The CHB Spy Novel Series Guide
CoolHandBond
Mactan IslandPosts: 7,372MI6 Agent
Over the years there have been many series of spy books devoted to a character or team of characters with James Bond being the most famous one of all of course. I thought it may be interesting to list some of these so that if any AJBers like the sound of them they could try to obtain copies to try them out. Many of these series were never published in the UK but when I was a bookseller I used to import hundreds of books a month from the USA to sell - this was before the days of the internet so these were very rare for the UK. Nowadays in the age of the internet it is very easy to purchase almost anything so if any AJBers want any of the books that I list I suggest using abebooks.co.uk where most of them will be available at a reasonable price. I will try to list a different series every day with the main brief that the character will be a spy or an agent of some government organisation although I may stray outside of this from time to time.
So for the first one I have chosen a parody series of 007 himself about a man called Israel Bond or Oy-Oy-7. These were published in the mid-sixties and there were 4 titles: LOXFINGER, MATZOHBALL, ON THE SECRET SERVICE OF HIS MAJESTY THE QUEEN and finally YOU ONLY LIVE UNTIL YOU DIE. They were written by Sol Weinstein and are liberally laced with Jewish humour. Israel Bond or Oy-Oy-7 works for the Israeli Secret Service and there are may Bondian moments - one of the organisations he comes up against is called S.C.H.M.U.K.K.
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I could literally not have enough of this series in stock when I first bought them over in the early 80's and whatever price I put on them they flew off the shelves. Nowadays they can be purchased quite cheaply. I thoroughly recommend them to all Bond fans.
There will be another series listed tomorrow.
So for the first one I have chosen a parody series of 007 himself about a man called Israel Bond or Oy-Oy-7. These were published in the mid-sixties and there were 4 titles: LOXFINGER, MATZOHBALL, ON THE SECRET SERVICE OF HIS MAJESTY THE QUEEN and finally YOU ONLY LIVE UNTIL YOU DIE. They were written by Sol Weinstein and are liberally laced with Jewish humour. Israel Bond or Oy-Oy-7 works for the Israeli Secret Service and there are may Bondian moments - one of the organisations he comes up against is called S.C.H.M.U.K.K.
)I could literally not have enough of this series in stock when I first bought them over in the early 80's and whatever price I put on them they flew off the shelves. Nowadays they can be purchased quite cheaply. I thoroughly recommend them to all Bond fans.
There will be another series listed tomorrow.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Comments
We never get to know what the acronym stands for but it is a crime fighting organisation. There were only 3 books in the series and the titles are very Bondian - FROM BOARDWALK WITH LOVE, DR. YES and finally THE LOVING DAYLIGHTS. What makes it a bit different is that each book has a different female agent on the mission but the head of B.L.I.S.S. is a woman known as Y and is in all 3 books. The first book involves an agent with the number 36DD (yes it's that sort of humour in these books
Certainly worth a look especially as certain Bond themes run throughout each book.
Charles Hood was an agent for British Intelligence and was clearly modelled on Bond with expensive tastes in food and drink, clothing and very attractive to women. Some of the better titles were HAMMERHEAD, LET SLEEPING GIRLS LIE and SHAMELADY. They are quite good fun and the character was obviously created to cash in on the Bond film craze.
A 1968 movie of Hammerhead was released to little acclaim starring Vince Edwards as Hood. It is rarely seen nowadays and it's failure was probably due to the fact that apart from Bond the spy craze had pretty much played out by 1968.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
The Hammerhead film is on YouTube.
The first book, Passport to Oblivion was made into the film Where the Spies Are starring David Niven. Unfortunately, Niven was too old for the role and justice wasn't done to the novels and the proposed series of movies ended with the first one though it's well worth a view.
As did I! {[]
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
I was going to leave this series to later as it is very well known but as TP and Loeffs have recorded their praise for this series I have bought it forward. This series is a re-invention of the original Nick Carter series which ran in various formats including a radio show from 1886 to the 1950's when he was a private detective. To cash in on the spy craze he was reinvented as a secret agent for AXE an American agency headed by David Hawk (M) with his secretary Della Stokes (Moneypenny) and weaponmaster Geoffrey Poindexter (Q). Carter (codename N-3) was sent all over the globe to save the world coming up against various megalomaniacs and organisations such as CLAW and NOTCH.
The series had many different authors including Michael Avallone and Martin Cruz Smith. They deviated between 1st and 3rd person perspective. Obviously such a long series would have highs and lows but in general most of them are highly entertaining.
