Last month Mrs M’s Uncle A passed away. He was eighty-something, a man of his generation – ie very set in his ways about the role of women in his and everyone’s life, and very definite about his taste in music (strictly classical) and books.
The latter consisted of mainly what I think of as old-fashioned thrillers – where men were men and women knew their place. Which is not to denigrate that sort of writing – as a sixty-something person I grew up with Ian Fleming in print and on screen and still read/watch the best of it. Uncle A also enjoyed more contemporary writers who admittedly write in that passé manner – Lee Child, Daniel Silva and so on. We would occasionally swap books and on the occasions when we saw each other – usually family birthdays and occasions – it was a good conversation to have with him. He was a bit of a grumpy old bugger but I quite liked him and we got on well.
Anyway, a few weeks ago Mrs M’s aunt delivered a bagful of aforementioned old-fashioned thrillers to our house. About a dozen books by two of Uncle A’s favourite authors from earlier eras, A.J. Quinell and Charles McCarry. I have read one by AJQ and am struggling to finish the one by CM.
A.J Quinell – “The Perfect Kill” (1992) – the main character is one Marcus Creasy who appeared in his first and most successful book “Man On Fire”. Creasy is an experienced operator, I don’t want to give any spoilers but his motivation is personal, and ruthless. It’s very well written, and I was absolutely taken in by the whole exotic scenario – ex-Foreign Legion chap lives on a Mediterranean island and…well, read it.
Charles McCarry – “The Better Angels” (1979) – the reason I’m taking so long over this is basically the small print (note to self – don’t do this again) but also I started reading it just as the whole lockdown thing started so there have been Netflix etc distractions. Also, I’m really not much of a reader. Anyway, this is really superbly written – it’s a political thriller set in the 70s, and of course there are comparisons with the world today. Again, don’t want to give spoilers.
But the whole thing of reading these books has reminded me that there was a time when thrillers were just that – thrilling stories about people, without the internet, computers, CCTV and so on.
Any other recommendations?
>>>>>>
Both of my Grandads were avid readers.
My maternal Grandad loved Westerns, anything with Cowboys in.
My paternal Grandad loved horse riding and so he read every Dick Francis novel as soon as it was released and there were a lot.
I wonder how many current grandfathers are passing their love of reading to their grandkids?
It strikes me that these days reading is very much a minority pastime but I could be wrong nd hope that I am.
The one that always immediately comes to mind when I want a good old fashioned thriller is Frederick Forsyth. I can’t think of any of his that I have read and not enjoyed (and not gone through at a fair pace).
@Chrisf I agree with you – The Odessa file in particular had a lasting effect on m.
Agreed! That was the very book I was going to mention. I was totally gripped by it, to the extent I would be reading it while walking to work, unable to put it down.
Yes when I was backpacking I read “The dogs of war” numerous times. Absolutely brilliant.
The answer as always is Gorky Park. One of the most perfect thrillers ever written – though it does sag ever-so slightly from perfection in the final 50 pages. I can reread it every 10 years and enjoy it every time. More obscurely his Renko sequels – Polar Star, set on a Siberian trawler, and Wolves Eat Dogs about Chernobyl are also very good. Not perect, but very good.
Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow is also truly great until a WTF final act. It really is a WTF.
All of the above were passed onto me by my dad with the exception of Miss Smilla.
You want old-fashioned I hear? I will bang the drum over and over for Gavin Lyall. His first seven novels are all set in the world of private aviation and feature middle-aged and slightly disreputable but honest and hard bitten ex-RAF pilots now trying to pay off the loan on a preloved DC3 or Bristol 170 by lugging cargoes around the Med or Middle East. Set in the 50s. Enter a shady character (usually) with a proposition…. After the first seven he went for the bucks with a sub-Bond character called Major Maxim. But The Wrong Side of the Sky, Shooting Script, Most Dangerous Game, Other Side of Midnight, Judas Country, Blame The Dead… all with excellent Chris Foss 70s covers. All 220/250 pages and fab. The flying detail from an ex-RAF type, also a Brummie for extra points, never overwhelms the page turning but is superb.
