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.

Introducing British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s: a New Permanent Page

Here's a potentially entertaining diversion for you on a Friday: over 90 British – and British edition – thriller book covers from the '70s and '80s, all lovingly arranged in a brand new Existential Ennui gallery:

British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s

You can read all about the gallery and what my aim was in putting it together by following that link, but as well as introducing the permanent page, I just wanted to make a few additional comments and fill in some of the background here on the main blog. As with the recently established Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery, this one took me by surprise somewhat. The idea only really came to me last week, when I was posting those Elmore Leonard '70s dust jackets. Those, and Graham Miller's wrapper for the 1974 Heinemann edition of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game – Miller also having provided the cover photos for two of those Leonard books – plus a subsequent exchange with Andrew Nette of the excellent Pulp Curry on Twitter, got me thinking: perhaps there might be some mileage, a la my Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s page, in a gallery devoted to 1970s thriller book covers, especially British ones.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it could work. I certainly had enough of those kinds of books to assemble such a thing, a lot of them already photographed, the images appearing elsewhere on Existential Ennui. But limiting it to just the '70s didn't feel quite right. After all, the bold, brutalist, largely – but not exclusively – photographic style of 1970s British thriller book cover design was still prevalent in the 1980s – and there was the added impetus that presenting two decades rather than one would mirror the original Existential Ennui gallery, the aforementioned Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s.

Once I'd settled on showcasing the '80s as well as the '70s, and elected to limit the selection to the covers of thrillers, suspense novels, crime and spy fiction published in the UK – which is what my book collection essentially consists of – it all fell into place remarkably swiftly and easily. And so now British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s is, for better or worse, a reality. At last, here is a permanent home –accessible via the link at the top of Existential Ennui's sidebar (although it may at some point move under the masthead) – for all those brilliantly blunt, sometimes bloody awful Beverley le Barrow covers I've been banging on about for ages; for those stray '70s and '80s thrillers I've collected over the last few years and have never quite known what to do with; as well as for covers for novels from the '70s and '80s by some of my favourite authors: Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Ross Thomas, Donald E. Westlake, Gavin Lyall, Anthony Price, Geoffrey Household and others.

Alongside those authors you'll find a couple of dozen more besides, over forty in total, represented by over 90 dust jackets and paperback covers (yes, paperback covers: there's no format snobbery in this gallery). Many have appeared elsewhere on Existential Ennui. Some, like Robert Ludlum's Bourne books, I've rephotographed especially for the page. Others are making their Existential Ennui debut, such as some of those illustrating this post: Jon Knights' classic Ipcress File-style arrangement for the 1980 Granada first edition of Ted Allbeury's The Twentieth Day of January; Jeremy Ford's stark illustration for the 1979 Hutchinson edition of Robert Littell's The Debriefing and Barry Glyn's realist one for the 1975 Collins first of Berkely Mather's With Extreme Prejudice (purchased just the other day for a pound in a Lewes charity shop); and of course the wrapper for the 1979 Cape edition of Raymond Hawkey's Side-Effect, designed by the man who bears more responsibility for the look of British thriller covers in the '70s and '80s than any other: Raymond Hawkey.

And I'm not done yet. Over the coming weeks I'll be adding loads more covers to the page, starting next week with a bunch of covers wrapping books by perhaps Existential Ennui's most enduring abiding concern.

British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s

The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas: a Review (Simon and Schuster / Hamish Hamilton, 1979)

From a factual – if idiosyncratic and self-serving – account of the early years of World War II, to a decidedly fictional take on the year following the end of the conflict, written by an American author who's now a firm favourite here on Existential Ennui:

Ross Thomas's The Eighth Dwarf was first published in hardback in 1979 by Simon & Schuster in the US and Hamish Hamilton in the UK, the Beverley le Barrow-designed dustjacket of which you can see above. Following hot on the heels of the brilliant Chinaman's Chance (1978), it features yet another of Thomas's in-it-for-the-money antiheroes, this time in the shape of Minor Jackson, an ex-OSS operative now out to make a fast buck any way he can. Mid-thirties, prematurely greyed and currently residing in California, Minor enters into an uneasy partnership with a Romanian dwarf named Nicolae Ploscaru in order to locate the son of a German Jewish expat, Kurt Oppenheimer – for a substantial fee. Trouble is, Oppenheimer has become a one-man killing machine, and is currently hunting Nazi war criminals across Germany.

