Existential Ennui

Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora Spy Novels: Johnny Goes North (Muller, 1956; a.k.a. The Swastika Hunt) and The Head (Muller, 1960)

2012-01-27T04:04:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's breaking news story about spy novelist Helen MacInnes's return to print, it's back to Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora espionage series. And having thoroughly explored the series-closing Feramontov Quintet – and there are some great comments on those posts now, including some fascinating additional info on the last one, so do check those out if you haven't already – I'm heading deeper into Johnny Fedora's past now, with two first editions dating from earlier in his literary career. Let's take a gander at this one first:

A UK hardback first edition of the seventh Johnny Fedora adventure, Johnny Goes North, published by Frederick Muller in 1956. Similar to the five-book Feramontov series-within-a-series, Johnny Goes North is the first in a loosely linked run of Fedora novels, at least titularly; it was followed by Johnny Goes East (1957), Johnny Goes West (1958) and Johnny Goes South (1959). The effect was slightly ruined, however, when three of the four were retitled for paperback publication (either by Award in the States or Four Square in the UK) as The Swastika Hunt (...North), Mountainhead (...East) and Overload (...South).

There's no credit for the dustjacket illustration on the Muller edition of Johnny Goes North... but it looks suspiciously like the work of British illustrator/comics artist Denis McLoughlin to me. Only problem is, I don't know if McLoughlin ever worked for Muller; he's primarily associated with T.V. Boardman, although he did do covers for others publishers besides. Go compare the Johnny Goes North cover to the ones in these Boardman/McLoughlin galleries and see what you think.

(UPDATE 1: Actually, scratch that; I think I can see a signature on the artwork, but I can't quite read it. Doesn't seem to be McLoughlin's, though; bear with me while I do some more digging.)

(UPDATE 2: OK, looks like the signature is "Chambers", but I've not yet been able to work out who that is/was. I'll update when I have.)

As for the story, according to the jacket flap copy that sees Johnny Fedora, freelance operative for British Intelligence, embarking on a Europe-wide chase with his pal Sebastian Trout of the Foreign Office following the death in Venice of an American writer and "the mysterious disappearance of a glamorous Swede". (I've been linking the Desmond Cory Website throughout this run of posts, but the Spy Guys & Gals website also has a pithy summary of this book and the other Fedora adventures, plus a good introductory overview.)

As with others of Cory's Fedora novels, Johnny Goes North is quite hard to come by, either under its original title or as The Swastika Hunt. As you can see, the jacket on my copy, which came from one of those bulk secondhand internet booksellers I usually try to avoid, is a bit battered, and although there is one other, rather nicer copy of the Muller first on AbeBooks at present, it's in Australia (the only other copy is also in Australia, and is ex-library). For any Americans interested in a cheaper alternative, there are currently two Award paperbacks of The Swastika Hunt on AbeBooks... and that's about it for available copies online.

But as uncommon as Johnny Goes North is, it's still not as scarce as the second Cory/Fedora novel I'm showcasing in this post:

A British hardback first edition of The Head, published by Frederick Muller in 1960. The eleventh Fedora novel, this one is incredibly rare: there are, to my knowledge, currently no copies whatsoever of any edition of the book for sale online. My one was a lucky eBay win, from an auction run by the Northampton Bookshop, which, judging by the pictures on its website, looks like it'd be well worth a visit (not that I'm likely to be anywhere near Northampton in the foreseeable future, mind).

Once again the dustjacket is uncredited... but there is a signature at bottom right of the illustration, which I can just make out: Ray Theobald. Theobald is perhaps better known for his science fiction art than for illustrating spy or crime fiction – there's a bibliography of his distinctive SF covers here and a short note on him here – but he did work in other genres, and there's an absolutely corking example of one of his crime covers here.

In the Johnny Fedora series The Head nestles between the North/East/West/South quartet and the Feramontov Quintet, which began with Undertow in 1962 (see the Fedora bibliography on the Desmond Cory Website). But it shares with the five Feramontov novels a common setting: Spain, a country Cory knew very well indeed. That said, it's an unusual entry in the series as a whole: it sees Johnny pitted not against a person (or persons), but a thing – a mountain, to be precise, as Fedora and a group of village locals attempt to move a statue to the mountain's peak.

There's just one final post to come now in this current Cory run, and for that one – which should, all being well, appear over the weekend – we're heading right back to the beginning of the Johnny Fedora series, with a review of a novel that's quite different in tone from the later books, in a rarely seen edition that took me on a (virtual) adventure to the continent of Africa. And therein lies a tale in itself...

BREAKING NEWS! Queen of Spy Writers Helen MacInnes Returns to Print in 2012, Courtesy of Titan Books!

2012-01-26T02:35:00.000-08:00

Interrupting my now-extended series of posts on Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora spy novels, here's a rather exciting announcement for you. Regular readers may recall my having broken the news in December of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm spy novels being brought back into print by Titan Books. Well Existential Ennui is first with the news once again, because I'm pleased to report that Titan will soon be bringing another spy novelist back into print – this time an author who was known in her day as the Queen of Spy Writers (as well as the Queen of Spy Fiction and the slightly more cumbersome Queen of International Espionage Fiction): Helen MacInnes.

One of a select band of female espionage novelists (Sarah Gainham being another), MacInnes's career as a writer began in 1941 with the publication of her debut novel, Above Suspicion, which was turned into a Joan Crawford/Fred MacMurray film in 1943. She had a further twenty novels published over the next forty-plus years (and one play), a number of which were also filmed, including The Venetian Affair (1963, the Robert Vaughan-starring movie of which arrived in 1967) and The Salzburg Connection (1969, filmed in 1972; that's the Collins first edition you can see below). Like Gainham's protagonists, MacInnes's leads were usually amateurs rather than professional spies, and her novels were hailed by critics and fans as credible, plausible espionage thrillers.

And starting this summer, MacInnes's work will once again become widely available, as Titan begins reissuing the author's novels. In a press release, Titan Books' Editorial Director, Katy Wild (who knows her onions when it comes to crime and spy fiction, believe me), explained: "I have loved Helen MacInnes's novels all my life. They are exciting stories, immaculately researched, but with immense integrity and heart. I always felt that she had been unfairly neglected in the revival of interest in the classic spy thriller genre, so I was delighted when I was able to enter into an agreement with her descendants. Our agreement with them will enable us to bring the books back into print and e-book formats and show readers what they've been missing all these years."

Quite so. There'll probably be an official announcement tomorrow (so remember where you read the news first), and as ever I expect there'll be further details down the line, so keep 'em peeled. For now, though, it's back to Desmond Cory and Johnny Fedora here on Existential Ennui, with a couple of quite scarce first editions...

Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora Spy Novels: Feramontov (Feramontov Quintet #3, Frederick Muller, 1966) and Timelock (Feramontov Quintet #4, Muller, 1967)

2012-01-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

I had intended this to be the final post in this current series on British author Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora spy novels... but on reflection, I've decided to extend the run slightly. I'll explain how and why at the end of this post, but first, having reviewed books one and two in what's known as the Feramontov Quintet – the five-book series-with-a-series which finishes off the Fedora thrillers, and which all pit Johnny against Soviet spymaster Feramontov – Undertow (1962) and Hammerhead (1963, alias Shockwave), let's take a look at two further Feramontov novels I've managed to find in first edition.

First up, a British hardback first edition of Feramontov, the third book in the Feramontov Quintet – and the fourteenth Johnny Fedora novel overall – published by Frederick Muller in 1966. The jacket design is credited to Klim Forster, about whom I've been able to determine very little, although he did illustrate the cover to the 1967 Macmillan edition of Jean Stubbs's My Grand Enemy, and a 1972 Daily Telegraph Magazine article titled "The Major and the Macaroni" by journalist and Labour MP Chris Mullin (whose excellent diaries are well worth a read).

I mentioned in my introductory Desmond Cory/Johnny Fedora post that many of Cory's Fedora novels have become decidedly uncommon in first edition (or any edition in some cases), and although the Muller first of Feramontov isn't the scarcest of the Fedoras, it is still in short supply: AbeBooks currently has just three copies listed, one of those lacking a dustjacket. Set once again in Spain, the story sees Feramontov eliminating British agents; on publication in the States the novel was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review alongside Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Octopussy, the latter dismissed as "a thin and even emaciated volume", while Feramontov was hailed as being full of "colorful action, copious carnage, elaborate intrigue, frequent surprises" (see article "The Evolution of Desmond Cory" on the Desmond Cory Website).

Cory was often compared with Fleming, even though Johnny Fedora beat Bond into print by two years (the debut Fedora outing, Secret Ministry, appearing in 1951; Casino Royale wasn't published until 1953), and the second Feramontov Quintet novel I'm showcasing in this post was even more directly contrasted with Fleming's work – and just as favourably:

First published in hardback in the UK by Frederick Muller in 1967, Timelock is the fourth Fermaontov novel (and the fifteenth Fedora outing). The jacket design in this instance is credited to Abis Sida Stribley, a designer who was also a photographer; Stribley's photographs illustrated the original 1965 Woman's Own serialization of Agatha Christie's novel At Bertram's Hotel (I'm assuming the photo on the cover of Timelock is Stribley's, too). Set, like the other Feramontov novels, in Spain, Timelock is notable for the fact that Fedora and Feramontov actually meet this time; previously they'd only set eyes on each other from afar.

I bought this copy in Dim and Distant in Heathfield, East Sussex, but the Muller edition is practically common as muck in comparison with other Cory firsts: AbeBooks currently has a staggering five copies listed (although one of those might be sans jacket). As mentioned above, Timelock was again juxtaposed with Fleming's 007 adventures, this time by writer and critic Anthony Boucher, who wrote in his New York Times Magazine column Criminals at Large: "I must say once more that I find Cory's Johnny Fedora a much more persuasive violent, sexy and lucky agent than James Bond." (Again, see "The Evolution of Desmond Cory" on the Desmond Cory Website.)

I had, as I say, planned to leave it at that for now for the Cory/Fedora posts – I'm still on the hunt for an affordable first of the final Feramontov – and Fedora – novel, 1971's Sunburst – but I do actually have in my possession one or two other, earlier books from the series (I've been a busy little bee, as per usual), one of which is particularly exciting. So rather than save those for a later date, let's carry on with Cory a wee while longer, with another first edition showcase post... and another review.

Before that, though, look out for some breaking news regarding a different spy novelist – a contemporary of Cory's whose novels are all out of print... but not for much longer...

Book Review: Hammerhead / Shockwave (Feramontov Quintet #2) by Desmond Cory (Muller 1963 / Four Square 1966)

2012-01-23T05:57:00.000-08:00

Continuing this run of posts on British thriller writer Desmond Cory's series of spy novels starring secret agent Johnny Fedora (after a brief Len Deighton interlude), next it's the turn of the second book in the Feramontov Quintet – the five novels which close out the Fedora series, which all feature feline Russian spymaster Feramontov – Hammerhead:

Except, as you can see, that's not the title which graces the above book cover. That's because, in common with others of Cory's novels (see the bibliographies on the Desmond Cory Website), Hammerhead was retitled for American publication, in this instance by Walker in the States, who issued the book in hardback as Shockwave in the same year (1963) as the British Frederick Muller hardback edition of Hammerhead. Indeed, the Muller edition was destined to be the book's only appearance as Hammerhead; thereafter, the novel became known as Shockwave even in the UK, where Four Square published a paperback edition under that title in 1966.

