Sun 16 May 2021
A 1001 Midnights Review: DESMOND CORY – Deadfall.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[6] Comments
by George Kelley & Marcia Muller
DESMOND CORY – Deadfall. Frederick Muller, UK. hardcover, 1965. Walker, US, hardcover, 1965; paperback, 1984. Also: Fawcett Crest, US, paperback, 1967. Film: 1968, starring Michael Caine.
Desmond Cory (a pseudonym of Shaun Lloyd McCarthy) has published a wide variety of suspense fiction, including espionage novels, detective novels, and thrillers. He has a firm grasp of psychological principles, and his characters show considerable depth. The details of his settings – frequently Spain – are richly evocative and suggest careful research and firsthand knowledge.
He is best known for his books featuring British agent Johnny Fedora; in five of these, Fedora matches wits with Soviet spy Feramontov. There is a powerful tension in these novels – Undertow (1963), Hammerhead (1964), Feramontov (1966), Timelock (1967), and Sunburst (1971) – and their plots are complex and action-packed.
One of Cory’s best books, however, is a nifty caper novel, Deadfall. Set in his favorite locale, Spain, it features an unlikely trio of characters: Michael Jeye, an acrobatic burglar; Moreau, a genius who plans jewel heists; and Moreau’s wife, a beautiful and mysterious woman named Fe. As the three work together to steal a fortune in jewels, Jeye finds himself falling in love with Fe. This loss of emotional control is dangerous, both to their plans and to Jeye personally – especially since the relationship between Fe and Moreau is soon revealed to be not exactly as it seems.
Against a background of professional crime, Cory weaves a thrilling plot with deep psychological undertones. The three complex personalities are caught up in deadly motion, and themes including incest and homosexuality emerge. The pacing of Deadfall is more deliberate than the nonstop action of the Fedora series, and the overall effect is haunting.
Deadfall was disappointingly filmed in 1968, with Michael Caine and Giovanna Ralli. Other Cory novels notable for their psychological depth are A Bit of a Shunt Up the River (1974), in which a sociopath escapes from prison; and The Circe Complex ( 1975), which deals with a former prison psychologist who finds himself imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
May 17th, 2021 at 7:11 am
I vaguely remember writing this essay back in the 1980s. I enjoyed Desmond Cory’s novels. Marcia Muller added the movie information.
May 17th, 2021 at 11:07 am
George, as I recall — I don’t have the book anywhere near — you wrote quite a few of these author/book essays for 1001 MIDNIGHTS, didn’t you?
May 17th, 2021 at 5:36 pm
So this George Kelley guy is really Bill Pronzini? Wow.
May 17th, 2021 at 7:50 pm
No, not at all. Both are friends of mine, though!
May 17th, 2021 at 7:39 pm
I could not agree more about this book or Cory/McCarthy in general, who also was that rarity a thriller writer with a sense of humor (sometimes black as in one of the later Fedora’s where he finds himself with an inconvenient body to dispose of).
Johnny Fedora actually predates James Bond in print by five years, and McCarthy was one of the agents assigned by Winston Churchill to hunt down and kill German war criminals near the end of the war who would never have been prosecuted in the Nuremberg Trials after the war (primarily those involved with the execution of Allied soldiers at Malmedy and those who took part in the Great Escape executions). Ironically that operation was the inspiration for Bond’s “license to kill” as the job of those agents was to execute rather than arrest those war criminals they found behind enemy lines trying to escape.
Asked why he discontinued the Fedora series at their height of their popularity following the Fermatov books Cory claimed they had become too popular and were no longer any fun to write.
May 25th, 2021 at 9:54 am
Alan, Bill Pronzini is the guy with a beard and I’m the guy with the License to Kill.
Steve, you’re right about the number of essays I wrote for 1001 MIDNIGHTS. Marcia Muller would call me and say someone didn’t complete their essay (or changed their mind about writing one) and could I write a substitute essay. And then, Marcia would call again… I couldn’t say “No.”