The year is 1946, and moves are afoot in the States for a new intelligence agency. One of the architects of this new agency is Robert Henry Orr, Jackson's former OSS boss; Orr is also interested in Oppenheimer's uniquely murderous talents, so he assists Minor in getting to Germany. But America isn't the only nation keen to capture young Kurt: the Brits are also sniffing around him, in the shape of Major Gilbert Baker-Bates, and the Russians have sent an emissary into Germany too, an ex-concentration camp inmate named Bodden. As each of these parties zeroes in on the seemingly unhinged Oppenheimer, the bodies start piling up, and the chances of Minor escaping with his skin intact, let alone with any money, become increasingly remote.

As with all of the Ross Thomas novels I've read thus far, The Eighth Dwarf's strength lies in its cast of colourful characters, although in this instance it's the supporting players who really stand out. Minor himself is suitably insouciant, but although Thomas sketches in some background for him – notably a disapproving father – there's little to him beyond his nonchalant attitude. Much more interesting are the wry, practical Bodden, the exasperated Lieutenant Meyer, who's tasked with keeping tabs on Jackson, and Kurt Oppenheimer, whose psychosis builds throughout the book. And then there's Ploscaru, or "the wicked dwarf" as he's known in the intelligence community. Ploscaru remains a remote figure throughout, but with his devious, untrustworthy nature and animal cunning, he shines whenever he makes an appearance.

Mind you, all of that's not to disparage the plot, which, while not as Byzantine as others of Thomas's books, still ducks and weaves effectively, ratcheting up the tension as the net closes in on Oppenheimer. The denouement is satisfyingly ironic too, featuring an international auction (of all things) which neatly punctures the whole enterprise. There's also room for a sequel, but unlike Chinaman's Chance, which warranted two follow-up novels, The Eighth Dwarf was destined never to be developed further, although Minor Jackson and Nicolae Ploscaru do warrant a mention in Thomas's final novel, 1994's Ah, Treachery!

Speaking of Chinaman's Chance, I've got one last post to come in this short World War II-themed series – a Ross Thomas bonus post in which I'll be taking a look at both Chinaman's Chance and The Eighth Dwarf, in two intriguing interconnected later editions...

Lewes Book Bargain: Never Shake a Skeleton by Alfred Flett (Michael Joseph, 1973); Beverley le Barrow Cover

It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK, which means it's a holiday for most folk (I guess the clue's in the name there). But I couldn't very well leave you with nothing to read but the weekend's Doctor Who novelisation post, now could I? So, to kick off a run of what will be for the foreseeable future a reasonably random selection of posts – whatever comes to hand or takes my fancy, basically, although it's a safe bet many of the books will be of a crime or espionage bent – let's have a look at a book I bought in the Lewes Antique Centre, down on Cliffe High Street:

Never Shake a Skeleton by Alfred Flett was published in hardback in the UK by Michael Joseph in 1973. It's the story of an operative for the Establishment, "Freeman", who's led by a beautiful blonde to, as the jacket flap copy has it, "believe he could win a war. But he found, to his horror, that his own side played rougher than the wartime enemy. He tried again—thirty years later. This was his second error. He shook some skeletons. And 'Freeman' found, once more, that his own side were the toughest antagonists of them all..."

I think I get a vague sense of the story from that blurb; it seems to encompass espionage elements, which was part of the reason I bought it. But not the whole reason. I was also curious about Alfred Flett, who, as the back cover author bio notes, was a journalist (and presumably carried on as such after Never Shake a Skeleton was published; there was no second novel for him), which made me wonder if he was any relation to the former Observer journo Kathryn Flett. He almost certainly wasn't her father – her dad's name is Doug, I believe – but might he be related some other way?

But it was spying (hey!) the credit for the cover photograph that made me decide to plonk down the (meagre amount of) cash in the end. Because, once again, it was taken by Beverley le Barrow – here spelt with no third "e" in his first name – a.k.a. Sun newspaper Page 3 snapper Beverley Goodway. I last blogged about Beverley a couple of weeks ago during Ross Thomas Week, Mark III, but as is now traditional I'll direct you to this post for a summary of all my previous missives on him. Interestingly, Never Shake a Skeleton wasn't the only first edition on the shelves of the Lewes Antique Centre which sported a Le Barrow dustjacket; there were a couple of '70s John Creasey novels with cover photos by Beverley, too. Seems Mr. Le Barrow was even busier during the 1970s than I figured...