All of which is a little tiresome, I'm sure, for those with an, at most, nominal interest in publishing or collecting matters, but it does go some way towards explaining why the cover you can see above is the Four Square paperback of Shockwave – the remainder of the explanation being that I couldn't for the life of me find a readily available British or American hardback first edition (as I mentioned before, many of Cory's books have become uncommon in all editions). No matter, though. This paperback'll do me fine until I find a first – and in truth, I was slightly less taken by Hammerhead/Shockwave than I was by Undertow.

Mind you, Shockwave definitely has its merits. The story sees Johnny Fedora, freelance operative-cum-assassin for British Intelligence, back in Spain (Madrid this time) at the behest of Marisa de Camba – with whom, I believe, Johnny shared an adventure in The Head (1960), the Fedora novel prior to Undertow (1962). Marisa wants Johnny to look into the murky circumstances surrounding the death of a friend of hers, Sofia Domecq, and sends him to an investigative journalist, who explains that Sofia was the mistress of influential industrialist Chaval. It appears that Sofia was in possession of damaging information about Chaval's role in the Civil War, and about Chaval possibly running a drug ring in Madrid. And not only that, but Johnny learns separately from his British handlers that Chaval's company installed the electrics in a number of American "H-bomber" bases – and furthermore, the Brits have reason to believe Feramontov is somehow mixed up in all this.

In an effort to unravel the various strands of the case, Johnny and another friend of Marisa and Sofia's, Carlota, attend one of Chaval's parties, and here we encounter a scene which typifies Desmond Cory's unusual approach to thriller-writing. Johnny is caught snooping round Chaval's house, but rather than concoct a cover story, as, say, James Bond might do, Fedora comes right out and reveals that he's investigating whether or not Chaval murdered Sofia. After a violent struggle, Johnny is ejected from the party; when Carlota subsequently asks how his encounter with Chaval went, Fedora responds (somewhat prophetically), "Like a bomb," before adding after a pause: "...Right off in my face."

It's a neat illustration of Fedora's character. In many ways Johnny is a blunt instrument, prone to tackling a problem head-on – something Chaval experiences again before too long, when Fedora tortures him to get to the truth. Much of this interrogation takes place off-page, but it's no less horrific for that – and neither is a preceding passage, where Johnny uses two kitchen knives to dismember a dead body and then stuffs the pieces into a suitcase, afterwards telling a tied-up Chaval, who's complaining of cramp, "You'd feel even worse inside a suitcase. And you may come to that, even yet." For all Johnny's civilized trappings – his talent on the piano, for example – Cory leaves us under no illusions that Fedora is a cold-blooded killer.

For his part, Feramontov possibly features even less in Shockwave than he did in Undertow. But whereas in Undertow, Feramontov's goal was rather low key – the retrieval of a ship's logbook – in Shockwave his scheme is both breathtaking in scope and apocalyptic in scale, with nothing less than the survival of Madrid at stake. Conversely, however, despite these high stakes, Desmond Cory's narrative is even more relaxed than in Undertow. The languorous interludes which peppered the previous Fedora outing are in evidence here, too, but although these do help to throw the explosions of violence – more extreme than before – into sharp relief, the pacing overall is perhaps a little too lackadaisical this time out, and those who complain of nothing happening in Cory's novels will find ample ammunition in Shockwave.

Even so, I still wouldn't place myself in the "Cory is boring" camp – not by a long chalk. The introspective nature of parts of Shockwave for me make the book more interesting – as do the novel's political aspects: Cory further develops here his intriguing and unconventional notion of Spain being at the centre of the struggle between East and West. That theme of Spain acting as a fulcrum in the Great Game would persist in the remaining Feramontov novels, and I'll be looking at first editions of two of those in the next Cory/Fedora/Feramontov post...

Deep Cover: The Hunt for Len Deighton's Dustjacket and Paperback Cover Designs

2012-01-20T03:04:00.000-08:00

Interrupting the Desmond Cory/Johnny Fedora posts momentarily, Rob Mallows from The Deighton Dossier contacted me last night asking for assistance on a matter to do with Len Deighton's dustjacket designs. For those who don't know, prior to making a splash with his debut novel, The Ipcress File, in 1962, Deighton was a designer and illustrator (he trained alongside his friend Raymond Hawkey at the Royal College of Art), and created covers and jackets for a good number of books from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s (something of a Golden Age for cover design, in my opinion), perhaps the most famous being his design for the 1958 Andre Deutsch British edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

Together with Len himself, Rob Mallows has identified twenty-two books which sport Deighton-designed covers, but he suspects there may be more, and is currently working with The Len Deighton Companion author Edward Milward-Oliver to try and track down any missing ones. Rob's posted a complete list of the known covers on The Deighton Dossier blog, so pop along there and have a look, and if you can spot any gaps in the list, do leave a comment either on that post or this one.

And with that, let's return to Desmond Cory, Johnny Fedora and Feramontov...

Book Review: Undertow (Feramontov Quintet #1) by Desmond Cory (Muller, 1962 / Walker, 1963 / Top Notch Thrillers, 2011)

2012-01-19T04:56:00.000-08:00

In this latest run of an ongoing series of posts on various spy fiction series, I'm blogging about British author Desmond Cory's series of novels starring secret agent Johnny Fedora – specifically the five novels, commonly known as the Feramontov Quintet, which close out the Fedora adventures: Undertow (Frederick Muller, 1962), Hammerhead (Muller, 1963, alias Shockwave), Feramontov (Muller, 1966), Timelock (Muller, 1967) and Sunburst (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971). Each of those stories sees Fedora facing off against Soviet spymaster Feramontov, who makes his debut here:

That there is the 1963 US Walker hardback first edition of the twelfth Johnny Fedora novel, Undertow – jacket design by Frederick Marvin – which was as close as I could get to a 1962 British first edition. I have seen one copy of the UK Frederick Muller first for sale online, but it was sans dustjacket, which is no use to anyone – although of course if you couldn't care less about book collecting, the novel is readily available courtesy of Mike Ripley's Top Notch Thrillers imprint. And I really would recommend getting yourself a copy, because it is, quite simply, brilliant – so good, in fact, that it more-than-comfortably made it into my 2011 Best Books I Read This Year chart. (And let's face it: praise doesn't come much higher than that.)

The reasons for that are many, but chief among them is that Undertow is so beautifully written. Right from the off Desmond Cory's quiet facility with the written word is self-evident, as he describes the dead body of an escaped prisoner, Juan Guerrero, lying face down beside a Spanish road, a "black halo" of blood staining the ground around his head. Guerrero has been murdered by a fellow escapee from one of Franco's jails, Moreno, whose extraction has been effected by Feramontov, orchestrating events from a yacht off the coast. Feramontov and his associates Meuvret and Elsa need Moreno to secure certain logbooks, which are hidden in or near a house overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar... a house owned by an Argentinian heiress and currently occupied by two idle Englishmen...

The Englishmen are, of course, Johnny Fedora and his pal Sebastian Trout. By this point in the series Fedora is practically retired, loafing around his girlfriend's house in Spain (a country Cory knew well; he lived there for a time and eventually retired to the area around Malaga where Undertow is set), lounging by the swimming pool, drinking too much and playing the piano. It's sheer bad luck on Feramontov's part that Fedora happens to be in residence at Moreno's target, but when the housemaid winds up dead in the pool, Fedora makes it his business to find out who killed her, in the process getting sucked into Feramontov's scheme.

Cory has been criticized in some quarters for his unhurried pacing and apparent lack of interest in plotting (the words "boring", "lame", "nothing" and "happens" have been trotted out in response to his work), but that's to overlook his books' very particular qualities as idiosyncratic thrillers. For sure, Undertow is characterized by long, languorous passages where seemingly little of note occurs, and yet those sequences are wonderfully vivid and descriptive, subtly delving into the psychology of the protagonists. Take the scene where Fedora, Trout and Elsa are diving in the harbour. Fedora finds himself, unusually, utterly at peace with the world, subsumed into the aquatic environs, "a pair of eyes and a brain behind a vaseline-smeared plastic panel... no longer human... a disembodied spirit".

Cory continues:

Looking up, he could see the sunlight broken by the wavelets on the surface into shuddering, boiling bands and flecks, into streamers of bright gold and orange that became suddenly alive with all the colours of the prism; and he could see the bubbles of his own breath rising swiftly, colourless like pearls, then glinting as though with flame as they reached that surface froth, mingled with it and disappeared...

Offsetting these calm interludes are moments of extreme violence and gripping bursts of action, which punctuate the prose at intervals. One of the most memorable of these is an assault by Feremaontov-hired thugs on a police station where Fedora is being held. From start to finish this episode is just two two-page chapters long (the numberless chapters in Undertow are typically very short), but Cory packs a hell of a lot into that scant space, his economy with words lending the scene a shocking intensity.

Equally shocking are some of the things Cory's cast do to one another. Elsa goads the dangerous, unhinged Moreno into attacking her (and then nearly kills him), while the antagonistic relationship between her and Feramontov explodes into sexualised violence twice in quick succession. That Feramontov is left gasping for breath after the first encounter and sporting a bloodied lip after the second speaks to Elsa's strength as a character, but she's as damaged as the rest of them, although nowhere near as twisted and sadistic as Feramontov himself.

Mind you, Johnny's no saint either. His reasons for becoming involved in the affair amount at first to little more than boredom and a professional interest in a fellow killer (Moreno), although the death of his maid does give him an added impetus to dig deeper. But as we'll see in the next Fedora book I'll be reviewing – the second Feramontov Quintet novel, Hammerhead – Johnny isn't above resorting to questionable methods himself in order to get what he wants, even if that entails torture...

The Spy Thrillers of Desmond Cory: Johnny Fedora and the Feramontov Quintet

2012-01-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

If you're wondering whether we'll ever reach the end of my protracted series of posts on spy fiction series – well, quite frankly, you're reading the wrong bloody blog (see masthead). But even the most committed of espionage enthusiasts can tire of "the Great Game" on occasion, and since the spy series posts have been running on and off for two months now, and I'm keen to mix it up a bit more going forward, you can take some solace in the fact that there will be some non-spy stuff (and indeed non-Westlake stuff for that matter) on Existential Ennui very soon indeed. But not just yet. There are still a couple of terrific spy fiction authors I'm eager to cover before moving on to other matters, not least among them being British writer Desmond Cory.

Desmond Cory – a pen name of name Shaun McCarthy (1928–2001) – had around thirty crime and spy thrillers published over a forty-plus year period from 1951 to 1993. Half of those feature British secret agent Johnny Fedora, and it's those novels I'll be concentrating on in this run of posts, specifically the five books which close out the series. Johnny Fedora made his debut in one of two Cory novels published in 1951, Secret Ministry (the other being a crime novel, Begin, Murderer!) – reissued in the States as The Nazi Assassins – beating another, more famous operative, Ian Fleming's James Bond, into print by two years (Casino Royale didn't arrive until 1953). Half Spanish, half Irish, a former Spanish Civil War combatant, Chicago gangster and F.B.I. counter-espionage agent – not to mention a talented piano player – Fedora is essentially freelance, hired by British Intelligence on a case-by-case basis – often assisted by Sebastian Trout of the Foreign Office – and pitted against Nazi spies, trained killers and Soviet agent provocateurs, against whom he proves highly lethal.