More forgotten and old-fashioned is Lionel Davidson. His last book, Kolmsky Heights, is a quite extraordinary feat of research in bringing cold war Siberia and the borders between Alaska and the USSR to life.
Gavin Lyall is ace. I turned my brother-in-law on to him many years ago when he was a flootleist for the English National Opera. He used to devour Gavin Lyall during the long hours when he had nothing to do in the Ring Cycle.
@moseleymoles
I read Kolmsky Heights a year or so ago when it was recommended somewhere as the “best thriller” ever. I don’t think it’s quite that but a striking piece of work nevertheless.
The most recent Renko novel, the ninth, is as good as ever – The Siberian Dilemma.
Interesting @Mousey how you say lockdown has been a distraction from reading. I had expectations of making headway on that stack on the bedside table but proved not to be.
Short stories? I am a fairly dedicated reader, but am finding the closure of reading something that is finished in 15 mins is a useful backup plan. Also culling some of the endless scifi short story compilations I have accumulated.
Short books helps. Also not starting another book before finishing the current one might help.
Haven’t read anything remotely approaching “serious” since Lockdown started. All those worthy tomes sitting by my bed which I thought I would be racing through what with all this free time remain covered in a fine film of dust (I really must get a new maid).
My tablet screen time however seems to be up 9567%
@Junior-Wells Yes same with me re the bedside pile – really I’m just not that much of a reader. I’d rather do a cryptic crossword/Sudoku and listen to the radio, or watch Netflix. But when I do read I have the same reaction as I do when I finally get out to a gig – I should do more of this!
The dividing lines between thrillers, crime, spies and so on are pretty blurred, but my list would certainly include Eric Ambler. Others will come to mind, no doubt. Another up for Martin Cruz Smith.
Slightly off-topic, but when my grandfather died I inherited a small but classy library of saucy books, including the likes of The Ginger Man, Lolita, Portnoy’s Complaint and In Praise of Older Women. I was impressed.
One of the book threads here some years ago got me into Eric Ambler. ‘Uncommon Danger’ and ‘Journey Into Fear’ are favourites.
Both feature the Ordinary Middle Class British Business Type caught up in intrigue. Having to come up with a cunning ruse every few pages to ensure he’s not seen off by the fifth columnists and/or wrongfully arrested by his own side.
I wouldn’t have the wit. I’d have been dead in a roadside ditch or back home in Pentonville for 50 years by page 30.
Never take up a job offer as an engineer on mainland Europe. Thats what I’ve learned.
My grandmother, who lived with us most of the year, used to get Agatha Christie books from the library. She would read the last chapter first as she couldn’t deal with the tension of waiting to find out who did it!! 🙂
I did a Christmas stint at WH Smith back in the early eighties. One day, a woman came in asking for the new Len Deighton & I guided her to the new arrivals section, where I was rebuked with “You don’t buy thrillers in hardback!”
I’m (on an on-and-off basis) revisiting Len Deighton’s books and catching up on the ones that I missed before.
I read The Ipcress File, Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain, An Expensive Place to Die, Spy Story, Yesterday’s Spy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy and Winter on my Kindle last year. SS-GB (paperback grabbed from my brother’s downsizing a few months back) and the complete run of Bernard Samson books (on the Kindle) next, I think.
What a great read his books are – the Samson ones were the pinnacle of his career for me. Pretty much disappeared into retirement after that.
Yes. Almost nothing since 1996.
He’s on record as saying that he never enjoyed actually sitting down and writing.
He decided after completing the Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy that he’d take a year off. Then he came to the conclusion writing was “a mug’s game” and just didn’t start again.
I’ve just finished reading all the Samson books. Very good stuff.
I wouldn’t call Bomber or Goodbye Mickey Mouse “thrillers”, but they’re amongst his best.
Good old Dennis Wheatley. All foreigners (apart from the Duke De Richleau) were dodgy, trying by espionage or witchcraft to bring down the monarchy or Conservative government. His villains always had a glass eye or a withered arm and a hulking silent black manservant who could snap your neck like a twig.
Hang on! I have a glass eye, a withered arm and a hulking silent black manservant so I found this comment this comment rather offensive to me and the other deranged Satanists who contribute to the Afterword.