Next: a first edition that doesn't, in fact, belong to me...

A Ross Thomas and Oliver Bleeck First Edition Cover Gallery: The UK Hamish Hamilton Novels

And so we reach the final post in this seemingly interminable series of, at least according to The Rap Sheet (the swine!), "gushing" missives on crime/espionage/political suspense author Ross Thomas. Shall we have a wee recap before we draw a line under it all? Why not. Here's what the week's comprised thus far:

• On Monday I showed off a very scarce 1968 UK Hodder & Stoughton first edition of Ross Thomas's second novel, The Seersucker Whipsaw;

• On Tuesday I showcased a 1969 UK Hodder first edition of Thomas's fourth novel, The Singapore Wink;

• On Wednesday I posted a review of Thomas's fifth novel (or maybe sixth, if you could the debut Bleeck novel, The Brass Go-Between), The Fools in Town Are on Our Side;

• And on Thursday I posted a gallery of all the Hodder & Stoughton Ross Thomas/Oliver Bleeck first edition covers;

• Friday saw two posts; in the first I showed off a 1974 Hamish Hamilton first edition of If You Can't Be Good;

• And in the second I detoured slightly from Ross Thomas to announce my British Library news, although that post did still have an ace picture of my Ross Thomas collection;

• Finally, yesterday I showcased a 1981 Hamilton first edition of The Mordida Man.

Which brings us back to today's post, which is another cover gallery, this time of the first editions of the eleven Ross Thomas/Oliver Bleeck novels published by Hamish Hamiltion in the UK. Before we crack on with that, though, a quick word about next week's posts, which will be of a more science fiction and fantasy bent, and will largely consist of lots of Bob Haberfield's fab psychedelic covers to the 1960s and '70s Mayflower paperback editions of Michael Moorcock's novels. The week will begin, however, with a return to Donald E. Westlake, specifically a review of his only full-length science fiction novel, 1967's Anarchaos. Should have that up on Monday.

Right then. Time to send Ross Thomas Week, Mark III off in style with those Hamish Hamilton first edition covers (with, as with the Hodder & Stoughton gallery, US pub dates, cover credits and links back to previous posts). Bask in their glory!

If You Can't Be Good, Hamish Hamilton, 1974 (US William Morrow, 1973); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

The Porkchoppers, Hamish Hamiltion, 1974 (US William Morrow, 1972; NB: The Porkchoppers preceded If You Can't Be Good in the US, but not in the UK); dustjacket designed by Bernard Higton.

The Highbinders by Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas), Hamish Hamilton, 1974 (US William Morrow, same year as British edition); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

The Money Harvest, Hamish Hamilton, 1975 (US William Morrow, same year as British edition); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

No Questions Asked by Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas), Hamish Hamilton, 1976 (US William Morrow, same year as British edition); dustjacket design by Ken Reilly.
 

Yellow-Dog Contract, Hamish Hamilton, 1977 (US William Morrow, 1976); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

Chinaman's Chance, Hamish Hamilton, 1978 (US Simon & Schuster, same year as British edition); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

The Eighth Dwarf, Hamish Hamilton, 1979 (US Simon & Schuster, same year as British edition); dustjacket photograph by Beverly Lebarrow (a.k.a. Beverley le Barrow, pseudonym for Beverley Goodway).

The Mordida Man, Hamish Hamilton, 1981 (US Simon & Schuster, same year as British edition); dustjacket designed by David Butler.

Missionary Stew, Hamish Hamilton, 1984 (US Simon & Schuster, 1983); dustjacket designed by Pat Doyle.

Briarpatch, Hamish Hamilton, 1985 (US Simon & Schuster, 1984); dustjacket designed by Pat Doyle.

