly turn into fierce primal warriors in the Welsh bush.

According to his bio, author Robert Rostand (real name Robert Hopkins) spent considerable time working and living abroad, which brings a worldly sophistication to his writing that elevates this novel a notch or two above the typical thriller. But it doesn't reach the heights of other well-travelled authors like Forsyth, Trevanian or Adam Hall. The Killer Elite wasn't a great read, but it was interesting enough that I'll probably try the next installment of the Mike Locken series or other works by Rostand.

Get a copy of The Killer Elite here.

The Murder Business

The Murder Business by Peter C. Herring is an obscure thriller from 1976 with a premise so intriguing that I decided to track down a copy and read it. It's basically a what-if  story: what if James Bond, due to psycho-sexual pathology and a tough childhood, turned to the "dark side" and become an assassin working for a SPECTRE-like cabal headquartered in the USA instead of Her Majesty's Secret Service?

The dark side Bond in question is a handsome, dark-haired professional killer named Michael, who, like Bond, lives in a London flat, jets around the world on dangerous missions for a powerful cabal, is a smooth, stone-cold operative with a way with killing men and loving ladies alike. The cabal in question here is not MI6, but The Board--a circle of ten very powerful men who are said to secretly run the USA, and by extension, the world. The Board was apparently responsible for the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s, as the latter were threatening to expose and reign in their shadowy power. The Board has toned down their assassinations in the 1970s, but are still targeting politicians who threaten them with exposure--often dispatching their best operative, Michael, to do the wetwork.

The novel begins with Michael doing what he does best: sneaking up on a troublesome VIP and efficiently executing him with his trusty knife. Then we get to go inside the Board's meetings as they plot more killings to ensure their continued world domination, followed by Michael doing another job--this one rather kinky, as it involves sex, killing and Michael's rather orgasmic reaction to both. We also get to meet Jenny, Michael's beautiful girlfriend who is the first person in the world that the stone-cold killing machine has ever had feelings for.

The story takes a sudden turn when the Board discovers a plot to destroy them by a rival organization seeking to unseat them as the world's top Illuminati. Michael, with Jenny in tow, takes a vacation to the south of France to get away from the heat but soon finds himself hunted by unknown assassins. Who is trying to kill him and why? What should Michael do about Jenny, now that she knows he is involved in the murder business? The tale gets darker and more violent as more assassins show up, people are killed in gruesome ways, the Board is hit hard and the stress of it all causes a mental breakdown of not only Jenny but the normally Terminator-like Michael.

Despite the promising set-up, I'm afraid Peter Herring is no Ian Fleming. The writing is often clumsy and over-written; there's a lot of irrelevant detail about what Michael ate, the color of the sky, etc., the characters are rather cliched, and the story lacks the flair that made Fleming's Bond a worldwide phenomenon. This reads like a men's adventure novel that is trying to be more literary than it needs to be, or than the author is capable of. Which is too bad, because Michael had the potential to be for the spy genre somewhat like what Parker was for the crime genre: a psychopathic protagonist who shows us what life can be like on the dark side, if you throw off the yoke of governments, laws and morals and become a freelance Shadow operative dedicated purely to the ruthless execution of your craft. But to achieve that status, Herring would have had to be a better writer; he simply doesn't bring the writing chops or technical details that Donald Westlake did to the Parker series. Nevertheless, if you are intrigued by the premise and fascinated by dark side spy, crime and assassin fiction (what I call "shadow-fiction"), you may find The Murder Business worth your time.

The Mandarin Cypher

The Mandarin Cypher is the sixth book in the brilliant "Quiller" series by Elleston Trevor (writing as Adam Hall). Quiller is a "shadow executive" who takes on dangerous missions for a deep black agency within the British government known only as "the Bureau". Quiller is basically a Cold War British ninja: expert martial artist, driver, pilot, scuba diver; adept at secret communications, stealth and spycraft.

In many ways Quiller is the anti-Bond and anti-Helm. Almost monk-like in his pursuit of shadow op perfection, he doesn't gratuitously womanize, drink, or lose his temper; he's always highly technical, introspective and controlled on his assignments. Where James Bond is a stylish playboy, Quiller is an introverted geek; where Matt Helm can be a cowboy and a thug, Quiller is a model of forbearance and professionalism. He's like a spy version of Donald Westlake's "Parker" character: a "grey man" with little personality or personal baggage; all business, totally focused, disciplined and stoic during ops, and absolutely formidable at his chosen profession. The major difference being that Parker is a criminal out entirely for himself, whereas Quiller is a Queen and Bureau man who has to play by other people's rules.

In this installment, Quiller is sent to Hong Kong to investigate the death of a fellow agent in a supposed fishing accident. Quiller quickly finds himself targeted for assassination by a cell of Red Chinese agents and romantically entangled with the beautiful but needy widow of the murdered agent. Quiller learns that things are not as they seem, and something fishy is afoot out in the South China Sea. It's all related to an operation code-named "Mandarin" about which Quiller is being kept in the dark by his controllers in London. After about 125 pages of Hong Kong intrigue that some readers might find a bit tedious, the climactic action sequence begins: Quiller must infiltrate an oil rig in international waters owned by the People's Republic of China and find out what it's up to. This leads to some intense scenes, as Quiller must survive long scuba dives, naval mines, hand-to-hand combat, hostile Chinese forces and bombshell directives from his London controllers. The surprise ending is highly dramatic, if a bit improbable.

As always with this series, the action is tense and realistic, and the stream-of-consciousness calculations of the computer-like Quiller put you right inside the head of the savant-spy. Here's a passage that nicely sums up both the writer's style and Quiller's philosophy of "the edge":

So all you can do is settle for the situation and check every shadow, every sudden movement, and try to make sure there'll be time to duck. And of course ignore the snivelling little organism that's so busy anticipating what it's going to feel like with the top of the spine shot away, why don't you run for cover, trying to make you wonder why the hell you do it, why you have to live like this, you'll never see Moira again if you let them get you , trying to make you give it up when you know bloody well it's all there is in life: to run it so close to the edge that you can see what it's all about.

Having read six or seven Quiller books now, I have to concur with the widely held opinion that it is one of the very best spy fiction series ever written. The Mandarin Cypher is another fine installment in a series that no fan of the genre should miss. Highly recommended for fans of thinking man's spy fiction.

Get a copy of this book here.

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Department 17 Entry (warning – slight spoilers):

Title: The Mandarin Cypher
Author: Elleston Trevor
Writing As: Adam Hall
Publication Year: 1975
Category: fiction
Genres: espionage
Op Types: assassination, infiltration, scuba diving, evasion
Plot Elements: oil rig, missiles, submarine
Governments: Great Britain, China
Locales: London, Hong Kong
Series: Quiller
Series #: 6
Plot Synopsis: Quiller is sent to Hong Kong to investigate the death of a fellow agent and finds himself targeted for assassination by a Red Chinese agents and romantically entangled with the agent's widow. Something fishy is afoot in the South China Sea; Quiller must infiltrate a Chinese oil rig, carry out a seemingly impossible mission and get back alive.
Reviews: https://shadowwarjournal.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-mandarin-cypher.html