As is the way with a lot of the authors I blog about, Desmond Cory is largely overlooked these days, but the odd review aside, there is one excellent resource for him on the web. The Desmond Cory Website is a treasure trove of information about the author and his best-known creation, with bibliographies, book cover galleries and downloadable articles on and interviews with Cory. Even so, the majority of Cory's books have slipped out of print, some of them becoming incredibly scarce in any edition, so that reading Cory's Fedora novels – let alone collecting them – has become a tricky proposition, and nigh on impossible in some cases. The major exceptions are the first three Fedora outings, which are available as eBooks for the Kindle through Amazon, and 1962's Undertow – the first novel in what's known as the Feramontov Quintet – which Mike Ripley's Top Notch Thrillers imprint – home, too, to the Jonas Wilde books I've just finished blogging about – reissued towards the end of last year.

And it's to Undertow that I'll be turning next, as Johnny Fedora encounters for the first time the twisted, feline Russian spy who would bedevil him for the remainder of his literary career: Feramontov...

Book Review: The Mercenaries (1960, a.k.a. The Cutie / The Smashers) by Donald E. Westlake

2012-01-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

(NB: a version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker blog.)

Ahead of my next run of spy fiction posts, let's return to crime fiction giant – and perennial Existential Ennui obsession – Donald E. Westlake, and his debut novel ("official" debut, that is; he had other pseudonymous sleaze works published before it), 1960's The Mercenaries, a signed, inscribed British first edition of which I blogged about just over a week ago. I mentioned in that post that Violent World of Parker proprietor Trent had already reviewed The Mercenaries – which was reissued under Westlake's originally intended title, The Cutie, by Hard Case Crime in 2009 (and also published as The Smashers by Dell in 1962) – in the course of which review Trent reasoned that the novel laid the groundwork for Westlake's Parker series (written, of course, as Richard Stark), which would commence just two years hence with The Hunter.

It's a valid point. Certainly there are parallels to be drawn between the amorality of the Parker books and the amorality of The Mercenaries – at least as regards the bulk of the characters in the latter. The story is related in the first person by Clay, right-hand man of mob boss Ed Ganolese. Clay has been working for Ganolese ever since the mobster helped Clay out back when Clay was plain old George Clayton; as he explains to his squeeze, Ella, Clay is "Ed's boy, he's my boss, he says do, I do" – and that translates into anything from strong-arming to straight out murder.

So when a stuttering junky known as Billy-Billy comes to Clay with a dead broad on his hands and the cops on his trail, and yet still protesting his innocence, Clay's first instinct is that Billy-Billy's days are probably numbered. Trouble is, Billy-Billy is connected, and it's in Ed Ganolese's interest to look out for Billy-Billy and find the real killer. Thus Clay must turn investigator, hunting down the unknown "Cutie" who set Billy-Billy up and is now leaving a trail of bodies behind him, in turn bringing down unwanted heat on the Organization.

Much as he does in the Parker novels, in The Mercenaries Westlake immerses us in an utterly criminal world, with only Clay's girlfriend, the occasional walk-on cop and Clay's niggling conscience serving as moral compasses. But whereas in the Parkers Westlake reserves judgment on the rights and wrongs of Parker's lawless endeavours, in The Mercenaries there is a sense of the author disapproving of Clay. There's a strong suggestion that Clay will, in the end, get his comeuppance – something one never feels with Parker. Clay has his doubts about the life he leads, but they're ultimately fleeting: he's "Ed's boy", a lackey, and therefore quite different from the self-sufficient and consequently strangely admirable Parker. By comparison, there's little to admire about Clay, either on our part or, it seems, Westlake's.

The milieu of New York mob life is well-realised. There's, if not an authenticity, then at least a plausibility, a believability to The Mercenaries. Although he was hardly the first author to have criminals as his protagonists – the likes of Jim Thompson, John D. MacDonald and, perhaps most significantly, Peter Rabe got there before him – Westlake's take on low level gangsterism is convincing. At root, however, The Mercenaries isn't really a gangster novel at all; it's a gumshoe tale, with Clay in the role of the P.I. Good as The Mercenaries is, it's noticeably derivative, and it was only once Westlake managed to divest himself of the Hammett (overtly namechecked on the cover of the first British edition of the book) and Chandler trappings that he began to craft something more distinctive and original, in the shape of the Parker novels and, to a lesser degree, the Dortmunder books.

To my mind, "The Mercenaries" is a more apt title than Westlake's preferred choice of "The Cutie"; the novel is populated by disagreeably venal characters, not least Clay himself. But the (almost) eponymous adversary does provide the impetus for events, and again could be seen as an indicator of things to come: in the way in which he wreaks merry havoc with Clay's life, the Cutie prefigures the anonymous foil who frustrates Parker in The Seventh (1966).

As a debut novel, The Mercenaries has a lot going for it. It's a credible portrayal of a criminal underworld, disarmingly brutal in places, and a decent whodunnit to boot. And though in and of itself it's perhaps unremarkable – there were other writers doing similar things to more forceful effect around this period – it does offer tantalising glimpses of greatness to come. As such, it's an important book in Westlake's canon, and a milestone in his career as a writer.

Next up: Desmond Cory, Johnny Fedora, and Feramontov...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Competition: The Two Winners!

2012-01-13T02:22:00.000-08:00

Drum roll, please: it's time to announce the winners of my wonderful Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie competition! Yes, astonishingly, I did actually receive a good number of entries for the giveaway, and equally astonishingly almost all of them correctly answered the following question:

John le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the first instalment in what's known as the Karla Trilogy, or Quest for Karla; name the second and third novels in the trilogy.

Answer being, of course:

The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People.

So thank you to everyone who entered, and I can now reveal the two lucky people whose names were pulled out of the "hat". Stand up and take a bow:

Jon Auciello, PA
Carolyn Bostick, NY

You two will both be receiving a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Tie-in Book, T-shirt, Voice Recorder Pen and Post-it Note Cube, courtesy of the fine folk at Focus Features. Congratulations to you both! And for anyone in the States who hasn't yet seen the film, it's still on general release, and you can read my review of it right here.

Review: The Eliminator by Andrew York (Christopher Nicole); Hutchinson, 1966 / Top Notch Thrillers, 2011

2012-01-12T06:34:00.000-08:00

On to the second of two posts on Guernsey-based author Christopher Nicole's pseudonymous series of espionage novels starring a state-sanctioned assassin, written under the nom de plume "Andrew York" (one of many Nicole aliases). And having posted a brief introduction to Nicole and a glorious gallery of first edition fillies, today I turn my attention to the first instalment in the nine-book series: The Eliminator.

Originally published in hardback in the UK by Hutchinson in 1966, The Eliminator introduces Jonas Wilde, Great Britain's state executioner. When we first meet Wilde he's on assignment in Barbados, in disguise as tourist Charles Vane, his target a wealthy businessman. Wilde is rarely given reasons for the killings he carries out; he merely takes it on trust that the individuals he assassinates (more than twenty over the course of his career) are deserving of elimination. So when, having completed his Barbados assignation, Wilde is directed by his boss, Antony Canning, to fix his sights on a scientist named Stalitz, Wilde's only reservation is that the killing has to take place in the UK.

Wilde, you see, usually operates overseas, facilitated by what's known as The Route – essentially a cover story, whereby Wilde takes a yachting holiday in the English Channel two or three times a year, stopping in at the small island of Guernsey, which he uses as a back door in and out of Britain, assisted by a small cadre of former state assassins. But Wilde is beginning to question his role as The Eliminator; his last few missions have left him uneasy, and this latest one is equally troubling. And when, having inveigled himself into the west country mansion where Stalitz is staying, the mission goes disastrously awry, Wilde discovers that everything he's been led to believe is wrong...

The Eliminator is literally a book of two halves: the first half, titled "The Assassin", details Wilde's life, his associates, how The Route works, and two of his missions; the second half, titled "The Avenger", then yanks the rug out from under Wilde's feet in spectacular fashion, sending him on a hunt for the man who has betrayed both him and his country. Both parts have their merits – the sequence in part one where Wilde gains the trust of Rhoda Gooderich, the housekeeper at the country estate, is especially delicious – but it's in part two that the tension really escalates, climaxing with a neat, unexpected twist.

Wilde is a fascinating creation: urbane, sophisticated, ruthless, but also oddly vulnerable. His role as executioner would, you might think, require emotional detachment on his part, but perversely Wilde has to work himself up into a righteous rage in order to complete his deadly assignments. Nicole/York is strong on location as well as characterization: I've been to Guernsey myself a few times, and of course Nicole lives there, so his depiction of Saint Peter Port and the surrounding area is spot on. (I also got a jolt of recognition when, in an aside, it's revealed that Wilde's Charles Vane alias has an equally fictional sister in Beckenham – the suburban town where I grew up.)

But the abiding impression one is left with is how elegantly written The Eliminator is – which is why it's so surprising that the Jonas Wilde series has slipped into semi-obscurity. It's something that John at Pretty Sinister Books remarked upon in his recent review, and hopefully something that will be addressed now that Mike Ripley's Top Notch Thrillers imprint is reviving the series. Certainly The Eliminator is a cut above the more run-of-the-mill James Bond-inspired sixties spy boom dross – I couldn't help thinking whilst reading it that, like the Bond novels, it would have made an excellent film – and I'll definitely be returning to Wilde's world before too long.

(UPDATE 1: As John from Pretty Sinister Books has now pointed out in the comments below, the book was made into a film – read his post on it here.)

(UPDATE 2: Mike Ripley has since drawn my attention to this article on the website of Ostara Publishing, Top Notch Thrillers' parent publisher – the article originally appeared in Crime Time – outlining the strange set of coincidences surrounding the reissuing of The Eliminator, not least of which being that Christopher Nicole's yacht, Rose of Arden – the real-life equivalent of Jonas Wilde's yacht, Regina A – wound up in the ownership of Ostara's founder, Andrew Cocks, and consequently can be seen on the cover of the Top Notch Thrillers edition!)

And speaking of Bond-inspired espionage, I'll be staying with the 1960s spy fiction for my next run of posts – except the star of this next series actually predates 007. Ahead of that, though: those Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy competition winners revealed...

The Eliminator / Jonas Wilde Spy Novel Series by Andrew York (Christopher Nicole): Introduction, Bibliography and First Edition Cover Gallery

2012-01-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

Well the entries for Friday's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy competition have been trickling in at a steady pace; don't forget you have until midnight EST on Thursday to be in with a chance of bagging that movie tie-in swag, and that the two winners will be announced this Friday. (NB: competition only open to US addressees.) Ahead of that, though, let's return to my series of posts on spy fiction series, with a series of novels starring a state-sanctioned assassin...

I actually have Pretty Sinister Books blog maestro John to thank for bringing this particular (decidedly obscure) spy series to my attention; back in August of last year John posted a review of the first book in the series, 1966's The Eliminator, which had been reissued by Mike Ripley's Top Notch Thriller imprint. (John has since also reviewed the second book, 1967's The Co-ordinator, while Top Notch have gone on to publish the third and fourth.) Written by British author Andrew York, The Eliminator was followed by eight sequels over the next decade, all of them featuring the suave, sophisticated killer Jonas Wilde – the United Kingdom's state executioner.

But the Jonas Wilde books weren't the only series of novels created by York. For not only did York pen four novels starring West Indies police commissioner Colonel James Munroe Tallant (1977's Tallant for Trouble et al) and a trio of books for younger readers starring British intelligence operative Jonathan Anders (1969's The Doom Fisherman, etc.) – plus a couple of standalone works – but under various other guises he also wrote something like 200 books besides, many of those series as well. "Andrew York", you see, was just one of a bewildering array of aliases used by Christopher Nicole, a Guernsey-based author who utilised pen names like Caroline Gray, Alan Savage, Alison York and around ten others to write thrillers, historical novels and non-fiction. (In a neat illustration of the befuddling nature of Nicole's bibliography, in the States the three Andrew York/Jonathan Anders books were published concurrently with the UK editions but under Nicole's real name, and with different titles – Operation Destruct, Operation Manhunt and Operation Neptune.)