The Mordida Man by Ross Thomas (1981 Hamish Hamilton First Edition)

After yesterday's exciting – no, really – announcement about Existential Ennui being archived by the British Library, it's back to earth with a bump today, as Ross Thomas Week, Mark III trudges wearily into the weekend. Just two more posts to come in this seemingly endless series on the crime/mystery/espionage/political thriller writer, the penultimate one being the one you are reading right now, guv. And the one you are reading right now is on this book:

Namely the UK hardback first edition of The Mordida Man, published by Hamish Hamilton in 1981. The Mordida Man was either Ross Thomas's thirteenth novel or his eighteenth – depending on whether or not you count the author's five pseudonymous Oliver Bleeck books – and I have, in fact, blogged about it before. That post was on the US Simon & Schuster hardback first edition, published in the same year as the British one – a rather special copy of it, you might recall, as it was the copy used by Penguin in the UK to mark up their changes for the 1983 British paperback edition:

That was quite a find, but it does beg the question why would I then go and get myself a copy of the UK Hamilton hardback? The answer to which, I'm afraid, is a mixture of dedication to Existential Ennui and pure collector's madness.

When I began writing this latest run of posts on Ross Thomas, I had a vague notion of posting a cover gallery or two, most likely one on the Hodder & Stoughton editions of Thomas's books – which can be found here – and another on the Hamish Hamilton editions. Until, that is, I realised I didn't have a complete set of the Hamilton ones: I was, of course, missing a British first edition of The Mordida Man. Bugger. For a while there I figured I'd assemble the Hamish Hamilton cover gallery and simply substitute my Simon & Schuster copy of the book for a Hamilton one, but that just didn't sit right. So in a last minute change of plan, with Ross Thomas Week, Mark III well underway, I nabbed a copy of the Hamilton first online and pleaded with the seller – John Stoodley of Wymouth, Dorset – to send it double-quick. Which he did, decent chap that he is.

So now, as some of you may have been able to spot in the photo I posted yesterday –

worth seeing again, I think – I have a complete set of all of the Ross Thomas Hamish Hamilton first editions. Which means three things:

1) You get to read this 'ere post, for which I have no doubt you will be eternally grateful;

2) I can now properly assemble that Hamish Hamilton cover gallery – which will form the final post in Ross Thomas Week, Mark III, hopefully tomorrow; and

3) I can show both the US and UK editions of The Mordida Man side by side:

Of the two, I think I prefer Janet Halverson's dustjacket design for the American Simon & Schuster edition. David Butler's design for the UK edition is fine, but very typical of espionage-themed novels of this period; Halverson's image, on the other hand, with the surface of the United Nations building in New York peeling away to reveal a wad of $100 bills, is a more original take on the novel's themes of money and politics (which I outlined in that original post on the book).

So, one Ross Thomas post remains: that promised Hamish Hamilton first edition cover gallery, coming very soon...

If You Can't Be Good by Ross Thomas (1974 Hamish Hamilton First Edition, Beverley le Barrow Cover)

And so this week's worth of posts on crime/espionage/political thriller author Ross Thomas rumbles on. To recap: on Monday I showcased a 1968 Hodder first edition of Thomas's second novel, The Seersucker Whipsaw, while on Tuesday I showcased a 1969 Hodder edition of his fourth novel, The Singapore Wink. Then on Wednesday I posted a review of his 1970 novel The Fools in Town Are on Our Side, and finally yesterday I presented a cover gallery of all nine of the Hodder first editions of Thomas's novels, including his pseudonymous Oliver Bleeck ones.

Today we move on from the Hodder & Stoughton editions to take a look at a Ross Thomas book published by Hamish Hamilton, the British publishing house who picked up the rights to Thomas's new novels after Hodder. As we've discussed previously, many of those Hamilton editions sport covers "designed" by one Beverley le Barrow, otherwise known as glamour photographer Beverley Goodway, who charted a rather more celebrated parallel career course as a snapper of Page 3 topless models in the Sun newspaper. But of all the Ross Thomas (and Oliver Bleeck) Hamilton first editions Beverley's cover photos appeared on – some which are quite hard to track down these days – this one proved the most elusive:

The UK first edition of If You Can't Be Good was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1974, a year after the US William Morrow first, and it was Thomas's eighth novel (eleventh in you count the Oliver Bleecks). When I was in the midst of my feverish hunt for Ross Thomas UK firsts a few months back, this Hamiltion edition of If You Can't Be Good was a right bugger to get hold of. There weren't any copies available online at all from UK-based sellers, so I had to get one from South Africa of all places (from SA Book Connection to be precise, who did me a good deal – hello, Ian!). Typically, a couple have since popped up for sale online from UK sellers, including one on AbeBooks for fifteen quid. So you can grab yourself a bargain if you're quick; the same dealer also has a selection of other Ross Thomas UK firsts for very reasonable prices indeed. (Nicholas and Helen Burrows of Coombe-Hill-Books are the sellers in question: tell 'em I sent ya.)

