Monday 7 April 2014

James Mitchell, alias James Munro: First Editions of Bonfire Night (Callan Spy Novel #5, 2002) and The Money That Money Can't Buy (John Craig Spy Novel #3, 1967)

Television writer and producer James Mitchell penned two series of spy novels of note in his near-fifty year career. The first, a four-book series starring gunrunner-turned-secret agent John Craig, written under the pen name James Munro, ran from 1964–1969; the second, a five-book series starring British Intelligence assassin David Callan, spinning out of the Mitchell-created Callan TV show, ran from 1969–2002. I profiled both series last year, reviewing the first book in each – respectively The Man Who Sold Death and A Magnum for Schneider, alias A Red File for Callan – and showcasing first editions of almost all of the other novels – almost all, because there were two I hadn't at that point got my clammy hands on. Fortunately, in the interim, I have; and so, seeing as I reviewed the second Callan book, Russian Roulette (1973), last week, I figured now's as good a time as any to showcase them. Oldest first, I think:


The Money That Money Can't Buy by James Munro, published in hardback by Hammond in 1967 (dust jacket design uncredited). The third John Craig spy thriller, Kirkus Reviews describe it as "Just so much spy schmaltz", which seems a little harsh to me; of the Craig novels, I've only read The Man Who Sold Death thus far, and though I wasn't as keen on it as I was A Magnum for Schneider, it wasn't that bad, and given the kind of writer Mitchell was, I can't imagine the quality of the series plummets too dramatically – a supposition supported by Existential Ennui reader Darryl Crawford, who commented on my John Craig post that the later books have "some of the coolest villains this side of Modesty Blaise", and Randall Mastellar at Spy Guys & Gals, for whom "the stories are good reads and the character does come up with a couple of the greatest one-liners I've ever read".


I found this first edition on an all-too-rare-these-days trip up to London (I moved down to Lewes from London nearly six years ago), in the basement of Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road. (On the same trip I also secured a vinyl copy of my album of the year from last year, Everything Everything's Arc, in Sister Ray on Berwick Street, which I was immensely pleased about because it's incredibly hard to come by on vinyl.) I think I paid about a fiver for it, which isn't bad considering the Hammond first isn't exactly in abundant supply – there are at present only half a dozen copies for sale online – and especially not in the UK, where I can currently only see one jacketless (I believe) copy for sale online (offered, coincidentally enough, by fellow Lewes exile, and fellow blogger, Steerforth).


Even scarcer, however, unless you're prepared to put up with an ex-library copy, is the Callan novel I secured:


Bonfire Night by James Mitchell, published by Severn House in 2002 (shortly before Mitchell's death that same year), jacket photograph by Ute Klaphake. The fifth and final Callan novel, there was a near-thirty year gap between this and the previous one, 1975's Smear Job, and according to reports from Existential Ennui commenters it's either "a bit weird" (Stuart Radmore), "confusing, and reads more like a script than a book" (Saz), or is "Mitchell... operating at the very top of his game in this dense narrative" (the aforementioned Darryl Crawford). Given which, the best thing to do, I imagine, is to read the book oneself and make one's own mind up, which ordinarily would mean stumping up at least twenty-five quid for an ex-library copy of the Severn House edition – the sole edition of the novel to date. Seems the vast majority of the print run of the Severn House edition went to public lending libraries, and even my copy, which I won on eBay (in the end for less than twenty quid), while it isn't ex-library, was evidently intended for libraries:


The book's case replicates the jacket front and back as a PLC (printed laminated cover), rather than the more usual Arlin over boards, suggesting it was bound with libraries in mind. Where it actually ended up, though, was with Mitchell's agent, as evidenced by this stamp on the front free endpaper:


All of which makes one wonder if the entire print run was bound for libraries. Anybody own a copy of the Severn House edition which doesn't sport a PLC...?

Thursday 3 April 2014

Russian Roulette (Callan Novel #2) by James Mitchell (Hamish Hamilton, 1973 / Top Notch Thrillers, 2013): Book Review

NB: Linked in Patti Nase Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books, which this week is celebrating its sixth anniversary.

