Sat 16 Oct 2010

22 Responses to “A Century of Thrillers: 200 Books From 1890 to 1990 — A List by David L. Vineyard.”

1. Steve Says:
   October 16th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

   Whew. You can’t say you don’t get your money’s worth when you read this blog, can you?

   I am surprised as to how many of these books or authors I’ve read, considering that 80% of my mystery reading over the past 50 plus years has been either detective fiction or the hardboiled crime novel.

   Surprised, and yet dismayed, considering how many of these I have NOT read.

2. David A. Says:
   October 16th, 2010 at 8:27 pm

   Magnificent!

3. David L. Vineyard Says:
   October 17th, 2010 at 3:15 am

   Many of you will know that H. C. McNeile began writing in the teens as Sapper, but I have included him in the twenties because BULLDOG DRUMMOND, which appeared in late 1919 early 1920, his best known work, is so much of the twenties in style and voice.

   Reading it now it is hard to realize it, but at the time it was the most modern of thrillers. And despite its flaws one of the most influential works of popular fiction ever published.

   Most of you probably know, but just for clarity ASHENDEN OR THE BRITISH AGENT is a single book, that’s the full title.

   A few books got knocked off the list at various times including ICE COLD IN ALEX by Christoper Landon, BRETHERTON by W. F. Morris, and TO CATCH A THIEF by David Dodge (which is on the mystery and suspense list).

   In any case a few of these from any of the eras covered would give you a pretty good overview of the evolution of the thriller.

4. David L. Vineyard Says:
   October 17th, 2010 at 11:56 am

   Just noticed I left an asterisk off, THE ORDEAL OF MAJOR GRIGSBY by John Sherlock was filmed as THE LAST GRENADE (1970) directed by Gordon Flemying with Stanley Baker, Alex Cord, Honor Blackman, and Richard Attenborogh. And of course SHARPE’S GOLD was one of the entries in the Sharpe series with Sean Bean. ROYAL FLASH was filmed too, by Richard Lester. Last minute additions and I got sloppy, sorry.

   The Allan MacKinnon listed is also a noted British screenwriter whose credits included SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE and THIS MAN IS NEWS, but as far as I know neither of the books listed were filmed.

   Quite a few of these were optioned for films going back as far as THE THREE HOSTAGES by John Buchan which ended up the unofficial source for Hitchcock’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. To paraphrase, many or optioned, but few are made.

   If you don’t know it, find a copy of THE PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH RED HAIR (I think it can be downloaded free on the Net) by Hugh Walpole, a barnburner of a thriller by one of the literary lights and best selling writers of his day (the Herries Saga). The film version stars Charles Laughton as the character of the title. Walpole wrote a handful of thrillers as well as the fine crime novel ABOVE THE DARK CIRCUS.

   Aside from the number of mainstream and bestselling writers on the list I’m struck by the variety of people who wrote in this field — or fit in it — including everything from a Hungarian noblewoman, a good dozen actual spies, three peers of the realm (Willis, Denhem, and Tweedsmuir/Buchan), one Governor General of Canada (Buchan of course), scientists (Fred Hoyle, Archie Roy) doctors (Maugham), several screenwriters (both William and James Goldman, MacKinnon, Graham Greene, Ambler, Ib Melchior, R. Wright Campbell, etc. ), an actor, a controversial American philospher (Wylie), several historians, a leading conservative economist (Russell Kirk), a talk show host (Bill Buckley) and professional gadfly, a couple of one time bankers (Sax Rohmer and Geoffrey Household), a reformed con man turned Theosophist and JACK ARMSTRONG scripter (Talbot Mundy), airline pilot and newsreel photographer (Gann), one of the key figures of French New Wave cinema (Robert Merle who wrote the book Godard’s WEEKEND was based on), and at least one patriot shot for treason (Erskine Childers).

   No wonder the thriller is so hard to define.

5. Walter Albert Says:
   October 17th, 2010 at 4:57 pm

   A truly heroic attempt to define the (ultimately) undefinable, but I know that what I will return to most frequently will be to the addendum of lost race, science fiction, and supernatural fiction, toward which I seem to gravitate naturally these days, and whose listing contains novels I will certainly want to try to find.

6. David A. Says:
   October 17th, 2010 at 10:57 pm

   Nothing by George Sims, David?