There's rather a lot to explore with Mr. Nicole – who I believe is still writing – and I suspect I'll be digging further into his Byzantine backlist in the future. For now, though, let's concentrate on the Jonas Wilde books. I'll be reviewing the first novel in the series, The Eliminator, in the next post (and to prepare yourselves you can of course read Pretty Sinister Books' thoughts on both that and its sequel). But ahead of that, let's have a full Jonas Wilde bibliography-cum-cover gallery. All of the Wilde novels were initially published in hardback by Hutchinson in the UK, and while there's not a huge demand for first editions, some of the books have become remarkably elusive – so much so that I'm still missing two of them. I'll fill in the gaps as and when I manage to get my hands on the two absent volumes (although I have found a front cover image for one of them), but for now – and, to my knowledge, for the first time anywhere – feast your eyes on these first edition fillies (er, plus what seems to be an upturned wheelchair)...

Andrew York / Jonas Wilde Illustrated Bibliography

1. The Eliminator (Hutchinson, 1966): dustjacket design by Michael Brett; front cover photograph by George Coral; author photograph by Mark Gerson

. . . . . . . . . .

2. The Co-ordinator (Hutchinson, 1967): front cover photograph by Ivor Keenman

. . . . . . . . . .

3. The Predator (Hutchinson, 1968): front cover photograph by George Coral

. . . . . . . . . .

4. The Deviator (Hutchinson, 1969): jacket ripped on corner, but looks to be front cover photograph by George Coral again

. . . . . . . . . .

5. The Dominator (Hutchinson, 1970)

. . . . . . . . . .

6. The Infiltrator (Hutchinson, 1971): dustjacket design by Keith Inman

. . . . . . . . . .

7. The Expurgator (Hutchinson, 1972): dustjacket design by Michael Bramman

. . . . . . . . . .

8. The Captivator (Hutchinson, 1974)

. . . . . . . . . .

9. The Fascinator (Hutchinson, 1975): dustjacket photograph by Chris Parker

Competition: Win a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Tie-in Book, T-Shirt, and More!

2012-01-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

NB: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

As promised on Tuesday and Thursday, to round off the first working week of the new year I've something rather special for you this fine Friday – something I've never attempted on Existential Ennui before: a competition! Yes, to mark the general release in the US today of Tomas Alfredson's magnificent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie – adapted from John le Carré's 1974 spy novel classic – I'm offering two America-based readers the chance to win a bunch of tie-in swag, courtesy of the film's US distributor, Focus Features!

Now, I must stress that the competition is only open to US addressees – apologies to British readers of Existential Ennui (and to those elsewhere in the world), but I'm afraid it's out of my hands. (Perhaps I can rustle something up for Brits to mark the DVD release of Tinker Tailor... hint hint, Studiocanal...) However, two lucky American readers are in with a chance of winning the following incredible items:

• A Movie Tie-in Book!

• A T-Shirt!

• A Voice Recorder Pen!

• A Post-it Note Cube!

That's a Movie Tie-in Book, a T-Shirt, a Voice Recorder Pen and a Post-it Note Cube each (prize value an unbelievable $43) for two US-based readers! Tremendously exciting stuff!

I'll explain how to enter in a moment, but before that, if you're not au fait with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the film, or indeed Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy the novel, both star John le Carré's iconic spymaster George Smiley – played by Gary Oldman in the movie – who's brought out of retirement to hunt down a mole, or enemy agent, at the heart of British Intelligence (colloquially known as "The Circus"). It's a beautifully elegiac tale of betrayal on both a geopolitical and human scale, and Alfredson's film is an excellent adaptation of the source novel and an extraordinary piece of cinema in its own right. You can read my review of the movie – which hit British cinemas back in September 2011 – here, and my review of le Carré's original masterwork – and its BBC TV adaptation – here . And here is Mr. le Carré himself, shedding a little light on the creation of George Smiley, with additional insight from Gary Oldman and others:

Splendid. So then: to business. And to be in with a chance of winning the book, the T-shirt, etc., answer the following question:

John le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the first instalment in what's known as the Karla Trilogy, or Quest for Karla; name the second and third novels in the trilogy.

If you're a fan of le Carré or a regular reader of Existential Ennui, answering that shouldn't present too much of a problem, but if you're struggling for the answer, you could always enter "Karla Trilogy" in the search box at the top of EE's right-hand sidebar. But don't let on that I told you that. (Moscow rules, dear boy.)

Answers should be emailed to me at:

existentialennui@gmail.com

using the subject line "Tinker Tailor". Don't forget to include your full name and address, and which T-shirt size you'd prefer, and once again, let me just state for the record that the competition is only open to "the Cousins" – i.e. American addressees – so entries from elsewhere in the world will be automatically discounted. The competition closes on Thursday 12 January at midnight EST, with all entries going into a hat (or similar receptacle), from which will be chosen at random two winners. And I'll be announcing those two winners on Existential Ennui a week today, so at least for two people, Friday the 13th will be quite lucky. Best of British to all of you, though.

Next week, it's back to my series of posts on spy fiction series, with a British espionage series featuring a state executioner... and I'll also have that promised review of Donald E. Westlake's debut crime novel The Mercenaries...

Westlake Score: The Mercenaries by Donald E. Westlake; Signed Association British First Edition (T.V. Boardman, 1961), Denis McLoughlin Cover Art

2012-01-05T02:11:00.000-08:00

(NB: a version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker blog.)

After Tuesday's teaser-preview post on forthcoming delights on Existential Ennui, let's open my 2012 Violent World of Parker cross-post account with a very special Westlake Score...

This is the UK hardback first edition of Donald E. Westlake's The Mercenaries, published by T.V. Boardman as part of their American Bloodhound Mystery line (no. 347 in that line, to be precise) in 1961 – the year following the US Random House first edition – and it is a very rare thing indeed. I've only ever seen a couple of copies of this edition for sale online, neither of them possessing a dustjacket; to give you an idea of how short the supply of the Boardman edition of The Mercenaries is, there are currently zero copies of the Boardman first on AbeBooks.

There are a couple of reasons for the book's scarcity. The most obvious is that The Mercenaries was Westlake's debut novel – at least under his own name; he'd had a number of pseudonymous sleaze efforts published by this point – and is therefore much in demand in first, US or UK. But the Boardman edition of The Mercenaries is additionally collectible for a whole other reason: Denis McLoughlin. McLoughlin was the art director at Boardman (not to mention an accomplished comics artist), producing around 600 covers for the publisher's crime novel list, and his work, with its bold use of chiaroscuro/restricted palette/occasional collage elements, is highly sought after – I posted a gallery of his Westlake covers in 2010 (now updated with The Mercenaries). So that, combined with it being Westlake's first novel, is probably why the Boardman first of The Mercenaries is so elusive.

My copy was a Christmas present from my sister, who I pestered into buying the only Boardman copy on AbeBooks, which was being offered for sale by Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers of Seattle. But I didn't covet it simply because it's the UK first edition (although that would surely be reason enough); there was something even more special about this particular copy:

It's signed and inscribed by Westlake on the front endpaper, and dated in the year of publication. And if we take a closer look at the inscription:

It reads:

Byrne Reginald Spencer Fone Esq.,

Within, an Anglo-American Traveler,

Without, an odd bodkin.

Don

Wessel & Lieberman were a little unsure as to whether the inscription was actually by Westlake, but I asked my sister to take a punt on the book anyway (thank you, Alison), and once I had it in my sweaty palms, I compared the dedication to other Westlake signed books I own (see here and here). And I'm as certain as I can be that the inscription is the genuine article.

But who was/is Byrne Reginald Spencer Fone (who's also signed the endpaper – or rather jotted an ownership name on it)? Well, Fone is – I believe he's still with us – also a writer. He's perhaps best known for penning a number of gay and lesbian studies – Homophobia: A History; A Road to Stonewall – as well as a string of literary studies and, most recently, a number of novels, including American Revolution, "a political crime novel about a gay American president", according to Amazon. As to Fone's connection to Westlake, though, I'm afraid I'm in the dark there. Fone did teach at New York University in the early 1960s, so it's possible he taught Westlake. Then again, they could simply have been friends and contemporaries; as ever, if anyone can shed any light, do leave a comment.

Westlake was evidently proud of The Mercenaries – he sent inscribed copies of both the UK and US editions to a number of his friends and associates – and justifiably so: it's a solid debut, and a convincing portrayal of New York's criminal underworld. Certainly Hard Case Crime thought highly enough of it to reissue it a few years back, retitled as The Cutie. So for my next Violent World of Parker cross-post, I'll be reviewing the novel – something Violent World of Parker proprietor Trent's already done, of course, but you never know: I might find a new angle or two.

Back here on Existential Ennui, however, it's competition time – at least, for my American readers. Because tomorrow Tomas Alfredson's excellent movie adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy goes on general release in the US:

And to tie in with that, in a first for Existential Ennui, I'll be giving away two sets of movie swag, courtesy of the film's distributor, Focus Features. So join me again on Friday for an exclusive Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy competition!

Existential Ennui in 2012: a Competition, a Facebook Page, and a List of Authors

2012-01-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

Good Lord, look at that: it's 3 January already. How did that happen? Seems like only yesterday I was slumped on the sofa, staring blankly at the telly and thinking to myself, "I really must write that preview of 2012 I promised I'd post early in the new year"... Oh, wait: it was yesterday. Hurm. Well anyway: happy new year, chums. And what a year it promises to be: mayoral elections in London, presidential elections in the States, the Olympic Games in Britain, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises at the cinema, and, if the Mayans are to be believed, the end of the world on 21 December.

Here on Existential Ennui, however, it'll be pretty much business as usual... with a few twists. For one thing, come the end of the week, I'll be posting Existential Ennui's very first competition, offering American readers (and only Americans; sorry, Brits) the chance to win a bunch of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy movie swag, to tie in with the general release of the film in the US – hence that image of Gary Oldman as George Smiley at the top of this post. You can read my glowing review of the film right here, and don't you dare forget to check back in on Friday for the competition. (Er, if you live in America.)

For another thing, Existential Ennui now has a Facebook page. Quite what I'll be doing with it now I've set it up is something I'm still pondering, but it exists, so you may as well, y'know, go "like" it – if, that is, you do indeed like Existential Ennui; if you don't, I'm afraid there's no "unlike" option, so you'll just have to make do with not "liking" it. As soon as I work out a way to install the "like" button on Existential Ennui itself (as in, the blog) without it appearing as a massive, unattractive, ungainly box that cuts into my sidebar, I'll be doing that, too. (UPDATE: I have now done that. Huzzah.)

All of that aside, though, blogging will continue in much the same vein as usual. You might have noticed that I've changed the sub-header of EE to "Crime and spy fiction, SF, book collecting, comics"; I figured it was about time I stated slightly more clearly what this blog is all about, and those, unsurprisingly, are the areas I'll be concentrating on over the coming months, not least via my ongoing series on espionage series (a series which was, you'll recall, interrupted by my end-of-year round-up posts). That said, there will still be room for posts on other literary matters, whether it be non-fiction, lit-fic, publishing, or whatever else happens to take my fancy.

