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The Ka of Gifford Hillary
Controversy rages at the Ministry of Defence. And Sir Gifford Hillary, outspoken in his views on top-secret measures to counter the threat of Soviet aggression, is partly responsible for tempers fraying.
But danger and betrayal stalk closer to home. On a warm autumn night at Longshot Hall, Sir Gifford gets the shock of his life. Horrifically and inexplicably, he witnesses his own murder...
Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897—1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's bestselling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories. Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. Dennis Wheatley died on 11th November 1977. During his life he wrote over 70 books and sold over 50 million copies.
But danger and betrayal stalk closer to home. On a warm autumn night at Longshot Hall, Sir Gifford gets the shock of his life. Horrifically and inexplicably, he witnesses his own murder...
Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897—1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's bestselling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories. Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. Dennis Wheatley died on 11th November 1977. During his life he wrote over 70 books and sold over 50 million copies.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Dennis Wheatley
368 books254 followersDennis Yates Wheatley was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950s and 1960s.
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks.
He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).
In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.
He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club.
From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult", selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.
Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.
His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in the 1970s, indicating a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works owing to copyright problems.
Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published posthumously in a set by Heron Books UK. More recently, in April 2008 Dennis Wheatley's literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion.
He invented a number of board games including Invasion.
-Wikipedia
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks.
He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).
In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.
He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club.
From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult", selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.
Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.
His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in the 1970s, indicating a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works owing to copyright problems.
Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published posthumously in a set by Heron Books UK. More recently, in April 2008 Dennis Wheatley's literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion.
He invented a number of board games including Invasion.
-Wikipedia
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September 5, 2012
Dennis Wheatley’s The Ka of Gifford Hillary, published in 1956, is one of the “black magic” novels for which he was most famous although in fact the majority of his very large literary output consisted of non-occult thrillers. While there is no black magic as such in this book there are certainly supernatural, or at least paranormal, forces at work here.
Sir Gifford Hillary is the chairman of a large shipbuilding firm. He is asked by the Minister for Defence to undertake on an unofficial task. The Minister is convinced that the security of the United Kingdom can only be assured by a complete reliance on nuclear weapons and to fund the building of such weapons economies will need to be made in other areas of defence spending. For one thing, the Royal Navy will need to be abolished. Hillary’s job will be to help in creating a political climate favourable to such a drastic change.
Sir Gifford has other problems closer to home. His beautiful wife Ankaret has had many affairs. Sir Gifford has learnt to deal philosophically with the situation. Ankaret is a passionate woman whose physical needs are considerable but she loves her husband and he tolerates her infidelities. But now Ankaret has created a very awkward situation. Sir Gifford has a scientist named Owen Evans living in his house, a scientist who works for his shipbuilding company but also pursues his own pet personal projects, which at the moment consists mostly of working on a death ray. Ankaret has no intention of sleeping with the scientist but she has been flirting with him rather outrageously and now he has become obsessed by her. So obsessed that he has determined to murder Sir Gifford. Which he does. And Sir Gifford has the unsettling experience of watching his own murder.
Gifford Hillary is dead, but to his surprise he is still very much around. He assumes that this strangely ghostly existence means that he is in fact a ghost but the truth is much stranger than that. It appears that the ancient Egyptians were right - a person has not just a soul but several distinct spiritual essences, one of which is the ka. And now Sir Gifford’s ka has become not just a spectator at his own murder but will be the observer of many other disturbing events.
He will watch his wife murder the lustful scientist and then calmly forge a letter in his own handwriting placing the blame on Sir Gifford. Sir Gifford is not angry at her for this. After all he’s dead so she’s not doing him any harm and he rather admires her presence of mind in coming up with such a clever way of evading the law.
Hillary will also become a witness to a communist plot to assassinate the Defence Minister and a series of misadventures (partly his fault) that threaten to ruin the career of his nephew. He has two children of his own by his first marriage (Ankaret was his second wife and was much younger than her husband) but frankly they don’t like him and he doesn’t like them. His nephew has become more like a real son to him.
Hillary can see these events happening but he cannot intervene or make contact with anyone. But somehow he has to foil the communist plot and save his nephew’s career. And perhaps there is a way he can influence events. He has an idea of how this can be done but it will prove to be an exceptionally difficult task. Being dead is rather a big disadvantage but Hillary is resourceful and he isn’t giving up. The results of his efforts will lead him to a shocking discovery about his own death.
It all sounds very silly, and it is, but that was never a problem for Wheatley. He was no great literary stylist, his books suffer from certain characteristic structural faults and his characterisation was pretty sketchy but there was no doubt of his ability to come up with bizarrely fascinating plots that worked in spite of their outlandishness. And there was certainly no doubt of his ability to tell an enthralling story.
