If Duane will shout out for good old Edward Aarons, I'll shout out for Donald Hamilton.
The first several Matt Helm books are wonderful.
The first, DEATH OF A CITIZEN, and the third, THE REMOVERS, are among the best hard-boiled espionage novels I've ever read. Extraordinarily compelling narrative drive and some swift, brutal twists in the plot of both.
John
--- On Fri, 4/24/09, Duane Spurlock <duane1spur@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Duane Spurlock <duane1spur@yahoo.com>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Willie Garvin and Friends
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, April 24, 2009, 11:01 AM
"James Michael Rogers" jeddak5@cox. net brief897 wrote:
<<
Am I the only HB spy dude left in the room?
>>
Nope.
I like Alan Furst's period spy novels. The spying is so oblique or atmospheric in some cases, it may be hard to convince some folks they are actual Spy novels.
Perhaps my favorite contemporary author (at the moment, anyway) in the genre is Charles McCarry.
And although prolific, some of the best Cold War spy writing I continually return to is the Sam Durrell series by Edward S. Aarons. I'm reading ASSIGNMENT: BURMA GIRL (1961) right now. Excellent stuff. I think if this novel were published now as a new book with no "series stigma" attached, critics would hail it as an excellent piece of writing in the genre.
- Duane
www.pulprack. com
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