Thu 11 Mar 2010
Rough Country “Man on the Run” Thrillers – A Top Twenty List by David L. Vineyard.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists[5] Comments
A Top Twenty List by David L. Vineyard
Using the rural or what I like to call the Rough Country definition of “Man on the Run” thrillers, here’s a stab at a top twenty. This comes with the caveat that I’m limiting it to one by each author or it could end up a list of no one but Buchan and Household.
I’ll start with Buchan since he invented the modern variation on the theme. Of course this is going to be even more subjective than usual. I’m leaving off The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers since it fits all of the qualifications but the hunted man, and Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation because much of it takes place in an urban setting. First a quick list of books predating the genre that greatly influenced it:
1. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
3. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
4. The Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason
5. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
An asterisk represents a film version — in some cases multiple films:
1. The 39 Steps by John Buchan (not his best or his first, but the best known book of the type and the model for all that followed) *
2. Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester *
3. Storm Music by Dornford Yates
4. The Man With the Clubfoot by Valentine Williams
5. The Nine Waxed Faces by Francis Beeding
6. Without Armor by James Hilton (a British agent deep undercover in Revolutionary Russia escapes with a beautiful aristocrat) *
7. Background to Danger by Eric Ambler (the closest of Ambler’s early novels to the classic man on the run theme) *
8. The Journeying Boy by Michael Innes
9. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household *
10. Horizon by Helen MacInnes
11. Desperate Moment by Martha Albrand *
12. Panther’s Moon by Victor Canning (an early example by a fine writer that also has the added pleasure of the hero being hunted while he hunts two escaped leopards in the Balkans with microfilm in their collars) *
13. The Killer Mine by Hammond Innes (an early example in the classic form)
14. The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall
15. Night Without End by Alistair Maclean
16. Act of Mercy by Francis Clifford *
17. A Twist of Sand by Geoffrey Jenkins *
18. The Rose of Tibet by Lionel Davidson
19. The High Citadel by Desmond Bagley
20. A Clear Road to Archangel by Geoffrey Rose
and for #21 a classic send up of the genre that is also a first class example of the form
21. Royal Flash by George Macdonald Fraser *
These aren’t always the best books by these writers, but those that are most representative of the man on the run theme by the particular writer.
Fairly recently, Sparling Lawrence’s Montenegro is an excellent example of the form.
Editorial Comment: This comes, of course, as a followup to the long previous listing of all “Man on the Run” adventure thrillers posted here a couple of days ago, supplemented by several who suggested additional authors and titles in the comments. It also comes as a reply to “D” who posed the original query, who then wondered which were the best among those which take place in rural or wilderness settings.
Many thanks once again to David for coming up with this list in a very short amount of time!
March 11th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
David and Steve,
Interesting, but still no Rambo????
I’d quibble with a few specifics:
* Robert Louis Stevenson is more “on the run” than Rider Haggard (who is just “running”) – and what about Fenimore Cooper (The Spy; Mohicans….?)
* I’d chuck the one-per-author rule and put in at least two Geoffrey Households
* the New Zealand book “Moving Target” really should be there
* Charles Williams (though mostly urban rather than rural) really should be in
* “Kolymsky Heights” as the Lionel Davidson
And for bang up to date, Jermey Duns’ “Free Agent”.
But these are quibbles and not meant to spoil the fun.
Mike
March 11th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
There’s fine hundred pages or so in Pynchon’s AGAINST THE DAY that cover this theme quite nicely. And though there’s no running in it, I’d also nominate the Robert Ryan film INFERNO.
But what you got there is prime.
March 11th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Mike
Don’t really disagree with you. But the Haggard was a tremendous influence on the field in general, to the extent Buchan even wrote his own African novel (as did many of the others). Fenimore Cooper probably yes, though I think more in terms of the noble savage thing overall in his books. Certainly Mohicans is an extended chase through rough country, so I should have added it to that list of precursors. But then I left off Caleb Williams which is pretty much the first book in the genre and Hugh Ainsworth’s Rookwood, despite the extended section known as ‘Dick Turpin’s Ride’ that is nothing but an extended chase over rough country. For that matter Scot’s Rob Roy fits fairly well. But I would argue Stevenson and Kidnapped and ‘Pavilion on the Links’ are the real starting places of the genre as we know it, containing most of the elements we still associate with the genre today including the heroes companion of dubious motives and the inability to trust anyone met during the chase..
Charles Williams largely either urban or at sea and D wanted the more ‘rough country’ thing which meant I had to find a largely land bound Hammond Innes to include.
The two writers I most regret not getting on the list were Allan MacKinnon, who never had the audience over here he deserved, and P. M. Hubbard, whose work is hard to classify.
Can’t disagree with you about Kolmsky Heights — one of the all time best. But I figure anyone reading one Davidson will want to read them all. There are better Canning’s than Panther’s Moon too, but it fits the definition we were working to, and is a fine example of Canning at his best. I left out Graham Greene’s magnificent Power and the Glory since it is primarily a literary novel and not a chase thriller.
Again, the list could easily have been about half Buchan and Household without stretching a point and I wanted to show a little of the diversity. Leaving out Watcher in the Shadows an A Prince of the Captivity wasn’t easy, but then where do you stop? They simply are the two writers who define the genre in modern times. Also I wanted to get in some of the early names that are less known today. Both Williams and Beeding deserve to be rediscovered and I’ve written about Yates in the past. MacInnes and Albrand (albeit to a lesser extent) are possibly the only two women writers to be allowed into the boys club and not designated as primarily women’s or romantic writers. MacInnes in particular was accepted as a full blown member of the club from Above Suspicion on.
I also left off Frederic Wakeman’s fine novel Free Agent (same title as the Duns novel) that deserves to be rediscovered.
I haven’t read the Duns or the New Zealand book you mention, but will be looking for them now. No one could read every book in this subgenre — Buchan is one of the most imitated writers of the last century, and as the inventor of the modern spy novel the number of books that fall into the general category are legion. Even today writers like Cussler, Rollins, and even Preston and Childs are largely mining the same kind of country Buchan opened up back in the 1910 Strand novella The Power House, with that stunning moment of recognition when Buchan’s hero Edward Leithen, in the first moment of modern paranoia in fiction, realizes he is as vulnerable in the middle of Piccadilly Circus in broad daylight as he would be alone on the African veldt or the rugged highlands of Scotland.
Virtually Hitchcock’s whole career owes itself to that moment, not to mention Eric Ambler and countless others. Probably only Conan Doyle has a greater claim on the mystery genre.
And while I didn’t mention it, for the top twenty I set an arbitrary cut off of about 1970 since the heyday of the genre is roughly from The 39 Steps to there (of course there are others since then — Hammond Innes last book came out in 1996 or so). But in that period you have most of the names associated with the genre, Buchan, Ambler, Greene, Household, MacInnes, Innes (Michael and Hammond), Canning, Lyall, Maclean, Bagley, Jenkins, MacKinnon, Hubbard, and the rest.
David
March 12th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Well, if Steve wants to carry this on to films I think that Cornell Wilde’s THE NAKED PREY would be near the top of the list.
March 13th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Ray
Not me, but given comment as inspiration, David has four top 10 movie lists, by category, coming up.
I’ll get them posted tomorrow.
Until I do, you and everyone else should be working on your own lists. Here are the four categories:
Top Ten “Rough Country” Man on the Run Movies
Top Ten Man on the Run Wartime Films
Top Ten Comedic Man on the Run Films
and
Top Ten Man on the Run Western Movies.
— Steve