Sun 28 Feb 2010
ostara@aspects.net
Website: www.ostarapublishing.co.uk
TOP NOTCH THRILLERS
New Titles: February 2010
Three months after the imprint’s launch, Ostara Publishing has issued four more titles in their print-on-demand Top Notch Thrillers series which “aims to revive Great British thrillers which do not deserve to be forgotten.”
The new titles, originally published in Britain between 1962 and 1970, were selected by crime writer and critic Mike Ripley, who acts as Series Editor for TNT:
The Tale of the Lazy Dog by Alan Williams is a brilliant heist thriller set in the Laos-Cambodia-Vietnam triangle in 1969 as a mis-matched gang of rogues and pirates attempt to steal $1.5 billion in used US Treasury notes.
Time Is An Ambush is a delicate, atmospheric study of suspicion and guilt set in Franco’s Spain, by Francis Clifford, one of the most-admired stylists of the post-war generation of British thriller-writers.
A Flock Of Ships, Brian Callison’s bestselling wartime thriller of a small Allied convoy lured to its doom in the South Atlantic, was famous for its breathless, machine-gun prose and was described by Alistair Maclean as: “The best war story I have ever read.”
The Ninth Directive was the second assignment for super-spy Quiller (whose fans included Kingsley Amis and John Dickson Carr), created by Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor) and is a taught, tense thriller of political assassination which pre-dated Day of the Jackal by five years.
Announcing the latest batch of reissues, Mike Ripley said: “Our new titles are absolutely in line with the Top Notch ethos of showing the range and variety of thrillers from what was something of a Golden Age for British thriller writing. They range in approach from slow-burning suspense to relentless wartime action and feature obsessive, super tough, super cool spies and some tremendous villains. Above all, they are characterised by the quality of their writing, albeit in very different styles.
“When first published, these titles were all best-sellers and their authors are among the most respected names in thriller fiction. Many readers will welcome these novels back almost as old friends and hopefully a new generation of readers will discover them for the first time.”
Top Notch Thrillers are published as trade paperbacks with a RRP of £10.99.
February 28th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I’ve read all of these and they are all exceptional examples of the British thriller genre at its best. Callison’s series hero in some of these was Brevet Cable (great name) whose maritime spy adventures were tough and fun. He had another series hero who was a somewhat dubious captain with a touch of the pirate about him.
Alan Williams is probably best known here for a book that was filmed as PINK JUNGLE with James Garner and George Kennedy. His gritty tales were tough and tough minded with some featuring a French mercenary or a South African adventurer (or both) as recurring characters, though not as the protagonist. His most controversial book was HOLY ORDERS about a group of mercenaries hired to detonate a nuke over Mecca on the holiest day of Ramadan. Among his works FALSE BEARDS is a standout.
Francis Clifford was one of the best writers of the British thriller genre, his books a touch more novelistic than most and very much splitting the difference between Household and Ambler. ACT OF MERCY was filmed as GUNS OF DARKNESS with David Niven and Frank Sinatra starred in THE NAKED RUNNER. The latter sold very well and made his American reputation, but he only completed a few books afterward before his death. His best works feature the jaded spy world of Le Carre with Ambler’s milieu and something of the romanticism of Geoffrey Household. Like Alan Williams his protagonists were sometimes doomed and not at all certain to survive the tale.
Elleston Trevor (FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX) probably needs less introduction here — or anywhere — with successes both under his own name and as Cesar Smith and Adam Hall. As Hall he first gave us amateur sleuth Hugo Bishop, then Quiller, the best of the post Bond secret agents played by George Segal in a good film of THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM and Michael Jayston in a British television series shown here on late nite television. Trevor has a fairly extensive filmography including two versions of FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX and DUNKIRK with John Mills and Richard Attenborough. As Trevor his books are more novelistic than the strictly thriller Hal pseudonym. The only Cesar Smith title is a suspense novel. The Hall titles feature one stand alone in the Hammond Innes manner, four featuring Hugo Bishop, and the rest all Quiller novels which continued until Trevor’s death, the final book edited for publication by his son.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Quick note, re Ray O’Leary’s review of Andrew Garve’s A HOLE IN THE GROUND below, one of Alan William’s novels was GENTLEMAN TRAITOR in which Kim Philby decides to redefect from the Soviet Union to the West.
April 27th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Actually, the title of the Alan Williams’ novel was “Holy of Holies”, not “Holy Orders”. It’s one of his best novels. I remember one of the British papers gave it a blistering reviewing, calling it racist and ignorant, which it is not!
Glad to see Williams’ novels back in print. Shame he stopped writing.
Even has his own wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Williams_%28novelist%29
April 27th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
C. Pol
You’re right about the title. As David said, it was very controversial at the time. It was also the last crime thriller he wrote, published when he was only 46.
And those wiki links are tough to get right. This one works now — I hope!
— Steve
April 28th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for fixing the link. One other correction about “Holy of Holies”… unless my memory is playing tricks with me, David’s plot synopsis is partly incorrect. Although the plot was about a group of mercenaries hired to destroy Mecca on the holiest day of Ramadan, they did so by slamming planes loaded with bolts, screws, napalm into Mecca a la 9/11.
Williams loved bleak endings. I don’t think he ever wrote a novel with a happy ending.