7. David L. Vineyard Says:
   October 18th, 2010 at 2:21 am

   Walter

   Like you the lost city/world novel has a certain magic for me. I go a while, move away from it, and then get drawn back in —Zafon’s SHADOW OF THE WIND got me hooked on the idea again most recently — but who could resist a lost city of books hidden among us?

   If you haven’t read it try England’s THE FLYING LEGION, it has just about everything. A Randian superman hero and heroine, cross-dressing, a league of air pirates and running battles in the air between a super ship and squadrons of a League of Nations type group out to stop them, Arabian adventure, pitched battles, a lost city where all the treasures of Arabia are hidden, an epic journey across the Sahara, plus it is joyously politically incorrect without being overly racist considering when it was written … and I’m leaving a lot out. If you don’t like reading on line, there is a reasonable trade paperback edition available, but do take a look at the great original dust wrapper.

   England is best known for the massive DARKNESS AND DAWN, but I prefer this one which is pure pulp at its best.

   MARCHING SANDS by Lamb is another good one, and, if you can, check out the Captain Trouble stories by Percy Poore Sheehan if you don’t know them (and you likely do of course). I think the latter are in print and you can read them on line and Project Gutenberg Australia’s SF site.

   Likely preaching to the choir director here, but just in case.

   Are you familiar with Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s site? She has a great annotated list of lost world novels — many of them I’ve never heard of before. Not just works from the pulps, but Boys Own Aventure types and many Victorian and Edwardian writers.

   Ran across a great one on Google Books, but for the life of me can’t think of the name — I’ll have to look it up — it has an Englishman in post WWI Turkey stumbling onto a lost crusader city and involved in Ruritanian intrigue.

   Check out Baroness Orczy’s GATES OF KAMPT where two Englishmen stumble on a walled city in the desert where ancient Egypt is still kept alive and of course get involved in palace intrigue, and there are a couple of lost city novels by William Le Queux (his THE VEILED MEN has some elements of that).

   George Surdez’s DEMON CARAVAN (filmed with Alan Ladd as THE DESERT LEGION) is a good one from a familiar pulp name.

   David A

   I know Sims name, but never read him. Any titles to suggest?

8. David A. Says:
   October 18th, 2010 at 3:23 am

   I’ve just finished Sims’ first novel ‘The Terrible Door’ (recently reprinted by Mike Ripley’s Top Notch Thrillers imprint) and it was very interesting indeed. A most unusual thriller, hard to put down but not so much because of the mystery or the pace — though both those aspects are good. It’s more the atmosphere, sustained by Sims’ powers of setting and description, that kept my eyes thoroughly glued to the page.

   Check out H.R.F. Keating’s insightful summary of Sims’ writing abilities in ‘Whodunnit? A Guide to Crime, Suspense and Spy Fiction’. I think Keating, an astute critic, describes Sims’ unusual gifts very perceptively indeed.

9. Mike Ripley Says:
   October 18th, 2010 at 1:34 pm

   An interesting list and it brings back some fond memories.
   And I’m delighted to see most of the TOP NOTCH THRILLERS there.

   I had a few problems working out the chronology.
   Surely, Lionel Davidson, P.M. Hubbard, Desmond Bagley and Gavin Lyall (and I knew two of them!) are 1960s.
   Similarly , Anthony Price and Duncan Kyle (both of whom I know/knew – Anthony’s still around) should be in the 1970s.

   And sadly, no mention of my friend PHILIP PURSER (“Night of Glass”, “Shooting the Hero”) who was first published in the early 1960s and lately in 2005.

   Have I just missed them, or are the following really not there?

   Berkeley Mather (“Pass Beyond Kashmir” etc);
   Brian Garfield (“Kolchak’s Gold” etc.)
   and…
   John Le Carre??????

   I know that Lord (Bertie) Denham (sic) would be thrilled to see himself on the list. He’s one of five mystery writers in the House of Lords, but the one everybody forgets!

   Regards,
   Mike

   PS. May I mention that Top Notch Thrillers now publish: Geoffrey Rose,
   Duncan Kyle, Alan Williams , Geoffrey Household, Francis Clifford, Brian Callison, Adam Hall and John Blackburn…
   (and, in November, John Gardner and Victor Canning)

   and we did try (God knows I tried) to get James Mitchell/James Munro (the son was willing but his step-mother wasn’t!) and P.M. Hubbard, but ran up against a very stubborn agent…..

