Monday, January 04, 1999
Spy and adventure stories from the 1960s (incomplete)
By Wally Dobelis
Torn up by the non-hero, post-hero, anti-hero and "everybody’s bad" themes of our current noir fiction, legitimate and mystery, I find myself escaping to a previous era, when writers created protagonists and themes that did not leave you down, disgusted and ready to annihilate the pervert author.I look for books in flea markets and garage sales in the country. Old paperbacks in series with predictable outcomes.
As of the moment, spy and adventure stories, from the Cold War era, when enemies were predictable and the good guys won, are back in vogue, making one feel satisfied with the world. I’m not talking about literature, although I admire the Grand Master, Eric Ambler ((1909-98) above all spy adventure writers, and get along well with the successors and disciples , Graham Greene, John LeCarre, Frederick Forsythe and the like.(we may not realize that Ambler’s Background to Danger came in 1937,Epitaph for a Spy a year later, and he continued , with The Care of Time , in 1981 "with never a word or sentence outof place," as more or less proclaimed by the London Times Litt. Suppl, if memory serves.). Alistair MacLean (1922-87) author of HMS Ulysses (1955), Guns of Navarrone (1957), Ice Station Zebra (1963) AND Where Eagles Dare (1967) was another master, of the war adventure. But I’ll be really talking of books that were never seen in hardback, and were never expected to.
The Nick Carter: KillMaster series, form 19xxto 19nnfeturing the AXE agentwho under the command of hawk, saved the nation from Nazis, Reds, ChiComs, Vietcong. The original series was initiated by Michael Avallone (the Ed Noon creator),with Valerie Moormqan??, and employed such future Pistars of the PI genre as Robert J.Radosh, Bill Crider and Martin Cruz Smith (The Inca Death Squad, The Devil’s Dozen). It was a rebirth of the venerable Street &Smith’s 1886 NY Weekly dime novel series, started by John R Corryell (1848-1924) and mostly wriitten by Frederick van Renselaer Day (1862-1922), featuring the master of disguises and his sidekicks Patsy and Scrubby. In a radio sequel of 722 episodes (1943-55) patsy turned into a girl. Speaking of M.C. Smith, before he became world famous with his Russian detective in Gorky Park (1981), he wrote 32 volumes of Westerns as Jake Logan, six volumes in The Inquisitor series as Martin Quinn (or was it Quinn Martin or both?) about a fictional ex-CIA agent Francis Xavier Kelly who joined the Vatican’s espionage agency. Quel frame of reference! Quel audacity! Michael Avallone was even more so, the author of 200 novels under 12 or so names. His secret agent Ed Noon worked directly for the POTUS, and Avallone may have invented The Man From UNCLE, who fought the world-domination crazy THRUSH. I once thought I needed a golf mystery, and he offered to write one, overnight.
The Don pendleton series, The Executioner, was written by Chet Cunningham and three others., about Joe Copp, PI., with some secret agent involvement. As Lionel Derrick, he wrote The Penetrator (1972-81, 20 volumes, with Mark Roberts), an Avenger volume, a Nick Carter, and four Western series, Pony Soldiers, Jim Steel, Outlaws and Spxxx Wwxx.
The Butcer by Stuart Jason ia an Avallone series???single??
The Avenger
The Exterminator (1968) by W. A. Ballinger was written by Wilfred G. McNeilly (1921-83)5
Donald Hamilton (1916) wrote the Matt Helm series of 28 volumes between 1960 and 1993. The tough, cynical and ruthless hero was portrayed by Dan Martin in the movies.