Some of the more interesting titles are the first book RUN SPY RUN and DRAGON FLAME, DANGER KEY, OPERATION MOON ROCKET, THE SEA TRAP, OPERATION SNAKE, ICE BOMB ZERO, DR DEATH and THE Q-MAN.
THE SIGN OF THE PRAYER SHAWL from 1976 has a cover very reminiscent to the 9/11 event. The final book titled DRAGON SLAY had the following on the cover: Collector's Edition: Last Of The Electrifying Series. After more than 30 million copies sold the law of diminishing returns marked the end of a fabulous series.
Many of the earlier books were published in the UK and memory fails me to how many but I imported them all from the USA and they were a major seller for me. Long live Nick Carter if anyone has not tried them I thoroughly recommend getting a few and they are widely available very cheaply now.
I knew very little about the Nick Carter novels. In my days of hunting through markets
and old book shops for the Bonds, I'd keep seeing them, so began buying a few.
I really enjoyed them. Must dig what books I have out of the garage for another read.
This series is so well known that I don't need to give any background and the books were well received and very popular, so I will concentrate more on the publishing side. The UK published books used different numbers from the US versions because 7 of the books were not published for some reason half way through the run. They were written by several different authors and are fun to read. The US publishers were ACE and the UK publishers were FOUR SQUARE. An un-numbered book THE ABC OF ESPIONAGE was published in both countries.
World Adventure Library published 14 comic strip paperbacks at the same time with excellent covers in the US only and the ones I managed to get from US in the late 1970's sold very quickly at premium prices.
Whitman published 4 hardcover books during this period at the same time mainly aimed at younger readers and these were highly collectable.
4 annuals were published in the UK from 1967-1970 all highly collectable. 3 further "annual style" books were also published: Comic Album No 1 1966 and TV Picture Story 1967 and 1968.
Gold Key published 22 issues of a comic book with issues 21 and 22 strangely re-issued from the earlier numbers 7 and 10.
There was also a monthly magazine that ran for 24 issues with interviews and stories about the show.
A series of bubblegum cards were issued in both countries.
The TV series and spin-off movies need no further detail.
I think it can be said that TMFU was a huge success and influence in the 60's and I have purchase the TV boxset and am enjoying Season 1 at the moment.
from markets or used book shops. ( they might still be boxed up in the garage)
The place were all married men's stuff ends up.
I have a question about TMFU, or rather the 60s in general. In many episodes of the show
when on a plane, they'd get up and go to a reception type area in the rear of the aircraft . Sitting
round a coffee table, reading a magazine etc.
Did this design exist, or was it dreamt up by the show ?
After TMFU came TGFU which follows the adventures of April Dancer a female U.N.C.L.E. agent with Alexander Waverley still as the boss. She is multi-lingual and an expert in judo and karate. She is sent on various missions armed with gadgets including a bra which turns into a climbing device. Like her male counterparts Solo and Kuryakin she is paired with a partner a British man called Mark Slate. Apart from an adventure with THRUSH she also comes up against an organisation called TORCH. The 5 books are titled with "Affair" like the TMFU series, THE BLAZING AFFAIR and THE CORNISH PIXIE AFFAIR being 2 of them. Interestingly only 2 were ever published in the US with the last 3 only being published in the UK. They were published by SIGNET in the US and FOUR SQUARE in the UK.
This series was of course was based on the one season, 29 episode TV spin-off series TGFU which starred Stephanie Powers and Noel Harrison and Leo G Carroll. The series was high camp and not so popular in the US but was hugely popular in the UK and 3 annuals from 1968-1970 prove this.
It was also the reason why 3 further books appeared in the UK and not in the US with the final 2 being set in England.
Gold Key published 5 comic books and there was also a monthly magazine which lasted for 7 issues with interviews and short stories.
They are well worth a look for U.N.C.L.E.completists.
Written by Bill S. Ballinger (who wrote several books and scripts for TV shows such as I-Spy and Alfred Hitchcock Presents) this is a little known series about an agent for the CIA and he is a master of disguise. Published in the US by Signet it is an excellent series which unfortunately seemed to get lost amongst the explosion of spy series from this period. The first in the series, THE SPY IN THE JUNGLE, is reminiscent of Dr. No as someone or something is downing American test missiles in the South Pacific. The other titles are: THE CHINESE MASK, THE SPY IN BANGKOK, THE SPY AT ANGKOR WAT and THE SPY IN THE JAVA SEA. The standard of writing is excellent and I highly recommend this series, it was never published in the UK although I did import them all and I could have sold a lot more if I could have got my hands on them.
ED NOON: a 33 book series.