   Any suggestions (email me) for reissues of British thriller writers who don’t deserve to be forgotten are welcome – though please don’t suggest Andrew Garve……

10. David L. Vineyard Says:
    October 18th, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    Mike

    I was flat out wrong on Price and Kyle, though in fairness I was thinking 68 or 69 and both debuted in 70.
    I put Innes and Canning in the 40’s when both debuted in the late 30’s though their real fame was postwar. MacKinnon I should look up. He was doing screenplays in the 30’s but I think his first thriller was post war …

    The others were in some chunks that I think I accidentally moved while re arranging things and forgot to move back. I don’t know if you have ever tried to do this sort of thing while a persistent cat is trying to make a bed out of you, but things do get harried. Obviously should have checked one last time. Though while all began in the sixties they all wrote in the style that predominated in the fifties, at least originally. Frankly the time line was a little amorphous as I was not going to look up the exact publication date of three hundred or so books. There was some guessing and averaging involved. No excuse really, but the cat ate my homework — the dog had better sense.

    Re Mather, it was hard to just pick two, KASHMIR is a fine choice, but I really liked the other two as well.

    Garfield I simply blanked out on. No excuse or else KOLCHAK, HOPSCOTCH, or THE PALADIN would have made the list. Blanked on Brian Freemantle and Clive Eagleton too, and forgot THE TENTH TEMPLE by David Beatty. These lists always end up with about five hundred names that should have been on there.

    But fact is this was a daunting one. Other than the clear cut choices, there were so many that came close, or that I just forgot about: Douglas Terman (at least for FIRST STRIKE), Walter Winward, Douglas Reeman, Anthony Trew, Douglas Hurd. Oswald Wynd, Andrew Taylor, Edwin Leather, Richard Kim, Robert Elegant … Now, I think of the names.

    To be fair I could have done two hundred books published between the end of WWII and 1990 with no problem. And in all honesty, some writers that didn’t make the list I just don’t like all that well.

    Damn, always misspell Denham name for some reason. Wanted to include him because he wrote a couple of excellent books. Probably more, but only two I’ve been able to find.

    Believe me I debated Le Carre, but I like many of his books despite myself though I think he is terribly over-rated and unnecessarily hard to read (does anyone write worse dialogue? My Spell checker spelled Le Carre as Bleared, everyone is a critic). He’s one of those maddening writer’s that I always swear I won’t read again, and end up never missing one of his books (though I wish I had forgone the last one).

    I’m always amused when Le Carre fans start taking pot shots at Fleming — and they always do — as he always did for being preposterous (he is, but deliberately), when wildly exaggerated or not, much of what is in Fleming’s books is based (very loosely) on actual wartime operations while everything in Le Carre, including his famous ‘jargon’ is about as authentic as ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Never did an expert actually know less about his field than Le Carre does about actual espionage. John Bingham, who Le Carre somewhat cruelly claimed was the inspiration for Smiley, once opined that all the Smiley types he knew had defected to the Russians the first chance they got. Admittedly British intelligence has adopted some of Le Carre’s jargon since, but it was all made up originally. As for Fleming’s snobbery, compared to Le Carre he’s Joe Sixpack.

    Sorry, don’t get me started on Le Carre. Never has so little been so over praised by so many for so long with so little reason

    Pleased to know Price is still around. Damn fine writer. Picking just two of his books was no easy task either. Kyle another under-rated in many ways. He could do both the Innes/MacLean kind of book and something quite different with equal skill.

    Purser I missed, I’ll look him up, thanks. I’m always hoping when I do one of these someone will mention someone I let slip by or haven’t read for some reason.

    And I grant I stretched things a bit to let in Gann, Shute (though he did write some early thrillers), Ruark and a few others, but as I said in the intro the thriller is unique in that it includes everything from men’s action series (good and bad) to actual literature to some mainstream novels. I debated some books like THE MORTAL STORM and THE SEVENTH CROSS and was probably overly cautious in leaving out Barry England and Barry Unsworth while including Don Delillo. This was pretty subjective in the end — and I hope someone else offers their list. I grant I’d be surprised it anyone but me chose THE THREE HOSTAGES and A PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY as their favorite Buchan novels, or for that matter LEVKAS MAN and DOOMED OASIS their favorite Innes.

