Dark
8 total works
'The British, once they take the gloves off - once they forget to play cricket, to be English gentlemen - they are the toughest things on earth,' says one German espionage agent to another in Dark Duet. And the trouble with Michael Kane, hero of this spy thriller, is that he never plays cricket with Nazi spies ...
'Dark Duet seems to me damn good' Raymond Chandler
Agent Michael Kells is in pursuit of Nazi spies in London, who have been tasked with the job of pinpointing the actual landing places of V1 bombs to improve their accuracy.
Through the strange byways of Kells's sinister errand flit the mysterious 'Auntie', the alluring Janine, the beautiful Mrs Vaile and the delightful and unfortunate Alison Fredericks.
'Nobody eats or sleeps in the course of this tale. And you probably won't either' New Yorker
Quayle, the master of a British spy ring in World War II, is faced with the task of dealing with a man who has come from Morocco with what he says is important information about German troops there. But is the man what he seems?
Quayle puts his agents into action, not hesitating to risk their lives to discover the answer, but it is Quayle who ends up doing most of the work - and who is prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause of war.
Fourteen miles off the tail-end of Andros Island in the West Indies lies Dark Bahama. Many people have discovered they can find their heart's desires there; many have found, too, that even in paradise it pays to watch your step.
Viola Steyning is young, wayward, rich and good looking, and the sort of girl to cause her mother back home in England a certain anxiety. That is why Julian Isles has been sent out by Johnny Vallon of Chennault Investigations to bring her back alive - for beneath the tranquil surface of Dark Bahama's tropical beauty lurk sinister and dangerous undercurrents.
Shaun Aloysius O'Mara, intelligence agent for the British 'second bureau', has been ordered by his superiors to go to Paris to obtain information that will lead to the capture of the lone survivor of the Nazi espionage system.
So when Shaun arrives in Paris he becomes a crude and shiftless drunkard and entangles himself with a clever and ruthless spy, Tanga de Sarieux, who is as brave as the men that surround her ...
The Second World War has just ended and the Secret Service has 'mislaid' two lists of German war criminals. Peter Everard Quayle is the head of the Department concerned and he was responsible for the compilation of the list. Instead of handing the job over to his agents he decides to call in a group of people who operated behind enemy lines during the war.
Among them is Michael Frewin, Quayle's second-in-command, who appears to be a bit of a fop - but outward appearances are deceptive for he is a cold-blooded killer ...
The sinister business of counter-espionage is played out by an array of magnificent characters. Quayle, compounded of wisdom, administrative genius and the ability to live without sleep, wine or women; Shaun O'Mara, who loves all those things, looks like an actor and is an aristocrat, and works with subtlety, artistry and distinction; and Ricky Kerr, a cleverly drawn portrait of a man who is not quite able to stand the pace.
The women, of course, dress superbly, move like angels, are as beautiful as diamonds and, with one notable exception, behave abominably.
'If there are better thrillers it is hardly possible to think of them while under the spell of this one' Times Literary Supplement