So which authors can you expect to encounter on Existential Ennui this year? Well, in no particular order, keep 'em peeled for, among others, Dan J. Marlowe, Michael Gilbert, Edward S. Aarons, Ross Thomas, Desmond Cory, Tom Clancy, Patricia Highsmith, Kingsley Amis, Brian Garfield, Graham Greene, Gregory Mcdonald, Len Deighton, Michael Dibdin, Jeremy Duns, Adam Hall, Andrew York, Michael Frayn, Mike Ripley, John le Carré, Tom Wolfe, Kim Philby, George Pelecanos, Peter Rabe, P. M. Hubbard, and, of course, our old friend, Donald E. "Richard Stark" Westlake. And it's to Westlake that we turn first, with a really quite remarkable Christmas present-cum-Westlake Score...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 3: the 10 Best Books I Read This Year

2011-12-31T04:27:00.000-08:00

And so we reach the grand finale of my not-as-drawn-out-as-last-year's effort-but-still-quite-long-enough-thank-you end-of-year round-up – not to mention also, not entirely coincidentally, my final post for the year; hang out the bunting, begin the ticker-tape parade, etc., etc. And having presented a Bloody Great List of all the books I read in 2011, to round the year off I'm going to choose my ten favourite books from that list. I bet you literally cannot contain your excitement.

As I did last year, I've once again opted for a top ten this time out, rather than a top twenty, a decision which has necessitated some hard choices. I could have easily filled getting on for half of the top ten with Anthony Price novels alone, but for the sake of variety I've limited myself instead to just one appearance per author in the chart. Mind you, there were still a number of authors who didn't quite make the cut but whose work I enjoyed immensely in 2011, and therefore honourable mentions must go to Jeremy Duns (Free Agent), Adam Hall (The Berlin Memorandum), Graham Greene (The Quiet American), Michael Dibdin (Ratking), Donald Hamilton (Death of a Citizen) and Elmore Leonard (Pronto).

This being Existential Ennui and not, I dunno, Shots or The Rap Sheet or Books and Writers or something, it almost goes without saying that the majority of the books in the final ten are, by definition, "old", i.e. first published at least thirty years ago in most cases. But there are a couple of more recent novels in there too, and as I've stated more than once before, although the remainder may be getting on a bit, to me they're as fresh and exciting and surprising as anything published in 2011 – more so in most cases.

So which of the forty-eight books I read in 2011 made the top ten? Let's find out, shall we, by way of a visual guide, counting 'em down in reverse order, with links to whatever nonsense I wrote about each book (if indeed I have written anything yet). Drum roll, please!

10.

SS-GB (1978) by Len Deighton

The Cut (2011) by George Pelecanos

When Will There be Good News? (2008) by Kate Atkinson

A Hive of Glass (1965) by P. M. Hubbard

The Fools in Town are on Our Side (1970) by Ross Thomas

Smiley's People (1979) by John le Carré

Butcher's Moon (1974) by Richard Stark

Undertow (1962) by Desmond Cory

The Alamut Ambush (1971) by Anthony Price

Operation Overkill (1962) by Dan J. Marlowe

Well, one or two surprises there, I feel, especially the books at numbers 3 and 1; suffice it to say that, although they haven't yet featured on Existential Ennui, Desmond Cory and Dan J. Marlowe will be making appearances on this blog very soon indeed. As for the rest, I don't have much to add to my original reviews, except in the cases of George Pelecanos's The Cut, where I haven't yet written a review – there'll be one in the new year – and Kate Atkinson's When Will There be Good News?, which I somehow neglected to review. So let me just quickly note that, while I love all four of Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels, I think this one is my favourite, packing, as it does, a real emotional punch and featuring a completely unexpected central disaster. Utterly sublime.

And that's yer lot for 2011. Have a terrific New Year's Eve, and do join me again early in 2012, when I'll be posting a preview of forthcoming delights here on Existential Ennui...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 2: a Bloody Great List

2011-12-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome back. And with Christmas done and dusted – I do hope yours was bearable – it's back to the year-end round-up here on Existential Ennui. When last we met, I'd posted an introspective overview of Existential Ennui's highlights in 2011 – the word "highlights" there being an entirely subjective and debatable piece of nomenclature. But of course, all that books blogging couldn't really have taken place without my having read a book or two over the course of the year, and so, much as I did last year, today I'm presenting a Bloody Great List of all the books I read in 2011, in roughly the order I read them. Except this year there's a twist: in each instance I've also linked to whatever piffle I posted about that particular book – unless it's a book I haven't yet blogged about, in which case, I, er, haven't. Exciting stuff, and no mistake. Let's take a look, shall we?

Pronto by Elmore Leonard
Killing Floor by Lee Child
The Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas)
Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard
When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard
Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham
Free Agent by Jeremy Duns
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Only Girl in the Game by John D. MacDonald
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
The Wanderers by Richard Price
The Fools in Town are On Our Side by Ross Thomas
Anarchaos by Curt Clark (Donald E. Westlake)
The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price
A Hive of Glass by P. M. Hubbard
The Alamut Ambush by Anthony Price
Colonel Butler's Wolf by Anthony Price
When Will There be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Isle of 100,000 Graves by Jason / Fabien Vehlmann
The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
The Berlin Memorandum by Adam Hall
October Men by Anthony Price
Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark
Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay
Dead Skip by Joe Gores
Smiley's People by John le Carré
Blame the Dead by Gavin Lyall
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas
SS-GB by Len Deighton
Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton
The Eliminator by Andrew York
The Cataclysm by R. C. Sherriff
Day of Misjudgment by Bernard Maclaren
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Only Lovers Left Alive by Dave Wallis
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Butcher's Moon by Richard Stark
The Cold Dark Night by Sarah Gainham
Operation Overkill by Dan J. Marlowe
Slow Burner by William Haggard
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Undertow by Desmond Cory
The Mercenaries by Donald E. Westlake
The Cut by George Pelecanos

The first thing to note, I suppose, is the overall total: forty-eight books, which is significantly down on 2010's grand total of sixty-nine. I'm not entirely certain why that's turned out to be the case; I suspect it's due to the additional time and effort I've been putting into Existential Ennui (not so's you'd notice, mind), but it could equally be sheer bone idleness on my part. Whatever the reason, I guess I could have cheated and included the two books I'm currently still reading to bring the total up to the totemic fifty... but that would have meant my starting 2012 behind. So forty-eight it is.

The second thing to note is that I read even fewer "new" books this year than I did last: just two published in 2011 (Jason's The Isle of 100,000 Graves – also the only graphic novel I read this year – and George Pelecanos's The Cut), a pathetic number which rises to an equally pathetic four if we stretch "new" to include the previous year as well. So it seems clear I've become even more lodged in the past this year, although, since all the "old" books I've read are, in effect, "new" to me, designations such as "old" and "new" become essentially meaningless in this context – as indeed, in consequence, does this entire paragraph.

Therefore, let's move on to the third and final thing of note, which is that there was more of an even spread as regards the authors I read this year. Whereas in 2010 my reading was very heavily weighted towards Donald E. Westlake, 2011 has turned out to be rather more balanced, with a rough parity between Westlake, Anthony Price, Ross Thomas, Kate Atkinson, Elmore Leonard and one or two others. Quite what this signifies – if, in fact, it signifies anything – is, like many matters, beyond me, but it is a thing, and it has now, for better or worse, been noted (duly).

All of which pointless and ridiculous analysis (emphasis on the "anal") leaves us with just one more post in this end-of-year extravaganza – not to mention also, thankfully, my final post for the year – in which I'll be detailing which of the forty-eight books I read in 2011 were my favourites. Look out for that thrilling missive on New Year's Eve...

2011, a Review of the Year in Books and Comics, 1: Insufferable Navel-Gazing

2011-12-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of the year again, when we all down tools, decamp to whichever godforsaken corner of the world we hail from (suburban south London in my case, via Surrey and Essex), and get set to munch our way through an overcooked bone-dry bird of some description, hand out gifts we ordered off Amazon, receive IOUs denoting the Amazon-ordered gifts we would have received if the bloody things had turned up on time, and fall asleep in front of whatever tripe is on telly this Christmas.

But wait! The advent of the festive season means it's also time for Existential Ennui's Review of the Year in Books and Comics! And in a frankly welcome change of programming from last year's overlong extravaganza, this year I'll be foisting just three end-of-year posts on you, instead of the previous six. T'other side of Christmas I'll have 2011's version of the Bloody Great List of books I read this year, and after that I'll be choosing my favourite books from that list.

Before all that, though, and as is traditional on Existential Ennui, I'm going to completely ignore the momentous events which have shaken the wider world – Arab spring, tsunami, radioactive emergency, a referendum, riots, recession and a royal wedding – and instead cast a critical eye over a topic which is very dear to my heart: me. Or rather, me, as filtered through Existential Ennui. Last year I posted two EE-centric missives in amongst my end-of-year round-ups, one an overview of EE in 2010 and the other a guide to what I reckoned were my best posts last year. I shan't be attempting the latter this time for the simple reason that I think my posting this year was pretty consistent, at least in terms of depth and breadth, if not quality (only you can determine that); my advice, if you fancy sampling 2011's posts, is to click on whichever subjects in the "Abiding Preoccupations" tag cloud down there in the right-hand column pique your curiosity.

Instead, let's take a more general look at Existential Ennui in 2011. And if 2010 was the year of Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark, then 2011 was the year of the espionage novel. Spy fiction loomed large over Existential Ennui this year, from February/March's Spy Fiction Fortnight right through to my still-ongoing series on spy series, with a number of other author-focused runs of posts in-between, featuring Len Deighton, Anthony Price, Adam Hall, John le Carré, Sarah Gainham, Donald Hamilton and William Haggard.

And indeed runs of posts on various subjects came to increasingly characterize Existential Ennui this year. Aside from the spy fiction authors mentioned above, there were series on Peter Rabe, Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens stories, Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas), Mark Billingham, Ross Thomas (him again), Michael Moorcock, P. M. Hubbard (two runs on him), Donald Westlake's science fiction short stories (two runs of those as well), Patricia Highsmith, political diaries, signed editions and post-apocalyptic fiction.

One thing there was rather less of on Existential Ennui this year was comics coverage. I managed a handful of Notes from the Small Press posts, and a post on the DC Comics New 52 relaunch, but while I continue to buy comics on an almost-weekly basis, I find I have little of substance to say about them. At this point my comics habit really is just that: a habit, rather than a passion. And given how disappointing that DC initiative proved, plus my faltering interest in Marvel's wares, it's a habit I intend to wean myself off of in the new year. (Perhaps after the Avengers vs. X-Men event...)

There were, I think, three blogging-related moments which really stood out for me in 2011. The first of those arrived in April, when the British Library contacted me asking if they could archive Existential Ennui. Coming, as it did, completely out of the blue, the request represented, to my mind, the tiniest vindication of all the effort I'd been putting into Existential Ennui; if an institution as esteemed as the British Library could see some worth – however small – in my ill-informed ramblings, then I must be doing something right. Existential Ennui's dedicated page on the Library's UK Web Archive can be found here (it's already been updated once).

The second stand-out moment came in July, when I got to meet and interview spy novelist Anthony Price. I'd discovered Price's work early in 2011, and thoroughly enjoyed his books, so when I realised he was still with us, and that there were no interviews with him online, I decided to do something about it. My two-part interview with him can be found here and here, and both parts continue to receive hits daily.