(An aside: I can't say this for definite, but I'm beginning to suspect all the blogging I've done on authors like Ross Thomas/Oliver Bleeck and Donald Westlake/Richard Stark is starting to raise awareness of the scarcity of some of those authors' British first editions, at least amongst a few book dealers. The flipside of that of course being whether or not I'm generating any interest in those authors by book collectors – either extant or latent. In a nutshell: by collecting these books and then writing about them, am I/Existential Ennui having an effect on whatever market – or absence thereof – there might be for these books? And furthermore, is that effect – if it indeed exists – serving either to inflate the prices of those books or causing more to come to market, thus lowering prices? Those Ross Thomas firsts on AbeBooks I've linked to above would suggest the latter, but it's an interesting notion either way...)

(UPDATE 7/7/11: almost all of those Ross Thomas firsts offered by Coombe-Hill-Books through AbeBooks have since sold. Make of that what you will...)

Those among you with reasonably long memories might recall my having blogged about If You Can't Be Good before in a Pan paperback version, which I picked up cheap when I couldn't get my mitts on a hardback. That was back when I still thought Beverley le Barrow was a woman, rather than, as he in fact is, a man. But there was no cover credit on the paperback, so I wasn't sure it was a Le Barrow effort. And if we place the two books side by side:

I'm still not entirely certain the covers are both by Beverley le Barrow (spelt, as is traditional in the Hamilton cover credits, "Beverly Lebarrow" on the hardback's dustjacket flap). The model is suitably doe-eyed and blonde in both, and the lighting is comparably flat and '70s. But there's a blue tinge to the lighting on the paperback cover, and it doesn't appear to be the same model in both. On top of that, the newspapers in the hardback picture are mocked up by the looks of it, while the ones in the paperback picture appear to be genuine.

One thing I didn't do in that previous post on If You Can't Be Good was outline the story, so let's see what the Hamilton dustjacket flap blurb has to say about it: 

Decatur Lucas was an amateur historian, but he also had a reputation for unearthing scandals which government agencies would have preferred to leave discreetly submerged. He was the perfect operator for Frank Size, the greatest muck-raking journalist even Washington has ever experienced. Size had accused Senator Ames of corruption, and the accusation had appeared to stick. But why should a millionaire accept a paltry $50,000? And, as soon as Lucas took the case, the unanswered questions began to escalate. Why should the pretty daughter of the ex-Senator be so certain that her father was innocent – and why should the attache case containing the evidence be loaded with napalm? Why should the suave Ignatius Oltighe want $5,000 before he left hurriedly for Europe? Above all, what hold did the amazing Connie Mizelle have on Ames, beyond, that is, her very obvious high-octane sex appeal? The answers were murderously simple – in the end.

Ross Thomas, in one of his most exciting books, has produced a marvellous blend of mystery and bloodshed, spiced with wit and narrated at a crackling pace.

Decatur Lucas, Frank Size, Ignatius Oltighe: gotta love those Thomas monikers. And the plot seems as complex and labyrinthine as one would expect from the author.

Anyway, next I'm taking a slight detour away from Ross Thomas Week, Mark III to make a special and rather exciting announcement – although there will still be a Ross Thomas element to the post. And you can expect that announcement later today...

Brighton Bookshop Bargain: Decoy by Arthur Maling; Michael Joseph, 1971, Beverley le Barrow Cover

For the second in this short series of posts on obscure thrillers I've picked up over the past few months, we have this:

A UK hardback first edition of Arthur Maling's Decoy, published by Michael Joseph in 1971 (originally published in the States by Harper & Row in 1969) and bought in Colin Page Antiquarian Books in Brighton for a few quid. Maling published fifteen novels over a near-twenty year period, the last being 1988's Lover and Thief. Decoy was his debut; its protagonist/narrator is, according to the jacket flap blurb, a sciatica-suffering "home town boy" who agrees to deliver some papers for his half-brother to Mexico. On the plane he meets a girl with influential Mexican friends, and before too long the corpses start piling up and the US Treasury Department gets involved.