I made a mental note last October, when I finished reading A Magnum for Schneider, the excellent first book in James Mitchell's five-book Callan spy thriller series – which span out of the Mitchell-created Callan TV series – not to leave it too long before trying the second one, Russian Roulette. Mostly that was because I hugely enjoyed A Magnum for Schneider (alias A Red File for Callan) – it wound up taking the number two spot in my 2013 year-end top ten – but also because I knew that Mike Ripley had reissued both books that October under his Top Notch Thrillers imprint, and I like to lend a hand – in however minor a capacity – in Mike's tireless efforts to resurrect overlooked old thrillers whenever I can. In the event, it's taken me five months to get round to Russian Roulette, which probably isn't of much use to Mike in promoting his new edition of the novel – I'd have been better off reviewing the third Callan book, Death and Bright Water, which I believe Mike is reissuing sometime over the next month – but actually isn't bad for me: I've been known to let years elapse between reading instalments in a series of novels.


Russian Roulette was first published in hardback in 1973 – under a dust jacket sporting a gloriously '70s photograph of Edward Woodward as Callan, taken by glamour snapper and one-time Existential Ennui obsession Beverley le Barrow (here credited in the traditional Hamilton fashion as Beverly Lebarrow) – by Hamish Hamilton – a change of publisher from the first book, which was issued by Herbert Jenkins in 1969. Accordingly, Hamilton make very little of this being a sequel – there's a mention of A Red File for Callan on the jacket back flap and under "Other books by James Mitchell" in the prelims, but that's about it. Mind you, neither does Mitchell: as the novel opens, working class assassin David Callan is once more happily ensconced in the bosom of British Intelligence dirty tricks department the Section, with nary a mention of his being temporarily booted out by his boss, the supercilious Hunter, in A Magnum for Schneider.

It's ironic, then, that Russian Roulette once more sees Callan being kicked out of the Section, this time because Hunter has offered him up to the Russians in exchange for British Intelligence's "top man in Russia", who's been nabbed by the Soviets. To compound Callan's problems, not only does he have a specially imported KGB death squad on his tail, and not only has Hunter blocked any means of his obtaining a gun – right down to freezing his current account and even stealing his most valuable model soldiers (Callan is an enthusiastic wargamer) so that he can't sell them – but Callan's eyesight is failing too. All of which means he's forced to turn for assistance to his only friend, the odoriferous thief Lonely.


Whereas in A Magnum for Schneider the relationship between Lonely and Callan was mostly based on the former's fear of the latter, here it seems to have developed into a genuine friendship. Lonely is still scared of Callan, but then Lonely is scared of pretty much everything; he's happy to call Callan a proper mate, which is a change from his professed hatred of his erstwhile prison cellmate in the first book. And that bond is certainly tested in Russian Roulette: Callan asks things of Lonely that even the firmest of friends would balk at, and Lonely pays a terrible price for standing by him, as Callan is beset by a trio of KGB killers and betrayed by Hunter, by his fellow Section assassin Meres – in fact by almost everyone he gets close to.


Mitchell's characterisation is as surefooted as that in A Magnum for Schneider – not just Callan, who remains a convincingly common-as-muck lead, owing a small debt to Len Deighton's nameless operative but otherwise quite an original creation, but also the put-upon Lonely, the various criminals they encounter (some related to Lonely) and Hunter and Meres, representing the Establishment/old boys network, from which Callan will forever be excluded. As in the first book Mitchell grounds the espionage action in a recognisable milieu of London cafes, boozers, building sites and grubby little flats, and if the hunter/hunted story isn't quite as compelling as that in the more confined, more focused, and thus more intense, A Magnum for Schneider, Russian Roulette still rates as a very good vintage spy thriller indeed.


I showcased first editions of almost all of the Callan novels in my series of posts on Mitchell last year, as well as firsts of almost all of the John Craig spy novels Mitchell wrote under the alias James Munro. Back then, however, in both cases I was missing one book from each series. No longer: in the interim I've come into possession of first editions of those absent titles – so I thought I'd take a look at them in the next post.