Anyway, I'm in the line-up at Quality Foods to pay for my few goods. They have it well organized, with one member of staff showing you which line to get into. So as we're all standing there, in through the exit door wander two middle-aged blokes, one on his cell phone, totally oblivious to the rest of us. I guess going in the in door was a bit too difficult. So there you go, my mini-gripe.. Whew! That felt good. 😎
So no books finished yet this weekend. I'll get right into my look at the Spy / Thriller novel.
The Spy / Thriller Novel - Adam Hall
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| Elleston Trevor |
"The Quiller Memorandum is the first book in the Quiller spy series by Adam Hall. Quiller has spent the post WWII tracking down Nazis to be tried by the post War tribunals. He has just seen the final case and is due to return to England for a well-earned vacation. Attending a play in the New Germany, he is approached by Pol, from a UK government agency with a proposal to track down a notorious Nazi, Zossen who is reported to have returned to Germany from exile in Argentina. The agent previously involved in this case was found murdered. During the war, Hall had infiltrated the Nazis, working in concentration camps to save as many Jews as possible. Zossen ran one of these camps.
This begins an interesting spy story with excellent explanations of spy craft, how spies communicate with their bosses, how to fight interrogation, etc. The story moves along very quickly, plenty enough action and a fascinating story. There are points that 'irritated' me, or more likely that I started to find somewhat humorous; Quiller loves making lists; 3 scenarios, how many types of interrogation drugs he might have been given, etc. But at the same time it provides a picture of how he reasons through his work. The picture of post-War Germany is also interesting, the trials of Nazis, the Nazis still hidden in clear sight and what they are plotting to return to power, etc. Interesting spy story, well worth trying. I'll continue reading the books (3.5 stars)"
"The setting is Thailand. A very important representative of the Queen is scheduled to visit Bangkok on a good-will tour. A threat has been made against his life, and somewhere amidst the golden spires awaits a deadly assassin.
The top-secret British espionage bureau feels ordinary security precautions are not sufficient, so they call in agent Quiller. He's a cynical loner, but the only man capable of tracking down the would-be killer. The tale is complex, set at a breathless pace!"
"'The fly fell down.' Quiller sent the message off to London as requested. He had just seen a supersonic jet plunge 60,000 feet to its destruction. It was the 36th crash, and more were to come--unless Quiller finds out who is to blame.
That meant entering the deadly shadow world between East and West, where the name of the game was betrayal and the stakes were sky-high."
"'The deadline was close and I knew now what London had sent me out here to do: define, infiltrate and destroy. And I couldn't do it just by standing in the way of the program Moscow was running. I'd have to get inside and blow it up from there.'
Across the black snowscape of Poland's capital, a city where winter is more than a season, falls the shadow of a British Intelligence operation designed to save detente from explosion--an operation that pivots on an agent callously thrown into the front line of the Cold War and caught in the crossfire"
"Tango Briefing is the 5th book in the Quiller spy series by Adam Hall (AKA Elleston Trevor, etc, etc). Quiller is a British spy who works generally on his own and works for a mysterious British government department. He's supposed to specialize in disinformation, is called an executive when on missions. He doesn't use a fire arm but is capable at defending himself. The stories are told in the first person.
In Tango Briefing, Quiller is flown back from another mission to England and sent almost immediately to Tunisia. A cargo plane has gone down in the Algerian desert with a mysterious cargo and Quiller needs to get to the plane before the opposition (whoever that might be) and determine the cargo. He is assigned to Loman, who is to be his Local Control and also along for comms assistance is a young woman, Diane, from the local British embassy.
It's an intricate story as Quiller and the others must avoid the opposition and coordinate with an oil exploration company, contracting out a French pilot to deliver Quiller to the crash site at a remote site in the Sahara, try to find it before the others do, photograph the cargo and get back to Tunisia to deliver the info. Along the way, there will be efforts by the opposition to get rid of previous 'executives' and also attempts to both track / follow Quiller and finally to get rid of him.
It's an interesting story especially from a couple of perspectives. I enjoyed the trade craft, the communication procedures, the timings and everything of that nature. Also the first person perspective makes it interesting. We get Quiller's thoughts on what is going on, his perspective on this mission and relations to other missions, his thoughts on possible outcomes and their impacts. While there is sufficient action to keep you satisfied from the spy / thriller aspect of the book, there is also a nice thoughtful aspect as we follow Quiller's thought processes. At times it does make things a bit confusing but the ultimate story is quite enjoyable (3.5 stars)"
"Quiller is in Hong Kong, where he thinks he's on vacation. But every alleyway leads dead to danger, and Quiller gets the message: he's never off duty.
The plot moves into a high gear. Quiller always enjoyed his rides, but this one is taxing. He finds a woman as faithless as she is beautiful; he fails to reform her, but enjoys the effort. He takes on villains one, two and three at a time and dispatches them on land with karate and in the South Seas with its aquatic equivalent"
"A Yugoslavian plane crashes in the south of France; a fuel tanker explodes at Rome airport, a British diplomat is shot dead in Phnom Penh. In each case Quiller, Adam Hall's relentless British agent witnesses the violence as he pursues a fanatical terrorist group known as Kobra"
"Quiller is older now, embittered, cynical and running on empty. A sorely needed vacation is rudely interrupted with an urgent mission to Moscow
A reliable British agent, Schrenk, an old partner of Quiller's, has been captured by the Russians and subjected to torture in Lubyanka Prison. Schrenk has managed to escape, but he has disappeared and has made no contact with control in London. Quiller is told to find him."
"In Peking ("Pekin" in British usage) the crowds gather for the funeral of the Chinese Premier. Quiller reports it: 'The British delegates formed a short line along the side of the catafalque as their leader placed the Queen's wreath carefully against it; then suddenly the sky was filled with flowers and the bloodied body of the Secretary of State was hurled against me by the blast as the coffin exploded.'"
"After quitting the Bureau and undertaking a dangerous freelance mission, Quiller heads for a lethal showdown with Mariko, a delicate Cambodian beauty who possesses a deadly embrace."
"Quiller's survival skills have never been so crucial as in this eerily prophetic mission torn from today's headlines. Standing over the smoldering corpse of the agent he had sworn to protect, Quiller vows to make things right. The killer's trail leads to a terrorist network targeting the next American flight out of Berlin. But what are their plans for this flight, and why are they trying so desperately to get their hands on a nuclear weapon…?"
The complete listing of Adam Hall's books can be found at this link.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
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