I was thinking it sounded like an Enid Blyton in Famous Five mode….did Wheatley ever mention bags of lettuce or lashings of ginger beer?
There was that disturbing episode with Timmy the Dog……
Dennis Wheatley’s novels remain eminently readable. Colour me surprised. I lapped them up as a callow youth in the early 70s but assumed they would not age well. I read half a dozen of them on Kindle a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed them. You have to raise the occasional eyebrow at times when the non PC stuff passes by, but ignore that and they are rattlingly good yarns.
Also, I had never read a Biggles book, assuming they were rubbish. A few years back I flew to New Zealand and put Biggles Flies South on my Kindle as a bit of a laff. I found I had finished it before we passed over Asia Minor. I enjoyed it. There’s a time and a place for easy going adventure tales; I think we’re there now.
Another author I would recommend to the undiscerning among us is Matthew Reilly. He writes modern adventure tales which are quite preposterous but for unrelenting action they are unbeatable.
@artery
Biggles! My mind boggles. I loved Biggles as a kid and you say it’s still ok…wow, Algy, Ginger…who was the German baddie? Erich Von Someone?
@Freddy Steady
It was Erich Von Stalhein. I had to look it up. Actually, W.E. Johns’ life story is quite interesting. Apparently he was fired as editor of an aviation magazine in 1939 for opposing Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. He also lived very near to me when I was growing up; I might well have passed him in the street.
You’ve opened an interesting door there @Artery!
Googled. This article adds usefully to your comments about Johns
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/biggles-flies-uncensored-more-whisky-less-jingoism-8944480.html
The Biggles comeback starts here!
Hilary Mantel writing about Biggles! I was not expecting that.
Very interesting too.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/dec/12/coulmn-hilary-mantel-biggles-review
The poor chap was seriously Bowdlerised in the 60s. Mantel’s comment is amusing.
” In Biggles Flies North, he and his co‑pilot Ginger walk into a smoky saloon in the Yukon: “Give it a name, stranger,” says the barman. “I’ll have some malted milk,” says Ginger. Biggles asks for Bovril. We don’t own the 1939 original, so what they ordered originally we can only guess. It’s the bowdlerisation that makes collecting Biggles such an intricate business. Ideally you’d like to be able to place the versions side by side, and laugh at them.”
John Gardner did a “biography” of Biggles as well which is good if you’re a fan.
I just read the wiki articles before; both these were new to me. It seems Biggles is due a reappraisal. Rock on Hilary!
As an aside, I did meet Hilary Mantel once, outside the Ladies Loo at the RSC in Stratford. I was waiting for Mrs Artery by the way. I had a chat with her – she was very nice indeed.
Two particular solid gold Thrillers from the time before TV and the interwebby spring to mind that demand reading now, while the time is available to wallow in them, if you haven’t read them before:
Geoffrey Household’s “Rogue Male”. Absolute belter.
Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines”. Thumping great fun.
Ah yes, going further back than Ambler (the first ‘modern’ thriller writer) there’s the 39 Steps and Riddle of the Sands, both excellent and based on fears of seaborn invasions by Germany. Perhaps not our number one national problem at the moment!
Wouldn’t mind the Germans invading at the moment. They’ve dealt with the pandemic far better than the current shower of sh*te we’ve got in charge.
The 3 HRH are great: KSM, Allan Quatermain and She.
I’m not really a fan of thrillers. I don’t know … they’re not quite my genre.
But I did read Geoffrey Household’s “Rogue Male” following a recommendation on this site. And, yeah, it wasn’t bad at all.
I’d wager the reco was mine. 🙂
You certainly prompted me to re-read it – I bought it for bigger all on Kindle.
On my Kindle also. Awaiting it’s turn.
I’ve never read Rogue Male, but was hooked by the radio adaptation (15 30 minute episodes, read by the excellent Michael Jayston) which plays about once a year on Radio 4 Extra.
I remember seeing a great TV movie called Rogue Male with Peter O’Toole back in the 70s. I had no idea it was adapted from a book.