The longest series, Carter Brown, with multiple heroes and heroines (Al Wheeler, homicide inveestigator, Don Hartman, PI, Larry Farrell, TV writer), 240 volumes, give or take, was written in 1963-71 by Allen Geoffrey Yates (1923-85), a breezy writer of lightweight stuff, non-PR, irreverent and severely condemned as well as occasionally praised by serious critics. INCOMPLETE
Torn up by the non-hero, post-hero, anti-hero and "everybody’s bad" themes of our current noir fiction, legitimate and mystery, I find myself escaping to a previous era, when writers created protagonists and themes that did not leave you down, disgusted and ready to annihilate the pervert author.I look for books in flea markets and garage sales in the country. Old paperbacks in series with predictable outcomes.
As of the moment, spy and adventure stories, from the Cold War era, when enemies were predictable and the good guys won, are back in vogue, making one feel satisfied with the world. I’m not talking about literature, although I admire the Grand Master, Eric Ambler ((1909-98) above all spy adventure writers, and get along well with the successors and disciples , Graham Greene, John LeCarre, Frederick Forsythe and the like.(we may not realize that Ambler’s Background to Danger came in 1937,Epitaph for a Spy a year later, and he continued , with The Care of Time , in 1981 "with never a word or sentence outof place," as more or less proclaimed by the London Times Litt. Suppl, if memory serves.). Alistair MacLean (1922-87) author of HMS Ulysses (1955), Guns of Navarrone (1957), Ice Station Zebra (1963) AND Where Eagles Dare (1967) was another master, of the war adventure. But I’ll be really talking of books that were never seen in hardback, and were never expected to.
The Nick Carter: KillMaster series, form 19xxto 19nnfeturing the AXE agentwho under the command of hawk, saved the nation from Nazis, Reds, ChiComs, Vietcong. The original series was initiated by Michael Avallone (the Ed Noon creator),with Valerie Moormqan??, and employed such future Pistars of the PI genre as Robert J.Radosh, Bill Crider and Martin Cruz Smith (The Inca Death Squad, The Devil’s Dozen). It was a rebirth of the venerable Street &Smith’s 1886 NY Weekly dime novel series, started by John R Corryell (1848-1924) and mostly wriitten by Frederick van Renselaer Day (1862-1922), featuring the master of disguises and his sidekicks Patsy and Scrubby. In a radio sequel of 722 episodes (1943-55) patsy turned into a girl. Speaking of M.C. Smith, before he became world famous with his Russian detective in Gorky Park (1981), he wrote 32 volumes of Westerns as Jake Logan, six volumes in The Inquisitor series as Martin Quinn (or was it Quinn Martin or both?) about a fictional ex-CIA agent Francis Xavier Kelly who joined the Vatican’s espionage agency. Quel frame of reference! Quel audacity! Michael Avallone was even more so, the author of 200 novels under 12 or so names. His secret agent Ed Noon worked directly for the POTUS, and Avallone may have invented The Man From UNCLE, who fought the world-domination crazy THRUSH. I once thought I needed a golf mystery, and he offered to write one, overnight.
The Don pendleton series, The Executioner, was written by Chet Cunningham and three others., about Joe Copp, PI., with some secret agent involvement. As Lionel Derrick, he wrote The Penetrator (1972-81, 20 volumes, with Mark Roberts), an Avenger volume, a Nick Carter, and four Western series, Pony Soldiers, Jim Steel, Outlaws and Spxxx Wwxx.
The Butcer by Stuart Jason ia an Avallone series???single??
The Avenger
The Exterminator (1968) by W. A. Ballinger was written by Wilfred G. McNeilly (1921-83)5
Donald Hamilton (1916) wrote the Matt Helm series of 28 volumes between 1960 and 1993. The tough, cynical and ruthless hero was portrayed by Dan Martin in the movies.
The longest series, Carter Brown, with multiple heroes and heroines (Al Wheeler, homicide inveestigator, Don Hartman, PI, Larry Farrell, TV writer), 240 volumes, give or take, was written in 1963-71 by Allen Geoffrey Yates (1923-85), a breezy writer of lightweight stuff, non-PR, irreverent and severely condemned as well as occasionally praised by serious critics. INCOMPLETE