The third memorable moment actually had more to do with another blog rather than this one – i.e., the one on The Violent World of Parker website. As of August I became the official co-blogger on Violent World, posting alongside proprietor Trent on all things Westlake, Stark and Parker. I've received a very warm welcome over there, and I don't believe Existential Ennui has suffered as a result, not only because I've been re-posting my Violent World pieces on here too, but also because having to come up with regular(ish) content for TVWoP has meant that I've kept up 2010's level of Westlake-related posting in 2011.

Taking all of that into account, plus other stuff like excellent guest posts from Michael Barber and Paul Simpson, a short Q&A with Dexter creator Jeff Lindsay, and my breaking the news of the return to print of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels, it's been a pretty good year on Existential Ennui. Certainly EE is seeing increasing levels of links and comments coming in and currently attracting well over double the volume of traffic it did this time last year – around 3,500 hits per week at the moment. A percentage of that is obviously spam, and a further percentage repeat visits, and in the grand scheme of things it's still pretty small beer... but for a books blog – and an esoteric, idiosyncratic and frequently unreadable one at that – it's not too bad at all.

Mind you, some things remain unchanged: I still write in the same infuriatingly prolix and pompous fashion I always have. But since it's me who is the driving "creative" (using the term loosely) force behind this blog, there's not a whole lot can be done about that. And if you can stand my abstruse "style" (again, using the term very loosely), there is at least some occasionally useful information on Existential Ennui these days, on authors, cover artists, publishing, and more besides, all of it searchable from the little box just below right of my glorious masthead. Pop in a search term and give it a go, why don't you.

Merry Christmas, and I'll see you all again after the festivities.

Donald E. Westlake's Farewell to Science Fiction: Responses by Frederik Pohl, Westlake, and Others

2011-12-21T03:06:00.000-08:00

(NB: a version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker blog.)

This, I'm sure we'll all be relieved to hear, will be my final Violent World of Parker cross-post for the year. Fear not, however (or, possibly, fear greatly): there's plenty more to come from me on TVWoP in the new year, not just on Westlake but also on some other writers whose work intersects with the Great Man's. But let's round off this year's run of Westlake posts (on my part, anyway; I'm sure TVWoP proprietor Trent will be along over there before too long) by returning to Donald E. Westlake's science fiction stories one last time, and in particular to his controversial farewell to SF in Pat and Dick Lupoff's early-1960s fanzine Xero – reprinted in The Best of Xero – "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You".

Last time out I detailed the content of that essay, but what's perhaps most striking about it is the effect it had on SF fandom and on Westlake's fellow professionals. The repercussions of "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" would reverberate through the remainder of Xero's run, with letter after letter either agreeing with or dissenting from Westlake's negative view of the SF field. One of the more notable responses came from one of the targets of Westlake's opprobrium, Frederik Pohl. Westlake had related the following story:

...when Frederik Pohl took over Galaxy, my agent suggested that I aim a story at him... So I researched. I read the introductions to all the Pohl-edited Star Science Fiction series, and I reread the first and last sentence of every Frederik Pohl story I had around the house... and then I wrote a Frederik Pohl story. "The Spy in the Elevator."

A Pohl title and a Pohl story, and a very silly inspid story it was, but by that time I was getting cynical. Pohl bought it.

Frederik Pohl, however, offers a contrasting take on this episode. According to Pohl, Westlake's agent, Scott Meredith, sent Pohl a different story, which Pohl wanted to buy for a different SF magazine. Meredith insisted that the tale should appear in Galaxy, so Pohl offered to, if he could, buy another story of Westlake's for Galaxy instead, "up to and including working with him on revisions if necessary (something I seldom do, on principle; I don't believe in editorially dictated revisions in most cases)." Shortly after, Meredith submitted "The Spy in the Elevator", which Pohl read, "discovered it was harmless confetti, shrugged over and bought. It wasn't particularly good, but it wouldn't actually stink up the magazine, and there certainly was little hope of making any great improvements in it through revision."

Remember that one of Westlake's major complaints in "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" was that the editorial policies of the SF magazines of the era – and consequent requested revisions – meant that, as he put it, "I cannot sell good science fiction" (although it was Analog's John W. Campbell who was the chief target of his ire, not Pohl). Pohl's version of the genesis of "The Spy in the Elevator" suggests that matters weren't so clear cut. Pohl pulls Westlake up on the notion that Pohl would automatically buy a Pohl-like story, and points out that "the story was all but sold before it was written, so if ever [Westlake] had a chance to write For Art, this was the chance". He adds, "If what turned out was a 'silly insipid story' – as Westlake puts it – this may reveal something about the author himself, then, but I assure you it says nothing about the editorial policy of Galaxy", before noting: "To write good science fiction requires a certain amount of gutsiness; those without it are probably better off in other fields, where the standards are lower anyway."

Straight after Pohl's rebuttal comes a note from L. Sprague de Camp. In "Don't Call Us...", Westlake had asserted that many writers had left the SF field out of frustration, de Camp among them, and that furthermore de Camp wasn't "doing much of anything". De Camp refutes this, and lists the various books and magazine articles he's working on. But more interesting is the next response, which comes from Avram Davidson. Davidson suggests that Westlake's issues with science fiction might have more to do with Westlake not being a science fiction writer in the first place, but rather "a mystery writer who wandered into sf by error" – Westlake having stated in his original article that he was now "a full time mystery writer".

Further rebuttals follow, including another from Frederik Pohl and a letter from Richard Kyle, reasoning that Westlake's storytelling in the Analog short "Look Before You Leap" – which Westlake had used as an example of John W. Campbell's egomaniacal interference – was already shonky and that Campbell's requested revision probably made it more readable.

Finally, Westlake himself wades back in to the fray. Addressing Frederik Pohl's points first, Westlake explains that he hadn't intended to suggest he was attempting to imitate anyone's style, merely that he was "aiming at the market and nothing more. In other words, the story I had written had no merits other than as an example of aiming at a particular market. And so, a lousy story." He then moves on to Avram Davidson's notion that he isn't actually a science fiction writer at all. "This idea had never occurred to me before," he writes, "but now that it has been suggested, I must admit it might be true." He reveals that he "gave up Perry Mason for science fiction when I was fourteen, and read science fiction voluminously for the next six years" (I'd always figured that Westlake must have been, at some stage, a fan of SF, so it's good to see that confirmed), and so when he decided to become a professional writer, SF was naturally what he turned to.

Here we reach a more personal admission as to why Westlake stopped writing SF. He states that the initial stories he sold in both the science fiction and mystery markets were "drab droll dreck", but that he eventually improved – at least in mysteries. His sense is that he never got past the "slanting for the market" stage of SF writing, and that therefore, even though he "was more interested in science fiction", henceforth it would be mysteries he'd concentrate on. And addressing Frederik Pohl's remark about standards being lower in other fields, Westlake calls the idea "balderdash" and lists the non-SF editors "so obtuse as to buy stories and/or books from me", such as Random House's Lee Wright, Pocket Books' Bucklin Moon, and Ed McBain.

There's plenty more to read in Westlake's follow-up letter, and indeed in the various responses to Westlake's original piece (not to mention the non-Westlake material in The Best of Xero; I'd strongly recommend getting a copy if you have an interest in SF), all of which paint a picture of a writer at a turning point in his creative life: moving on from science fiction, finding his feet in the mystery and crime field. But more than that, Westlake's two articles afford a glimpse into his motivations for writing in those early days; how he developed and grew as an author; and how willing he was to forcefully argue his corner when he cared passionately about something. And what he cared about most passionately was, quite simply, good writing.

And with that, my regular posts for this year are done. Next: the Existential Ennui Review of the Year in Books and Comics...

Len Deighton's London Dossier (Penguin Paperback, 1967)

2011-12-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

Having blogged about Len Deighton's first two Secret File novels, The Ipcress File (1962) and Horse Under Water (1963) – and thanks are due for their assistance with those posts to Rob Mallows, Edward Milward-Oliver and everyone who left a comment – for this Deighton bonus post I have a splendid book of non-fiction, one which I was alerted to by the ubiquitous Jeremy Duns...

Len Deighton's London Dossier was first published in the UK in 1967 simultaneously by Jonathan Cape – in hardcover – and Penguin – in paperback, which is the edition you can see above. I say "first published", but in fact that should really be "first and only", because those two editions represent the only appearance of the book, which has been out of print for decades. Consequently, London Dossier is in very short supply in either edition: there are no copies at all on Amazon Marketplace at present, and only ten on AbeBooks, only one of those – a Cape hardback – from a UK-based seller. So any Brits wishing to get themselves a copy have a slight problem... although, if you're quick, you could always swoop in on this eBay auction for a Penguin paperback, which ends just before 6.30pm on Tuesday 20 December.

And it is worth getting hold of, not least for the terrific cover, which was designed by Len Deighton's friend, Raymond Hawkey. Hawkey designed the covers of both editions of the book, and while his concoction for the Cape hardback dustjacket, which replicates the notices you'd often find in a public telephone box, is inventive – you can see it on the book's dedicated page on Rob Mallows's Deighton Dossier website – the Penguin cover is, to my mind, equally alluring. It's actually a double-cover, comprising an outer front cover with a die-cut keyhole, and an inner cover bearing a photo of famed model Twiggy's face, whose left eye peeps through the keyhole. It's an innovative piece of design, and foreshadows Hawkey's slightly later "bullet hole" covers for Coronet's line of Richard Stark "Parker" novels.

As to the book itself, it's a collection of essays by Deighton and others on London – a kind of tourist guide, if you will. Deighton provides an opening general guide to London – with lots of helpful advice, such as this for umarried couples: "British hotels... (being primarily concerned with the proprieties), prefer you to [book in as] Mr and Mrs even if you are sinning" – and another dozen or so short pieces, sprinkled in amongst essays by the likes of journalist and noted Soho boozer Daniel Farson, photographer Adrian Flowers (who took the cover picture of Twiggy) and thriller author Eric Clark. For my part I was pleased to spot mentions of my old Soho haunt The Coach & Horses, as well as The Colony Room (Michael Andrews's evocative painting of which can be seen below), both of which were frequented by one of my favourite writers, Jeffrey Bernard (I sat next to him at the bar of the Coach a few times, and saw Peter O'Toole play him in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell) – that's him in the white shirt on the left of Andrews's painting.

The essays are fascinating, idiosyncratic and often hugely entertaining, and last year the book as a whole acted as a springboard for a series of columns in The Londonist, taking each chapter in turn and looking at how London has changed since. It's tough to beat the original, though, which has obviously dated in some respects, but still contains plenty of information on the capital which will prove useful to the befuddled tourist. That's if they can find a copy...

And with that, I'm done with Mr. Deighton for now, and almost done with the regular posts for this year as well. But there should just be time to squeeze in a Violent World of Parker cross-post before I get to my long-dreaded – I mean, awaited – end-of-year-review posts, so look out for that soon...

Horse Under Water (Secret File No. 2) by Len Deighton: True First Edition (Crossword Endpapers), Jonathan Cape, 1963; a Lewes Bookshop Bargain

2011-12-17T04:35:00.000-08:00

On to the second of my latest (brief) run of posts on Len Deighton's Secret File novels, which star the nameless spy more commonly known as Harry Palmer. And after reviewing the unnamed spy's first outing (not to mention Deighton's debut), The Ipcress File – with additional thoughts on the book from Kingsley Amis (and some great comments now, too) – today I'm taking a look at the author and his star's second espionage thriller: Horse Under Water.

