I like reading books about books. Paperbacks From Hell covered paperback horror from the sixities through the early nineties. Mike Ripley’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang cover British “thrillers” from the early 50s (Casino Royale) to the late 70s (The Eagle Has Landed).
I picked up the trade paperback edition from 2019. The hardback was first published by Harper-Collins in 2017. Mike Ripley discusses reading thrillers growing up in Yorkshire in the 60s. The thriller genre included Alistair MacLean’s WW2 novels, Ian Fleming’s “James Bond” series, or Wilbur Smith’s historical African adventures. The format was hardback with the bigger authors and then mass market paperback.
I read a few adventure novels in the genre by John Cleary and Colin Forbes in between Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback from a box of books given by my cousins. My dad read Frederick Forsyth back in the 70s. I started The Dogs of War as a teenager but got sidetracked. I have read some Alistair MacLean, Ian Fleming, and Wilbur Smith over the years but it is not a genre that I know well (unlike sword & sorcery).
Ripley writes on how important Ian Fleming’s “James Bond” novels were in the 1950s. He sparked what Ripley calls the spy fantasy as opposed to John le Carre or Len Deighton’s more restrained spy fiction. WW2 novels were popular in the 50s. Spy novels took off in the 60s in the wake of the James Bond movies’ success. The death of Ian Fleming left a big gap. Publishers scrambled to find something to fill the void. Sort of like the paperback rebirth of sword & sorcery in the 1960s when publishers looked for the next Conan.
Some space is devoted to the shambles of real life British Intelligence riddled with traitors like Kim Philby and company.
The 1970s – the 1960s spy craze died out. Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal was the a new era. Jack Higgins who had toiled producing paperbacks under various names. He struck gold with The Eagle Has Landed. The Americans had gotten in to the game by this point giving competition.
This is a great history. Ripley also has a list of authors in the back that will serve as reference to make use of. I may check out Adam Hall’s “Quiller” novels in time.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is available at Hamilton Books for $5.95 (originally published at $16.99).
Second the endorsement 100%. This really is a terrific book, and one every bit as useful as it is eminently readable. It deserves to accrue a reputation as an indispensable reference work for anyone with an interest in the golden age of British thriller writing.
And for many Stateside readers, perhaps only generally aware of the big hitters and maybe Innes and Bagley besides, it will certainly open up whole new avenues of rewarding reading and collecting interest; be it with James Mitchell aka James Munro, the now criminally neglected Alan Williams, the hip and groovy Adam Diment or two dozen alternatives to each of them.
If there is one criticism which can be levelled at the book then it lies with the unfathomable omission of any reference whatsoever to the Odhams Man’s Book series of omnibuses issued between 1958 and 1977. This is doubly regrettable because not only does the series overlap almost exactly with the period covered but it remains to this day one of the best and most economical ways of securing some of the harder to find works of the book’s recommended authors.