Sat 14 Nov 2009
DESMOND CORY – Timelock. Frederick Muller, UK, hardcover, 1967. Walker, US, hc, 1967. US paperback reprints: Award A343S, 1968; Walker, 1984.
When Johnny Fedora wakes up in a Spanish hospital with no memory of how he got there and registered under the name John Fox there are certain things he knows:
It isn’t John Fox. I’m Johnny Fedora. I work in Madrid all right, but not as a technical translator. Or not entirely. I work for a firm called Eminex, and I’m on loan to British Intelligence. Securance. Cartwright’s outfit. And I’ve come to Spain to kill a man named Feramontov.
Johnny Fedora is the creation of British writer Desmond Cory (Shaun McCarthy), an ex-Royal Marine Commando who had an actual license to kill issued by none other than Winston Churchill as part of a group that hunted down war criminals that might escape post war justice in the final days of the war.
In 1948 he penned the first novel featuring his British “free agent” with Spanish blood who “kills the people who kill other people.”
Timelock from 1967 is part of a series within a series featuring Johnny’s running battle with the cold-blooded cat-like Russian agent, Feramontov, his personal Moriarity.
Johnny and Feramontov had previously crossed swords in Undertow and Shockwave, and in Timelock Johnny’s prior successes against the Russian have left Feramontov out of favor with the new boys in Moscow and working for an unknown traitor high up in the Spanish government.
All Johnny knows is that he remembers something about Cell 11, and nothing at all about Laura, the woman who informs him she is his wife.
“With the power of hoodoo.”
“No, not exactly.”
“You’re supposed to say “Who do?’ and I say ‘You do,’ and you say… Never mind.” Fedora gave up.
“Scrub around it.”
“Yes, I think I will. The thing is I rang him up last night.”
“Rang who? … There I go again.”
“The man,” Laura said. “The man with the power.”
“What power?”
“He shrinks heads.”
“He shrinks heads. That,” Fedora said, “is hoodoo.”
“You do.”
“No I say you do. You say who do. Let’s start again.”
“To hell with it,” Laura said.
Caught between Spanish intelligence, who is using him as a stalking horse, and Feramontov, who is plotting something to do with the Santa Ana dam that provides much of the power for the country, Johnny fights to regain his memory and to uncover Feramontov’s latest plan.
With Laura in tow, Johnny tries to piece together the missing weeks in his life, but finds himself distracted by his beautiful new wife and on the run from the Spanish military, controlled by Feramontov’s high-placed Spanish boss.
Cory was a superior writer of this type of thriller, highly praised by Anthony Boucher (writing about Undertow, “finesse, economy,humor, and full inventive plotting”), and with a dry subversive sense of humor that elevated Johnny above many of his Bondian competitors.
In this one, the relation between Johnny and Laura adds a Hitchcockian note of romance and humor and the byplay with Feramontov, when he is captured and tortured, make for superior fare. Part of the pleasure of the Fedora books is the sometimes black humor that informs them:
Fermontov is particularly well drawn, a monster, but one that is both human and still frightening. He is a well rounded character:
“Leave the subject alone … for how long?”
“Until he’s dead,” Feramontov said, “Or until he no longer has any mind to change.”
Johnny and Laura escape Feramontov and end up high on the Santa Ana dam pinned down by an army of Spanish soldiers under the orders of the high-placed traitor in the Spanish State Department.
“… Not,” he said, “that I’m gone for this for-whom the bells toll stuff either. I’ve had about enough of it.”
But Johnny survives, trumps Feramontov again and uncovers the secrets of his memory loss and marriage in a suspenseful, down-to-the-wire last-minute finale, one of Cory’s trademarks in the Fedora books.
Cory ended the Fedora series when he felt they were becoming too popular (his excuse, not mine) and took up a series of excellent suspense novels and a series of mysteries with amateur John Dobie.
Among the non-series books Night Hawk, A Bit of a Shunt Up the River, and Bennett are outstanding. Bennett in particular may be a masterpiece.
His novel Deadfall was a film with Michael Caine and Eric Portmann, about a jewel thief caught up in the psycho-sexual drama of a mysterious older man and younger woman who become his partners. The book is a stunner, the film not so much, though worth seeing.
There is an attractive site for Cory that shows many of the covers for the series and features a PDF biography of the author and his creations which you can download.
Cory never received the respect he deserved, nor Johnny the popularity he deserved.
Some of the early Fedora books are little known here and he is too often mistakenly identified as just another Bond clone, despite the fact that like Jean Bruce’s “OSS 117” Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, he beat 007 into print by six years.
Johnny Fedora is something a bit different from the spy craze and Cory one of the more literate writers skilled at both suspense and a wry humor. He’s well worth getting to know.
The Johnny Fedora series is marked by good writing, taut suspense, black humor, and sometimes stunning violence, you won’t be sorry you made the effort to meet him.
Editorial Comment: A complete bibliography for Desmond Cory, under all of his pen names, appeared here on this blog in 2007, around the time his passing in 2001 was made known.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I remember reading a couple of the Johnny Fedora books back during the spy craze and enjoying them quite a bit. Thanks for reminding me of them.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Unfortunately I never got around to reading any of the Fedora books. They were reprinted in paperback in the US by a schlocky publisher called Award Books (they also started the Nick Carter Killmaster series) and not only had James Bond come along, but so had all of the James Bond spoofs.
And with a name like Johnny Fedora, I put the books into the spoof category. My error, and one I never realized until I posted the obit page for Cory here on the blog a couple of years ago.
We all make mistakes.
— Steve
November 28th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Good to find this good review and praise for Desmond Cory’s Johnny Fedora novels. While I liked Cory’s later novels best (The Strange Attractor being my fav – see http://www.desmondcory.com/Dobie.htm ) it is great to see a re-kindled interest in Johnny Fedora’ espionage novels. What they lacked for in action, they made up for in the characters, the humour, and clever plots that Cory used. While there are a few duds in the 16 Cory novels, I would recommend them to anyone; Feramontov being my favorite among the Fedora novels. There was even talk of making it into a movie (like Cory’s Deadfall) in the 70s. Shame that Fedora never made it to the big screen. I think it would have worked.
– Jan
December 16th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I picked up one of Cory’s paperbacks at a store 3 years ago, and now I’m onto by 8th Cory novel. Is there a list somewhere of all his books? Right now I’m using amazon and abebooks to try and find them.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Jack
Absolutely. Check out the Desmond Cory website, or in particular, http://www.desmondcory.com/Books.htm .
— Steve
December 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Steve – thanks. Sorry about typing error in my email – now corrected.
Good that you sent this link – very useful.
Wonderful! If anyone comes across HIGH REQUIEM, let me know – thanks, Jack – jackkenn800@gmail.com
December 19th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I found an interesting article on espionage writer Ian Fleming and his contemporaries at http://debrief.commanderbond.net/index.php?s=e6fdf074bbeaa12cd4014f0b4fb93856&showtopic=36709. This mentions Desmond Cory and his Johnny Fedora character who I did not know. It got me to search and find this article. Clearly a very interesting writer whose novels deserve more attention.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The legendary JOHN BARRY wrote music scores for novels by Desmond Cory. Visit:
http://sleazy-listening.blogspot.com/2008/05/john-barry-deadfall-1968.html
Quite a cool guy – he was even a royal commando.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
We are getting quite a lot of new traffic at the http://www.desmondcory.com website – I notice that one of the sources is from mysteryfile.com. Great to see such chatter on this published page. We plan to come out with 3 new book reviews of Desmond Cory’s novels by mid January. Please visit the website if interested.
Jan – Desmond Cory webmaster