Published by Jonathan Cape in 1963, Horse Under Water sees Deighton's unnamed agent taking a navy diving course so as to assist in the investigation of a sunken German U-boat, in which is discovered heroin (hence the "horse" in the title). Rob Mallows's excellent Deighton Dossier website has further information on the novel – one of two "unnamed spy" books not to have been turned into a film (the fifth novel, An Expensive Place to Die, wasn't filmed either) – and tons of other Deighton-related material as well – as does the spin-off Deighton Dossier blog (from which Rob kindly linked my Ipcress File post). The dustjacket was designed once again by Raymond Hawkey, and for me it's a toss-up as to which is better – the jackets for The Ipcress File, Horse Under Water or, indeed, for Secret File No. 3, Funeral in Berlin (1964), which to my mind is just as good as the first two.

As explored in the comments in the previous post, Deighton left his original publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, after he became dissatisfied with their conservative print run on The Ipcress File, moving instead to Jonathan Cape (to whom he'd originally shown The Ipcress File), where he would remain until the late-1970s. However, so successful was Deighton becoming that even Cape had to act fast to keep up with demand for Horse Under Water, despite its larger print run. A second printing was required a couple of months after the first... and here we encounter a certain amount of confusion in book collecting circles...

As with The Ipcress File, where many chapters are prefaced by astrological predictions for Aquarius, there's a playful theme weaving through Horse Under Water, too: crosswords. Each numbered chapter has a prefatory "clue", with a corresponding list of numbers and "solutions" at the start of the book:

Furthermore, the endpapers of the novel are designed as a crossword puzzle, with the grid on the left hand paper and the clues largely on the right (repeated on both front and back ends):

And here we reach the source of the confusion: the crossword endpapers seemingly only appeared in the first impression of the first edition; for later impressions the ends were simply printed plain black. But many sellers on sites like AbeBooks – and indeed in bricks-and-mortar bookshops – neglect to mention this, and so there are a lot of copies of Horse Under Water out there being sold as true first editions when they are, in fact, no such thing. Some sellers even go so far as to suggest that the plain black endpaper edition is the true first, not the crossword endpaper edition; and since black endpapered copies don't appear to bear the legend "second impression" on the copyright page, it could be argued those sellers have a point.

Except for one thing: the true first impression of Horse Under Water also came with a loosely inserted blank crossword puzzle. Readers were invited to fill in the puzzle and send it in to win a £50 book token prize (a considerable sum back then, as Rob Mallows points out on his dedicated Horse Under Water page). But the clues for the crossword were – you guessed it – on the endpapers. So it seems clear that the crossword endpaper printing must be the true first of Horse Under Water. (Thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Mallows for the pic of the crossword insert.)

Of course, the upshot of readers sending their inserted crosswords off is that very few copies now have the insert still inside, and those that do fetch a premium as a result (you'd be lucky to find one for much less than £200). Mine, you'll be unsurprised to learn, does not have the insert included, but it does at least, as you can see, have the crossword endpapers. I bought it fairly recently (for a very reasonable price) in Lewes' Bow Windows Bookshop; their stock of first editions doesn't change that much, but I just happened to pop in there and there it was, propped up on the table. Its dustjacket is a little grubby, but at least the endpaper crossword isn't filled in – something that had happened to another copy I saw at a book fair a while back. (At a more recent book fair I saw another copy of Horse Under Water, advertised as a true first, and including the insert, but actually with plain black endpapers. See what I mean about confusion?)

UPDATE 1: A further wrinkle has emerged as regards the first edition. Len Deighton's biographer, Edward Milward-Oliver, emailed me shortly after I posted the above, letting me know that 500 copies of Horse Under Water were sent out prior to publication to reviewers and trade buyers... with plain black endpapers. This was done, Edward reports, "so as not to pre-empt the crossword competition which ran from publication day Monday October 21 to Thursday October 31, 1963". Therefore, it seems that at least some of the black-endpapered copies actually preceded the first impression...

Anyway, so this post isn't entirely devoted to tedious matters to do with book collecting, let's turn in closing to our old friend Donald McCormick, and his 1977 survey, Who's Who in Spy Fiction. To assist in the writing of his book, McCormick communicated via letters with many of his subjects, Len Deighton among them. Consequently, there are some intriguing insights in Deighton's entry, and direct quotes from Deighton himself, such as: "Writers like me have quite a lot in common with spies. I like to be able to listen to conversations without people turning round to look at me." Horse Under Water gets a good few lines to itself, which are worth quoting, I think:

Here was an author who was fascinated by war and the gadgetry and hardware that go with modern warfare. He sought authentic background for his second story: "My hero has to dive to a sunken submarine. So that I could get background stuff the Admiralty gave me access to HMS Vernon, the frogman training establishment." Somebody must have thought he was too interested in these matters, because the Naval Security authorities asked to see the manuscript of Horse Under Water.

UPDATE 2: In his email to me, Edward Milward-Oliver also mentioned that the jacket of the first edition of Horse Under Water differs from the proof jacket, which was more cluttered and featured a photograph of Len Deighton at HMS Vernon on the front flap. Edward attached a scan of the proof jacket to his email, so with many thanks to Mr. Milward-Oliver, here it is, with photos of my first for comparison:

And that's all from Deighton's unnamed spy novels for the moment... but not all from Deighton. Because I have a Len Deighton bonus post lined up next, on a collection of travel writing boasting contributions from some of the 1960s' leading journalistic lights...

Book Review: The Ipcress File by Len Deighton (Secret File No. 1, Hodder & Stoughton First Edition, 1962); plus Kingsley Amis on Deighton

2011-12-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

We're into the final furlong now as regards my series of posts on spy fiction series – at least, for this year; I'll be continuing the series in 2012 – before we reach whatever navel-gazing end-of-year posts I can be arsed to sling together to see 2011 off (plus one last Violent World of Parker cross-post, a sequel to this one on Donald E. Westlake's farewell to science fiction). And we're finishing (for now) with a flourish, with two novels by one of the biggest names in the spy fiction field: Len Deighton. I've blogged about Deighton a few times before, but it's to his best-known series that I'm returning this time, a series featuring an anonymous secret agent who is more widely known, thanks to his Michael Caine-starring film adaptations, as Harry Palmer. And we'll begin... at the beginning...

The Ipcress File was first published in hardback in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton in 1962, and is Deighton's debut novel as well as the first to star his nameless spy. The copy seen here, however, isn't the true first, i.e. a first impression. First impressions of the book – which had a relatively small initial print run of, I believe, 2,500 – go for anything from £600 to over £1,000. Mine is the second impression, published in the same year as the true first (which was published in November of 1962), but identifiable as a second printing by the copyright line and the fact that it carries a couple of reviews on the dustjacket front flap, which are absent on the first impression:

Even so, second impressions can still fetch over £300 – and even third or later impressions (the edition went through at least eight printings that I know of) can go for anywhere from £30 to £200 – so, considering I won my copy on eBay for a fiver, I'm not complaining. (My copy also included an aged newspaper clipping advertising, rather incongruously, college courses, which had left a brown stain on the pages it had been inserted between.) The iconic dustjacket was designed by Deighton's friend Raymond Hawkey – who I've also blogged about repeatedly – here establishing an instantly recognisable artfully-arranged-and-photographed-props approach which would serve him well over the coming decades.

As to the novel itself, it's an entertaining read... but I must admit I did struggle with it. I think the story's about defecting scientists... or possibly double agents... or perhaps nuclear weapons... and herein lies the problem (well, my problem): pretty much all the way through I literally had no idea what the hell was going on.

The story is narrated by our nameless spy in a seductively laidback, down-to-earth fashion, far removed from the more serious stylings of Deighton's contemporary, John le Carré, or Ian Fleming's more glamorous Bond novels. There's a playfulness to the text, signified by astrological predictions for Aquarius at the start of many chapters and an appendix at the back of the book. Deighton is good on atmosphere and location, especially London's Soho district (an area I know well myself), its gambling joints and coffee shops. There are some riveting action sequences and moments of high tension: the novel reaches fever pitch following a nuclear test, when our narrator is deported to the East and subjected to weeks of interrogation, brainwashing and torture, coming close to questioning his sanity.

But as enjoyable as all this is (even the torture), it doesn't counter the fact that The Ipcress File is terribly confusing. Part of my problem with the book, I'm sure, was my own innate denseness – even at the story's close I was still none the bloody wiser – but that doesn't, I don't think, account for all of it. Authors withholding information in spy or suspense novels is a given, but Deighton withholds virtually everything, so that even the shape of the mystery is difficult to discern.

I'm not the only reader to have professed bewilderment, either: in an addendum to his essay "A New James Bond" in What Became of Jane Austen?, Kingsley Amis – whose opinion I greatly respect – admits that he had "tough sledding with The Ipcress File... The endless twists and turns of the plot, the systematic withholding of clues and even of settings in time and place..."

Amis's overall assessment of The Ipcress File is fairly scathing, and I certainly don't agree with his entire judgment – I did, as I say, enjoy the novel, in spite of my bemusement. (And indeed even Amis did eventually come round to Deighton's charms, telling Philip Larkin in a letter dated June 18, 1985, "Actually Deighton's quite good if you stop worrying about what's going on"; thanks to Jeremy Duns for that additional insight.) But his sign-off to the addendum is amusingly caustic, and worth repeating. Amis writes: "The whole thing is supposedly told to the Minister of Defence, who at an early stage makes what I thought was a reasonable request for enlightenment over some detail. The hero answers with his usual humility [here Amis quotes the following passage]:

'It's going to be very difficult for me if I have to answer questions as I go along,' I said. 'If it's all the same to you, Minister, I'd prefer you to make a note of the questions, and ask me afterwards.'

'My dear chap, not another word, I promise.'

And throughout the entire explanation he never again interrupted.

"I know why," reports Amis: "He was asleep."

One final note before we move on: while the narrator of The Ipcress File is never named, his eventual christening as Harry Palmer is presaged in the novel. Early on, for some reason someone hails him as "Harry", to which our narrator responds, "Now my name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been". Maybe it had, maybe it hadn't; but one thing's for sure: for many people, it soon would be...

And with that, it's on to the second Deighton novel... which, surprisingly enough, is also Deighton's – and his nameless spy's – second outing: Horse Under Water.

"Don't Call Us, We'll Call You": Donald E. Westlake's Farewell to Science Fiction (from The Best of Xero)

2011-12-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

(NB: a version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker blog.)

Well, after all the excitement on Existential Ennui yesterday – not only a post on a scarce signed edition of an Adam Hall/Quiller spy novel, but also news of the return of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm spy novels (broken first on this very blog, I might add – and do read the comments on that post if you haven't already) – it's back down to earth with a bump. Or rather, out into space with a jolt, as I return to the science fiction stories penned by crime novelist – and perennial Existential Ennui preoccupation – Donald E. Westlake.

I actually have Violent World of Parker reader Sandra Bond to thank for this latest post – or, more accurately, couple of posts: there's a lot to cover here, so it'll be better if I split it into two missives. Sandra emailed me after I'd finished my second run of reviews of Westlake's SF stories to draw my attention to the book you can see above. Published by Tachyon Publications in 2004, The Best of Xero is a collection of essays, reviews and letters collated from the long-defunct American science fiction fanzine Xero, which ran for ten issues from 1960–1962. It's a fascinating document of a pre-internet era, when fans – and professionals – communicated via fanzines rather than through blogs or message boards, and features pieces by the likes of James Blish, Roger Ebert, Frederick Pohl and Harlan Ellison.