There's little info about Maling online; this link notes that he was for a short while a reporter on the San Diego Journal, and that 1979's The Rheingold Route won the Edgar that year for Best Mystery Novel. When Decoy was published Maling was still vice-president of family business Maling Bros. Inc, "a chain of forty-two shoe shops in the American Midwest," according to the author bio on the jacket back flap of the Michael Joseph edition. It continues: "He began writing Decoy while recovering from an attack of rheumatoid arthritis which gave him the idea for the narrator's problem at the beginning of the book. He continued with it early in the morning before going to work [er, just the one morning...?] and on two short holidays, one spent in Acapulco checking background for the climax of the book." Uh-huh, I see: "research", then, was it...?

The dustjacket sports a photo by a particular favourite of Existential Ennui's, Beverley le Barrow (spelt in this instance Beverly – no third "e" – le Barrow), a.k.a. Sun newspaper Page 3 girl snapper Beverley Goodway. I summarized everything I know about Beverley's parallel career moonlighting as a book cover photographer in this recent post on Oliver Bleeck's The Highbinders, so there's little to gain from going over all that again; pop along and read that post if you're interested. But I will say here that, compared to some of his, ah, cruder cover photos, his one for Decoy is actually quite stylish, and wouldn't look out of place on, say, a Suede album cover. It's also the earliest example of a dustjacket by him I've yet come across.

Anyway. Onwards. And next up I have for you a British edition of a very obscure American crime thriller, written by a man perhaps better known as the Punisher. Well, kind of...

Lewes Book Bargain: Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (Kingsley Amis); Triad/Panther Paperback, Beverley le Barrow Cover; Review

Inveterate collector that I am, it's not unknown for me to buy different editions of books I already own in other editions when I chance upon them, and such is the case with this Spy Fiction Fortnight find/Lewes Book Bargain (which, I almost forgot, I'm posting on World Book Day, although I'm uncertain what that's all about; what can I say – every day is book day for me):

This 'ere is the 1977 UK Triad/Panther paperback edition of Robert Markham's Colonel Sun, which was the first James Bond novel to be written by someone other than Ian Fleming after Fleming's death in 1964. Penned by Bond fan Kingsley Amis under a pseudonym that was intended by Fleming's literary estate to be a kind of hand-me-down moniker for any authors who wished to pick up the Bond baton – but was, in the end, only ever used for this book – it was originally published in 1968 by Jonathan Cape – which is the other edition I already own. But when I saw this '77 first print paperback on the shelf at the Lewes branch of Oxfam recently, for, as you can see by the price sticker on the back, 99p, I couldn't resist it.

Colonel Sun went through three UK paperback publishers following its 1968 hardback debut: there was a Pan edition in 1970 (some say 1968, but I'm unsure about that); this Panther paperback in '77; and finally a Coronet edition in 1991. All of those went through multiple printings under different covers (two covers in the case of Coronet, I think), but the novel is currently out of print. Which is a shame because, although in Bond fan circles I know it's not terribly well-regarded, I actually thought it was a decent read.

It's not up there with, say, Casino Royale (1953), or From Russia, with Love (1957), but it's probably the equal of Diamonds Are Forever (1956), which I slightly struggled with due to its rather too relaxed American travelogue plot (one too many chicken dinners for Bond there, I felt). Colonel Sun suffers from a similar problem once Bond decamps to the Greek islands on the trail of the nefarious eponymous Chinese colonel, where it becomes slightly directionless. But Amis's characterization of 007 is solid, the novel gets off to a cracking start with the kidnapping of M and a couple of affecting deaths, and there's an obligatory but effective torture sequence towards the end, a bit of business of which Fleming would surely have approved.

I covered the Panther editions of the Bond novels, with their golden gun Beverley le Barrow covers, extensively in this post and this post, and reiterated what I've learned about Beverley himself in this post last week. But now I have this copy of Colonel Sun in hand, I can confirm a couple of other details from the photo session credits on the inside front cover. The dress the lovely legs-akimbo lady is wearing is by Jean Varon (misspelled as "Varron" in the cover credit), which means it was probably created by Youthquake designer John Bates. The model's hair, meanwhile, was styled by Schumi, so that's likely Chelsea hairdresser Gregor Schumi. So now you know, and now I can add the back cover to that Bond Triad/Panther cover gallery I linked to earlier.

Right then. What have we got to round off the first week of Spy Fiction Fortnight? How about a little-seen 1957 first edition of a collection of excerpts from sundry espionage stories, compiled by Graham Greene and his brother, Hugh...?