Firstly the series is written by prolific author Michael Avallone who has also contributed to several series such as The Man From UNCLE, The Girl From UNCLE and Nick Carter. Secondly the series began in 1953 the same year as Fleming's CR. Thirdly even though he is a private detective he does undertake missions for The President in some of the books so I think it deserves a mention.
Some of the spy books are: THE ALARMING CLOCK, THE LIVING BOMB, ASSASSINS DON'T DIE IN BED, THE DOOMSDAY BAG and DEATH DIVES DEEP. Most were published by Signet with nice covers depicting sexy women. Avallone was always a decent writer and though they are a bit lightweight they are an enjoyable read.
Written by John Gardner, who later went on to write several Bond books, Boysie Oakes, known as The Liquidator, is an agent in the employ of the Department of Special Security. The twist is that Boysie Oakes is a coward who is pretty clueless in the ways of espionage, even hiring gunmen to do the dirty work. There were 8 books written from the mid 60's to mid 70's. The first was called THE LIQUIDATOR and some of the others were UNDERSTRIKE, TRAITOR'S EXIT and KILLER FOR A SONG. The books are very good and witty and dare I say a lot better than his efforts on Bond which left me rather cold sorry to say
Incidentally I have read that Gardner wrote the series because he hated James Bond which seems strange as he ended up writing about him! Does anyone know anything about this?
A 1965 film of the first novel THE LIQUIDATOR was released starring Rod Taylor as Boysie and Jill St. John as the love interest. This is well worth a look and sticks closely to the book. Presumably it didn't make much money as no further books were filmed.
"Palmer" works for British Intelligence in a section called W.O.O.C. (P). Dalby is his boss in the first book followed by Dawlish in the sequels. "Palmer" wears spectacles and lives in a London flat and seems to struggle with paying bills. The books are titled: THE IPCRESS FILE, HORSE UNDER WATER, FUNERAL IN BERLIN and THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN. Written by the masterful Len Deighton they are magnificent entertainment and should be on everyone's list of "must read" spy books.
In the books the agent is never named although he does go under some aliases but when they were filmed in the 1960's he was given the name Harry Palmer and was played superbly by rising star Michael Caine. 2 made for TV films were made in the mid 1990's but are very forgettable.
This thread may be of interest re Harry Palmer: http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/46150/the-60s-bond-rivals-2-harry-palmer/
Steve Victor is The Man From O.R.G.Y. (Organisation for the Rational Guidance of Youth) !! Victor is a researcher in sex and a agent for a top secret organisation. The books were written by Ted Mark and the first was published by Lancer in 1965 with the final one in 1981. The emphasis is on sex and it actually detracts from his missions sometimes against an organisation called S.M.U.T. Some of the titles are DR NYET, A HARD DAYS KNIGHT, ROOM AT THE TOPLESS and DIAL O FOR ORGY. The covers are better than the books to be honest but it is interesting to see how the relaxed attitudes towards sex are compared to today's PC climate.
A movie called The Man from O.R.G.Y. based on the third book The Real Gone Girls was released in 1970 starring Robert Walker Jr. as Victor but I have never seen it.
Interestingly they were quite a good seller for me but that is more to the fact that collector's like to have complete sets of books rather than the quality of the books.
In the year of George Lazenby's all to brief tenure as JB, Patrick Morgan (probably a pen name) bought the first of 10 books about a young wealthy agent who saved the world and bedded beautiful women. 10 undemanding books were published from 1969-1973 and if you like movie spy spoofs from the 60's you will love these. Published by Macfadden Books they had superb covers worth the purchase price alone. The first novel was called HANG DEAD HAWAIIN STYLE and other good titles are CUTE AND DEADLY SURF TWINS, TOPLESS DANCER HANGUP, THE GIRL IN THE TELLTALE BIKINI and BEACH QUEEN BLOWOUT.
They were never released in this country but I was fortunate enough to get a huge batch from my American bookdealer and they sold for premium prices - even today they are very hard to find and prices are usually still very high.
This is a little known series about a female agent working for BOSC (Bureau Of Special Cases). Sherazad, we never learn if this is a codename or her real name first or last, is a beautiful and capable agent who is sent on missions to save the world. The covers and blurb are a little misleading as they portray a rather salacious offering but the books are actually excellent thrillers with good villains and plots. The titles are WELCOME SHERAZAD, SHERAZAD ON A TRIP and SHERAZAD UPTIGHT. They are well worth a look, published by Panther/Mayflower in the UK and the final book is still rare to find and highly priced, pre-internet days I was easily getting £100+ per copy for the few I could lay my hands on though it can be picked up for about half that price now.