11. Walter Albert Says:
    October 18th, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Thanks for the comments on my comments, David. Now my list of books to look for really does runneth over.

    You did leave off your original list two lost city novels that probably contributed to my addiction to such fare at an early age, “Tom Swift and the City of Gold” and, most especially, “Don Sturdy on the Desert of Mystery,” along with a great deal of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

    Then, there were “Famous Fantastic Mysteries” and “Fantastic Novels,’ my two favorite pulp magazines, both of them rich in lost race/city fiction, a liking that didn’t prevent me from having my set bound in multiple volumes, the better, I thought, to preserve them and their incredibly rich illustrated legacy for the ages. And it was probably the same demon that prompted the ill-considered move that caused me to jettison all the dust jackets for my set of Bomba the Jungle Boy in the idiotic belief that the uniform bindings looked better than the uniform jackets. I’ve since replaced them with a set of books (an earlier edition with the second-state jacket), but I’ve not yet been able to convince myself that I should buy another set of the wondrous FFM and FN.

    And now that I have catalogued some of my sins, I will add one of my all-time favorite lost race novels to your list, E. C. Vivian’s “City of Wonder,” a novel that I can’t imagine you haven’t read.

12. David A. Says:
    October 18th, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    Mike, would you consider posting your own list of favourite/best thrillers, either here or on your monthly shotsmag page (or both)?

13. David L. Vineyard Says:
    October 19th, 2010 at 1:52 am

    Walter

    If I had gone in depth on the lost world format I would have gone another two hundred books. Add to the ones you mention Wyndham Martin’s STONES OF ENCHANTMENT, which is really unusual since it is a lost world novel featuring Martin’s gentleman adventurer (reformed crook) Anthony Trent from the post WW II era; Harold Lamb’s GARDEN OF EDEN; James Ramsey Ullman’s SANDS OF KARAKORAM; Stanley Wolpert’s THE EXPEDITION (associational, a modern team of mountaineers search for the Yeti and find themselves); Christopher Fowler’s RUNE and Neil Gaiman’s NEVERWHERE (unsuspected worlds exist in modern London right under our noses — or over our heads in Fowler’s case— and we never notice — Fowler has gone on to write some fine British mysteries); Robert Holdstock’s classic MYTHAGO WOOD where reality blends with myth and legend; James Rollins BLACK ORDER (a lost colony of ‘benign’ ex Nazi’s in Tibet is one part of the complex plot also his early non series books SUBTERRAINIAN, EXCAVATION, AMAZONIA, and DEEP FATHOM — but read the later ones first then you’ll be more forgiving of some of the early ones); Clive Cussler’s ATANTIS FOUND (it’s right under our noses to some extent); Junius Podrug’s FROST OF HEAVEN is so bad it is actually entertaining with yet another lost Tibetan theme; and if not exactly a lost world, Lionel Davidson’s ROSE OF TIBET is one of the best modern variations on the theme since LOST HORIZON, and praised wildly by Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, and Daphne Du Maurier and, I might add, me.

    Like you I loved the old Tom Swift (SWIFTIES and all) and the Marvel’s series by Roy Rockwood (who went on to create Bomba the Jungle Boy). From roughly Haggard to Burroughs there are hundreds of these (and that may be underestimating) published outside the pulps featuring lost worlds everywhere from a surviving race of Aztec’s in the grand canyon to the best of the Arlantis novels, C. Cutliffe Hines THE LOST CONTINENT. At one point it seemed as if just about everyone tried their hand at the genre.

    Vivian of course, and he made the list, since Vivian was also Jack Mann of the Rex Coulson and Gees series and a Gee’s novel is on the list. Of course Frances Stevens too, a woman who had a touch of the poetry of A. Merritt and C.L. Moore: Jack Williamson’s GOLDEN BLOOD; Bedford-Jones TEMPLE OF TEN; there are a couple by Robert Ames Bennett though he wrote westerns too; and if memory serves there is even a lost world novel among the pulp adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield (and I think one of his paperback successor El Halicon).

    Cornell Woolrich even did one (more or less), THE SAVAGE BRIDE.