Here it is
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075151/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2
It was first filmed by Fritz Lang in 1941 as Man Hnt
Top notch book review here!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/15/robert-macfarlane-household-rogue-male
There is a new Rogue Male adaptation n the pipeline starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
I wonder if it will ever see the light of day.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5930900/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_2
I grew up reading my dad’s Desmond Bagley novels, and I still have them and occasionally, when I’m in the mood for some old-fashioned daft fun, I reread the best ones. They are very conservative, both in politics and gender roles, and I wouldn’t call him a great writer, but he did know how to create a page-turner.
I used to love his books – The Enemy was my favourite .
Incidentally a first draft of an unpublished novel was found a couple of years ago and was finished by another author – published last year as Domino Island.
Also: “Treasure Island”. The yarn of all yarns. Thrilling it is.
And while we’re at it: “The Three Musketeers”. Was anything French ever more exciting? I doubt it.
Betty Blue?
Nah. Prettier maybe. More sad perhaps. But more exciting? Not even close.
Have you tried French Letters? Sizzlingly Sinful and available at any well-stocked barber.
“Quelque-chose pour le weekend??
Serge Blanco?
Eric Cantona!
Did you see the National Theatre “Treasure Island” last week? Brilliant. Arrrr is the only acceptable answer.
Sore point. Bloody missed it. Bugger.
I may be able to help. Message me if you need a copy
The previous week’s Jane Eyre was somewhat, ummm, arty*.
Scaffolding was involved. As I said to Mrs. T, I’m shallow. I want pirates with head scarves, peg legs, going ARRRRRRR JIM LAAAAAAD and a fucking parrot saying “Pieces of eight” over and over again while a swarthy crew sing “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”.
Happily, it delivered on every level.
* This was good too, if arty.
No mention yet of Alistair MacLean. Where would 70’s movies be without him? It’s a long time since I read any but I can still remember the opening of ‘When Eight Bells Toll’: the description of looking at the barrel of a Colt pointed straight at you.
Damn right! I devoured MacLean’s books.
I’d like to think that the youngsters of today will at some point be discussing the likes of Ian Rankin, P D James, Ruth Rendell. Chris Brookmyre, Sara Paretsky, etc with the enthusiasm we have for their predecessors.
Yes and no @kaisfatdad – the ‘YA’ market was tiny compared to today. UK Le Guin, Alan Garner etc. I think the books available from say 9-13 – Rowling, Horowitz, S Collins. Blackman etc are so well marketed and publicised now that I think that strange 11-14 period when you first graduated to the ‘adult library’ section and were drawn inevitably to the covers of paperbacks of Cussler, Maclean, Bagley – exotic locales, exploding aircraft, submarines, hard-bitten guys in safari suits and well endowed ladies – is much less of a factor now I would guess. I can remember only too well a well-thumbed copy of James Herbert’s The Fog being passed from 13-year old boy to boy ‘check out the gym scene!’
Thanks @moseleymoles. I’ve never given any thought to the fact that YA has emerged and grown so rapidly in the past 50 years.
Here’s an overview from a US perspective.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ya-fiction-young-adult-outsiders-harry-potter-hate-u-give-twilight-a8707836.html
Teenagers can be amazingly varied in their reading. Anna Karenina and Mystery at the Pony Club at the same time.
Hmmm. “The gym scene.” Why had I never heard of that?
As a slight aside, users of Twitter may care to follow @PulpCovers, magnificently of their time book covers when buckles were swashed and bosoms heaved. Apologies to the sensitive ones here.
Thank you for all the responses. Must re-read Gorky Park, and Rogue Male. And investigate Gavin Lyall.
What I REALLY meant to ask in the OP, and I realise I’m a bit late now, is has anyone else read either A J Quinell or Charles McCarry?
Does anyone have an opinion on Jack Higgins? I haven’t read many of his, but Exocet seemed to me an appropriately old fashioned thriller. With goodies, baddies and beautiful ex wives.
Probably not quite the same sort of thing but I always enjoyed a proper Dick Francis – well the oes his wife wrote rather than ones his son wrote. they seemed to pick up a hobby and write a book about it – I guess they could claim some expenses.