But what, you may be wondering, has all this to do with Westlake? Well, midway through Xero's run, Westlake wrote an incendiary essay for the fanzine, entitled "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You". In the piece, Westlake burns his bridges with science fiction in spectacular fashion, laying into what he perceives as the dreadful editing endemic in the SF story magazines of the time, the terrible taste of those magazines' editors – Analog's John W. Campbell ("an egomaniac"), The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's Robert P. Mills ("a journeyman incompetent"), etc. – and the pathetic state of the science fiction field in general.

But Westlake reserves his most scathing opprobrium for himself (kind of...). After noting that, "Today, I am a full-time mystery writer, working on my fifth mystery novel", and that the science fiction field "can't support" or even "interest" him, he writes:

It's time for credentials, before going into this thing any deeper. If I'm going to talk as a professional writer who isn't doing anything in science fiction and who claims that he might have done something worthwhile if it were worth his while to do so, I ought to show my identity card. Therefore:

Science Fiction. I have sold thirteen stories, two of which have not yet been published and none of which are any damn good. I have sold to Universe, Original, Future, Super, Analog, Amazing, If, and Galaxy. A fourteenth story was sold to Fantastic Universe, which proceeded to drop dead before they could publish it. Both John Campbell and Cele Goldsmith have asked me to write sequels to novelettes of mine they had bought (I haven't written either, and won't). In a desk drawer I have twenty-odd thousand words of a science fiction novel, which is good, but which I'm not going to finish because it isn't worth my while.

I'm assuming the novel Westlake refers to is Anarchaos, which did eventually see print (albeit under a pseudonym), while some of the stories he talks about are ones I covered at length in my two runs of posts on Westlake's SF. I always had a question at the back of my mind whilst writing those posts: why did Westlake stop writing SF (or largely stop; years later he did pen some additional SF stories for Playboy)? Though none of Westlake's early SF stories – at least the ones I've read, which is roughly two-thirds of them – could be considered classics, either of the genre or compared to the best of his own work, it was always evident that the writer knew SF well and had, at some point, loved SF. Here, finally, in "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You", is the answer. After detailing his even-by-this-stage considerable achievements in the mystery field, Westlake continues:

I am not sitting around bragging. I'm simply trying to make something clear: I can write. I can write well. I am capable of first-class work. But the only thing I've ever written in science fiction that I am at all proud of is a novel I'll never finish because there is economically, stylistically, and philosophically no place for it.

Do you know what I'm talking about? I cannot sell good science fiction.

Westlake goes on to cite a specific example, whereby he and Randall Garrett – who was staying with Westlake for a while – were both writing stories aimed at John W. Campbell's Analog, and entertaining themselves by including private jokes for each other's benefit (something Westlake would continue to do with other writer friends). Westlake's wheeze in his story was to include an Air Force Colonel in the latter stages of the tale, "the spitting image of John Campbell, betting Randy that Campbell would never notice it". Having taken delivery of the story, Campbell requested a revision: "He wanted me to make the Colonel the lead character. I did it. Eighteen thousand words. Four hundred and fifty dollars."

Westlake doesn't name the story, but as Sandra Bond pointed out to me, it's clearly "Look Before You Leap", a tale I reviewed in September. I noted at the time that I found its militaristic leanings and upbeat ending curious, and here is the explanation for that: Westlake rewrote it, making Colonel Brice more prominent, at the request of John W. Campbell.

"Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" is remarkably strong stuff, written out of sheer frustration at the state of the American science fiction publishing landscape in the early 1960s. But as fascinating as it is, perhaps of even greater interest are the responses to Westlake's article, from regular Xero readers and from some of the targets of Westlake's scorn. And in my next Violent World of Parker cross-post, I'll be delving into those responses, as well as looking at Westlake's final say on the controversy he caused.

Back here on Existential Ennui, however, it's back to the spy fiction series we go. And for my final run of posts on spy series – for this year; there's more to follow in the new year – I'll be turning (or even, returning) to one of the most iconoclastic series of spy novels ever created, starring an anonymous secret agent narrator who subsequently gained a very familiar name via his cinematic outings...

BREAKING NEWS! Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm Spy Novels Series Returns to Print in 2013, from Titan Books!

2011-12-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

So then, as teased at the end of the previous post (on Adam Hall/Quiller) – and indeed also hinted at last month – I have some very exciting news today. Beginning in 2013, Titan Books will be bringing back into print American author Donald Hamilton's series of espionage novels starring super spy Matt Helm!

For those unfamiliar with the Matt Helm novels, from 1960 to 1993 Donald Hamilton penned twenty-seven adventures – plus one further, unpublished work – starring Helm, a former World War II secret agent who's brought out of retirement in his debut outing, Death of a Citizen. Hailed by spy novelist Jeremy Duns (among many others) as one of the best espionage series ever published, the novels are renowned for their gritty, grounded take on the spy genre. The books were phenomenally successful in their day, shifting twenty million copies worldwide and begetting four movies (starring Dean Martin) and a TV show, but sadly slipped out of print for years. Not for much longer, however: because in 2013, my former employers, Titan Books, will begin reissuing the series, starting with the very first novel!

Commenting on the news, Titan Books' Publisher, Nick Landau, said: "These novels were among the best spy thrillers ever published. We're thrilled to partner with the estate of Donald Hamilton, enabling us to bring them back into print and show readers what they've been missing all these years."

Terrific stuff, and no mistake. Doubtless there'll be further details from Titan – home too, lest we forget, to the Hard Case Crime imprint – on their plans for the Matt Helm series down the line, so keep 'em peeled for updates – and in the meantime perhaps go have a read of my three previous Hamilton/Helm posts, which can be found here, here, and here. And I'll be back before too long with that promised Violent World of Parker cross-post...

The Striker Portfolio (Quiller #3) by Adam Hall: Signed Bookplate First Edition (Heinemann, 1969)

2011-12-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

For this second of two posts on intriguingly collectible editions of Quiller spy novels by Adam Hall – a.k.a. Elleston Trevor – I have a first edition which has a direct connection to another Quiller first I blogged about in September...

This is the British hardback first edition of The Striker Portfolio, the third Quiller mission, published by Heinemann in 1969 (dustjacket design/cover photos uncredited, I'm afraid; again, perhaps the Quiller Yahoo Group can shed some light there). I blogged about this particular novel – which sees Quiller trying to find out why thirty-six Striker aircraft have crashed within a year – during my initial run of Adam Hall/Quiller posts back in July, in a 1970 Book Club edition. Which begs the obvious question, why on earth am I now blogging about the book again – albeit in a different edition – especially when I stated in that original post that the Heinemann first wasn't terribly scarce and that therefore I was perfectly happy with that Book Club copy? And it's true, the Heinemann first is readily available... but this particular copy is a bit more special than merely being a first edition. For if we take a look on the front endpaper...

We can see that it has an Adam Hall bookplate affixed, signed by Elleston Trevor as Hall. It's dated April 1969, and addressed from Domaine de Chateauneuf, near Nice, where Trevor was living at that juncture. But what's more, it's inscribed to a Kathleen Hutchings... who, in a strange quirk of fate, is precisely the same person the signed Adam Hall bookplate first edition of the second Quiller novel, The 9th Directive, I blogged about in September was dedicated to. What are the odds? The two books came from completely different dealers (although both from Amazon Marketplace), are in markedly different condition – fine in the case of The Striker Portfolio, only about good in the case of The 9th Directive – and are dated by Hall two years apart, and yet have both ended up in my greasy paws.

Mind you, considering the scarcity of signed copies of Adam Hall novels – as I mentioned in that 9th Directive Post, while there are a good forty-plus copies of various signed Elleston Trevor books on AbeBooks, signed Adam Hall/Quiller novels number in the low single figures – I guess it's not so surprising that I've ended up with two books dedicated to the same person. Whoever Kathleen Hutchings was, then, she belonged to a very select and lucky band, and, considering the two books I own are dated a couple of years apart, evidently she had a years-long association with Trevor. And as spy novelist and Hall/Quiller aficionado Jeremy Duns wondered when I tweeted about this copy of The Striker Portfolio – to my knowledge the only signed edition of the book in existence – does that mean there are other dedicated-to-Kathleen-Hutchings Quiller first editions out there somewhere...?

Anyway, that's all from Adam Hall for the moment (although as ever, I'll be returning to him down the line)... but that's not all from the spy fiction series. Because while I had planned to veer away from the espionage novels briefly for a Violent World of Parker cross-post, I've just received confirmation of a very exciting piece of news regarding another spy novelist – an author I blogged about just last month in a run of posts on his best known creation, Matt Helm. So check back in with Existential Ennui later today for an exclusive announcement about Donald Hamilton...

The Scorpion Signal (Quiller #9) by Adam Hall: Prebind or Uncorrected Proof? (Collins, 1979)

2011-12-12T00:43:00.000-08:00

So then, did we all enjoy Paul Simpson's guest post on Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes audio plays? Jolly good. All being well, Paul will be back in the new year with another guest post, and I'll also hopefully have a further guest essay from another friend and former colleague of mine, on a "suppressed" work for adults by one of Britain's most beloved children's authors.

Back in the here and now, though, I'd just like to say a quick thank you to Ethan Iverson, whose brilliant Do the Math blog linked Existential Ennui at the end of last week, in the process sending a stampede of no-doubt bewildered traffic my way. I was already familiar with Do the Math, having used Ethan's terrific overview of Donald E. "Richard Stark" Westlake's canon – which includes quotes from Westlake himself – to navigate Westlake's work when I first got into that writer's novels a couple of years back, so it's a real pleasure to receive props from Mr. Iverson, and for my part I can heartily recommend spending a few hours exploring his extensive archives.

Anyway: to business. And I'm afraid the year is rather getting away from me: I'm not going to be able to complete my series of posts on spy fiction series before 2011 draws to a close, so that series will have to continue in the new year. But I should be able to squeeze in a couple more spy novelists – and a couple of Violent World of Parker cross-posts – before I inflict a barrage of end-of-year missives on you, both of them writers who've featured on Existential Ennui before. Beginning with the first of two novels by Adam Hall, an alias of Elleston Trevor:

This is The Scorpion Signal, Hall/Trevor's ninth novel to feature his secret agent protagonist Quiller. I blogged about the Quiller series in a run of posts in July; in this instalment, Quiller must retrieve an old ally from the clutches of the KGB. But what's interesting about this particular copy of the novel is that it's not, for a change, the British first edition – or at least not what we'd normally identify as a first edition. For one thing, although it has a dustjacket (unclipped, but also uncredited – I can't tell you who illustrated it; possibly Chris Foss, who illustrated the jacket of 1973's The Tango Briefing... perhaps the denizens of the Quiller Yahoo Group can lend some assistance here...?), once you remove the jacket, instead of being cased the book inside has been bound in a thin blue paper cover, with nothing at all printed on it:

However, the copyright line inside the book states that it is the 1979 Collins first edition:

So what is it? The eBay seller I bought it from called it a "prebind", a term which usually denotes a library edition of a novel. I'm not sure that's an accurate description, though. I think it's more likely it's an uncorrected proof, i.e. an advance readers' or reviewers' copy – see this post on a Patricia Highsmith proof and this one on a Dennis Lehane one – in which case it predates the British first edition. But while there are plenty of copies of the proper British first on AbeBooks at present, ranging in price from a fiver to over twenty quid, I can't see any other copies of this proof (or prebind, or whatever the hell it is), making it something of a collectible curio.

But not, perhaps, as collectible as the second Adam Hall novel I'll be showcasing – a very special first edition which has a connection to another Hall/Quiller first I blogged about in September...