    And one I think both of us would likely push anyone toward, the stories and novels of Arthur Friel from ADVENTURE, likely the most undeservingly forgotten of the great line up for that pulp. TIGER RIVER and THE PATHLESS TRAIL were both reprinted in paperback by Centaur Press, and I think one of them is available on line.

    Which leads to the question, did anyone ever combine the murder mystery with the lost world/lost city novel? I can think of a few spy novels and lots of thrillers, but I guess it was just too fantasic a setting for a detective story.

14. Mike Ripley Says:
    October 19th, 2010 at 2:55 am

    To David A.
    Be happy to submit a list of my favourites, though I would rather do it here than in my “Shots” column, which gets me into quite enough trouble already!

15. Juri Nummelin Says:
    October 19th, 2010 at 7:09 am

    David: what book is Godard’s WEEK-END based on? Every on-line source says Godard’s script is original.

16. David A. Says:
    October 19th, 2010 at 10:31 am

    Mike — that’s great. I’m looking forward to it.

17. Steve Says:
    October 19th, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    We all are!

    — Steve

18. David L. Vineyard Says:
    October 20th, 2010 at 5:11 am

    Juri

    I’m sorry on that one, I had a cross reference in an older book on the NEW WAVE that confused two films from the same era. Merle’s book (1949’s WEEKEND AT ZUYDCOOTE) was the basis for 1964’s WEEKEND AT DUNKIRK and not 1967’s WEEKEND. Verneuil and not Godard. Glad you spotted it or I would never have checked, though the book in question does credit Merle with the basis of WEEKEND — obviously a mistake.

    Incidentally don’t blame Merle or his novel for the simply awful Mike Nichols film of DAY OF THE DOLPHIN. Somehow, while sticking to the plot of the book, they missed everything that made it a wonderful read and made a film that rates as a flat out bomb despite the cast and creative crew. Skip the movie and read the book.

19. David Edwards Says:
    October 28th, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    Himalayan Assignment by F. Van Wyck Mason was copyright 1952

20. Ian Says:
    November 9th, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    Desmond Bagley (the great..) was the 1960s not the 1950s (ditto Ted Willis, “Adam Hall”, Gavin Lyall, Alistair Maclean).. no sign of Donald E Westlake or “Richard Stark” (!!).. or Eric Van Lustbader, Tony Kenrick, John D MacDonald…

    Good stuff, though – Steve Gallagher and I once discussed the plenitude of thriller authors who held sway in 60s UK – books pared to the bone in text but full of incident and, well, thrills… Maclean, Geoffrey Jenkins, Bagley, Woodhouse, Lyall..

    Further comments:
    Ruark, UHURU rather than UHRUHU
    Harvester, SILK ROAD & RED ROAD are 1960s
    Willis, MANEATER and BUCKINGHAM.. are actually 1970s, I believe
    Bagley, HIGH CITADEL 1965 RUNNING BLIND 1970
    “Adam Hall”, KOBRA MANIFESTO, 1976
    Lyall MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE 1965
    Maclean THE SATAN BUG 1962 as by “Ian Stuart”

21. PB210 Says:
    February 12th, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    David Morrell co-edited a book called Thrillers 100 Must Reads, in the format of Horror 100 Best Books, etc.

22. Pat B Says:
    September 20th, 2011 at 1:43 pm

    Just found your site and thought I’d give my tuppenceworth. I’ve been a casual fan of thrillers since I was a teenager in the ’60s, but not thrillers exclusively, and I don’t know even a fraction of the catalogue. The comprehensive knowledge shown by some people here is quite intimidating. My tendency back then was to read the same ones over and over. I read the whole James Bond collection several times, as I did the early Deightons and Le Carres. Spy books were my particular passion. I think it was those books that got me reading in the first place. Later I widened my scope a bit and only read thrillers occasionally. But I do love a good one.

    I’ve recently been re-reading some of them, and I’m struck by how Anglo-centric the whole genre is, especially the spy sub-genre. And I don’t just mean in the English-speaking world, where American writers on the whole tended to leave the field to the British, but in the wider world. Although we couldn’t expect to find much from the Soviet end that’s worth reading, or from any of the Soviet satellite states after WWII, there was plenty of espionage activity in western and central European states in the early part of the 20th century. Did that not spawn any literature? Is there no spy fiction at all from France or Germany? If anyone knows of any that have been translated, I wish they’d lead me to some. It would be fascinating to see the whole business from their perspective.

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