Funnily enough, I’m reading The Eagle Has Landed right now. Second time round for me, and I’m loving it. However, I’m more than a little gobsmacked by Jack’s assertion in the foreword that the book changed the face of the war novel because “until The Eagle Has Landed all Germans, both in the cinema and the novel, were seen as rampant Nazis intent only on rape, pillage and murder”. What a load of bollocks!
Update: I blinkin’ loved The Eagle Has Landed. For comparison purposes I rewatched the film this weekend and, good as the film is, it really isn’t a patch on the book. Some of the omissions and plot changes are a bit baffling, frankly, and really undermine the dramatic impact of the action. I found myself wishing that the film had been longer in order to incorporate some of the things missed out, or maybe that it could be made into a mini-series.
Imagine my surprise, then, to come across this…
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-10/bbc-aims-to-turn-the-eagle-has-landed-into-a-three-part-series/
I had a bit of a run on rereading JT Edson westerns last year. I loved them as a teenager. It’s fair to say they are pretty simple stories but there’s loads of detail and they’re always readable. Fun fact – I discovered he was a Brit! I always assumed he was American. He sold millions of books too.
My late dad’s bookshelf had a little collection of JT Edsons. Good undemanding reads, as I recall.
Interesting that almost all the writers referred to above are British. Perhaps an outlier, and even a bridge between the old and the new, is the amazing Elmore Leonard. No-one, except Wodehourse, worked harder to craft something that was effortless to read. Also his work is both funny and thrilling. An almost unique trick. He is perhaps more crime than thriller, but we can’t pass him by.
Gerald Seymore is still plodding along…always look forward to a new one from this chap.
Gerald Seymour,..yep still like his books. Can be a bit po faced though.
I am curious about how to see how many of the slightly less-known writers we’ve mentioned made it onto the big screen or indeed the telly.
Several achieved fame and fortune thanks to box-office hits like Guns of Navarone, She, The Ipcress File, Day of the Jackal, Gorky Park…
I am also very curious about the fact that not one singe female thriller writer has been mentioned.
Lots of female crime writers but not one who had a bash at a thriller. It really was a man’s world. Or…….?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thriller_writers
@Kaisfatdad, this list of thriller writers has a lot of female names on it – yes, many of the names (of both genders) are more crime fiction writers IMO, but a quick scan revealed several female writers of “spy thrillers” etc.
That is an impressive list @Locust that has really jogged my memory.
A lot of my favourites there: Ruth Rendell, P D James, etc.
One name from a far earlier period that stucks out is Baroness Orczy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Orczy
The adventures of the Scarlett Pimpernel were most definitely thrillers.
Not old-fashioned in the Mclean, Bagley, Lyall vein – but it’s deeply old-fashioned in its minimal ‘man on the run’ narrative, the superb Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men – he writes as if it’s still the 1950s really. 99p this month on kindle.
I’ve been Googling around to discover more about which of the writers we’ve been talking about made it onto the silver screen. A few stinkers and some big successes. Hitchcock’s adaptation of John Buchan’s the 39 Steps
was a career milestone for him.
Vulpes mentioned H Rider Haggard.
He lived from 1856 – 1925 so he has been around a little longer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rider_Haggard#Films_based_on_Haggard's_works
Nevertheless, he has got to be the winner. His novel, She, has been adapted 10 times!
The Hammer version from 1965 starring Ursula Andress is the one I know, so I was fascinated to read about the 1935 version set in an Art Deco Arctic with music by Max Steiner!
Interesting titbits.
Graham Greene reviewed She for the Spectator in 1935 and was guardedly enthusiastic.
For many years the film was considered lost until a copy was found in Buster Keaton’s garage!
Gahagan’s Ayeesha was a major inspiration for Disney’s Evil Queen in Snow White.
Because of the of the Hitchcock film, I think of Buchan’s The 39 Steps as a 30s novel, Wrong! It was published in 1915 and was a hit in the WW1 trenches.
These days the gap between a thriller being published and being filmed seems rather short. I suspect the likes of Alastair Maclean had the film rights in mind while he wrote.
I was surprised to discover the other day that McLean wrote the screenplay of “Where Eagles Dare” to get around the fact that the film rights to all his books were tied up elsewhere.