Hi there. I joined last week, although I've been reading
posts from this group for the last couple of years - whenever
I'm looking for information on a writer I like, I seem to
find an illuminating thread here, so I thought it was about
time I made myself known.
I'm a 28-year-old English journalist living in Brussels,
Belgium. I haven't read much "pure" hardboiled fiction, being
more of a fan of spy stuff: I like Donald Hamilton, Adam
Hall, and am just getting into James Atlee Phillips' Joe Gall
series.
I also like Martin Cruz Smith (including the Nick Carter and
Inquisitor stuff, which I think I found out about here) and
Russian writer Julian Semyonov, whose Petrovka 38 was
mentioned here in March. I haven't read that one, but
Seventeen Moments of Spring (called The Himmler Ploy in the
US) is one of the best spy novels I've read, and is pretty
hard-boiled. It features a Russian agent posing as a
high-ranking SD officer in the last days of WWII, desperately
trying to stop Himmler from making a separate peace with
Dulles. It's probably the most famous thriller in Russia, and
was a highly successful TV series there.
One reason I like Semyonov is that it gives me the chance to
see the world from the perspective of another culture. I am
getting more into spy stories not written by Brits or
Americans. In this vein, I was wondering if anyone here had
read any of Jean Bruce's stuff. He created the French-born
CIA agent Hugh Bonneville de Bath, OSS 117, a few years
before Fleming created James Bond, and he wrote around 70 of
the things. His wife took over after his death, followed by
their kids. There must be 300 or so books in the series -
kind of a French Nick Carter. During the 60s spy craze,
several were "adapted" for the silver screen, starring the
likes of John Gavin. In France and Benelux, these novels (and
the dreadful SAS series) can be found in just about every
used bookstore: I picked up six for around a euro the other
day. A few were translated into English in the Sixties, both
in America and Britain. Does anyone know the books at all?
Jeremy
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