Every so often, intense (if kindly) pressure is put on me to relieve my groaning shelves of books. The suggestion of 'one in, one out' has, thankfully, not yet come to pass; however, recently I have been having a more ruthless look at the ageing paperbacks I have cossetted since the last century. My growing collection of the 1930s Crime-Book Society 6d issues, has meant, in order to make room for them, some of these older ones have had to depart the Hillier mansion. I have already seen the removal of all the more recent Susanna Gregory series, featuring the 14th century Matthew Bartholomew and the 17th century Thomas Challoner; my entire collection of Candace Robb's books set also in the 14th century with Owen Archer as the hero; and nearly all of my Edward Marston novels. A kind bookseller lady in Derby gave me 50p a paperback, as they were all in pristine condition; but now the older ones are in the firing line.
With fond memories of Neville Shute's novels (and a re-reading not that long ago of a few), he is safe for the time being; but there are four other 'thriller' writers whose continued presence now appears shaky. Big names in the last quarter of the 20th century, perhaps they are unfamiliar to present-day readers. First up for the chop:
1978 1985 1976
Jack Higgins (1929-2022), real name Henry Patterson, is best-known for his The Eagle Has Landed, but that is probably due to the much acclaimed film starring Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland (I have watched it several times on DVD). During the 1970s and 1980s, Higgins was regularly in the bestseller lists and I purchased and read six of his novels in paperback - The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962), Night Judgement at Sinos (1970), Storm Warning (1976), Day of Judgement (1978), Confessional (1985) and The Eagle Has Landed (1975). He had written 35 thrillers before he hit the jack-pot with The Eagle, which was in the Top Ten Bestseller list for 36 weeks. Many of his books featured good guys fighting for rotten causes, as personified by Kurt Steiner and Liam Devlin. I must admit, after over a quarter of a century, I can't remember much about Higgins' books, and they are now destined for our local Charity Shop - apart from The Eagle Has Landed!
1960 1954
Hammond Innes (1913-1998), who ended up a Major in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War, wrote 34 novels - they were mainly what I would term 'hairs on your chest', macho books. Rugged landscapes and rugged men abound. They often featured ordinary men thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. I hadn't realised I had collected, and probably read, twenty-four paperbacks - well over half of his output. They are: The Trojan Horse (1940); Attack Alarm (1941); Dead and Alive (1946)*; The Lonely Skier (1947); The Killer Mine (1947); Maddon's Rock (1947); The Blue Ice (1948); The White South (1949); Air Bridge (1951); Campbell's Kingdom (1952)*; The Strange Land (1954); The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956); The Land God Gave to Cain (1958)*; Harvest of Journeys (1960)*; The Doomed Oasis (1960); Atlantic Fury (1962); The Strode Venturer 1965); Levkas Man (1971); Golden Soak (1973); North Star (1974)*; The Big Footprints (1977)*; Solomon's Seal (1980)*; High Stand (1985)*; Medusa (1988). Those with an asterisk are also off to the Charity shop. The others have been given a reprieve - for now.
1972 1980
Gavin Lyall's (1932-2003) early stories have been divided into 'aviation thrillers' and 'Euro-thrillers', usually written in the first-person narrative, Apparently feeling that he was become predictable, he changed to a series of 'espionage thrillers', starring Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer. In the 1990s, he changed literary direction again and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the British secret service before the Great War. He was married to the Observer journalist Katharine Whitehorn (1928-2021). I have a dozen of his novels in paperback and will be retaining them all for now. The Wrong Side of the Sky (1961); The Most Dangerous Game (1964); Midnight plus One (1965); Shooting Script (1966); Venus with Pistol (1969); Blame the Dead (1972); Judas Country (1975); The Secret Serpent (1980); The Conduct of Major Maxim (1982); The Crocus List (1985); Uncle Target (1988); Flight from Honour (1996).
Desmond Bagley (1923-1983) was going to be my fourth author destined, now or eventually, for the Charity shop. However, I find that 'the birds (or, rather, books) have already flown'! They must have gone in an earlier clear-out; a pity, as I would have liked a last thumb through of his novels, as I remember enjoying them. He was usually linked with Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean for setting a tough, resourceful but essentially ordinary hero pitted against villains determined to sow destruction and chaos for their own ends.
I realise now that I read all these authors in the 1970s and 1980s, many of them before I was married. Did they fit the image of myself as a macho man enjoying a singular and single life?! Another reason, perhaps, was the need to get away from the awful pedestrian years of the Wilson-Heath-Callaghan governments. Just as nowadays I plunge into 19th century (often three-decker) fiction to shut out the present ghastly political landscape.
NB Between 14 March and 9 August 2020, I re-read seventeen novels of Helen MacInnes and did a series of Blogs on her work. Her world-view was very black and white: Fascists/Communists bad. the West (especially the USA) good. She might have second thoughts these days, if not about Russia perhaps about the West!
No comments:
Post a Comment