One of the characteristic faults of Wheatley’s writing was his propensity for indulging in lengthy digressions on the subjects of his favourite political hobbyhorses. Wheatley’s political views are unfashionable today but he gave a great deal of thought to politics and was often unnervingly prescient. His political conspiracy theories were elaborate and ingenious and enormous fun. He was never afraid of pushing his conspiracy theories too far - he pushed them as far as he possibly could.
The book starts a little slowly - Wheatley was never in a hurry - but once the plot really gets going the tension becomes truly nail-biting. Quite apart from the annoyance of being dead everything seems to conspire against Gifford Hillary. Hillary however is not a man to allow death to stop him from doing what he has to do.
There’s actually considerably more to Hillary’s death and his subsequent ghostly existence than meets the eye but I don’t intend to spoil what is definitely one of Wheatley’s cleverest plots.
It’s both a political thriller and a supernatural thriller. While Wheatley did not write horror as such, his Black Magic books being more accurately described as occult thrillers, there are certainly some effective and very macabre horror moments in this one.
Wheatley is always good trashy fun, with plenty of excitement and a dash of sex, and The Ka of Gifford Hillary is immensely entertaining. Highly recommended.
Sir Gifford Hillary is the chairman of a large shipbuilding firm. He is asked by the Minister for Defence to undertake on an unofficial task. The Minister is convinced that the security of the United Kingdom can only be assured by a complete reliance on nuclear weapons and to fund the building of such weapons economies will need to be made in other areas of defence spending. For one thing, the Royal Navy will need to be abolished. Hillary’s job will be to help in creating a political climate favourable to such a drastic change.
Sir Gifford has other problems closer to home. His beautiful wife Ankaret has had many affairs. Sir Gifford has learnt to deal philosophically with the situation. Ankaret is a passionate woman whose physical needs are considerable but she loves her husband and he tolerates her infidelities. But now Ankaret has created a very awkward situation. Sir Gifford has a scientist named Owen Evans living in his house, a scientist who works for his shipbuilding company but also pursues his own pet personal projects, which at the moment consists mostly of working on a death ray. Ankaret has no intention of sleeping with the scientist but she has been flirting with him rather outrageously and now he has become obsessed by her. So obsessed that he has determined to murder Sir Gifford. Which he does. And Sir Gifford has the unsettling experience of watching his own murder.
Gifford Hillary is dead, but to his surprise he is still very much around. He assumes that this strangely ghostly existence means that he is in fact a ghost but the truth is much stranger than that. It appears that the ancient Egyptians were right - a person has not just a soul but several distinct spiritual essences, one of which is the ka. And now Sir Gifford’s ka has become not just a spectator at his own murder but will be the observer of many other disturbing events.
He will watch his wife murder the lustful scientist and then calmly forge a letter in his own handwriting placing the blame on Sir Gifford. Sir Gifford is not angry at her for this. After all he’s dead so she’s not doing him any harm and he rather admires her presence of mind in coming up with such a clever way of evading the law.
Hillary will also become a witness to a communist plot to assassinate the Defence Minister and a series of misadventures (partly his fault) that threaten to ruin the career of his nephew. He has two children of his own by his first marriage (Ankaret was his second wife and was much younger than her husband) but frankly they don’t like him and he doesn’t like them. His nephew has become more like a real son to him.
Hillary can see these events happening but he cannot intervene or make contact with anyone. But somehow he has to foil the communist plot and save his nephew’s career. And perhaps there is a way he can influence events. He has an idea of how this can be done but it will prove to be an exceptionally difficult task. Being dead is rather a big disadvantage but Hillary is resourceful and he isn’t giving up. The results of his efforts will lead him to a shocking discovery about his own death.
It all sounds very silly, and it is, but that was never a problem for Wheatley. He was no great literary stylist, his books suffer from certain characteristic structural faults and his characterisation was pretty sketchy but there was no doubt of his ability to come up with bizarrely fascinating plots that worked in spite of their outlandishness. And there was certainly no doubt of his ability to tell an enthralling story.
One of the characteristic faults of Wheatley’s writing was his propensity for indulging in lengthy digressions on the subjects of his favourite political hobbyhorses. Wheatley’s political views are unfashionable today but he gave a great deal of thought to politics and was often unnervingly prescient. His political conspiracy theories were elaborate and ingenious and enormous fun. He was never afraid of pushing his conspiracy theories too far - he pushed them as far as he possibly could.
The book starts a little slowly - Wheatley was never in a hurry - but once the plot really gets going the tension becomes truly nail-biting. Quite apart from the annoyance of being dead everything seems to conspire against Gifford Hillary. Hillary however is not a man to allow death to stop him from doing what he has to do.
There’s actually considerably more to Hillary’s death and his subsequent ghostly existence than meets the eye but I don’t intend to spoil what is definitely one of Wheatley’s cleverest plots.
It’s both a political thriller and a supernatural thriller. While Wheatley did not write horror as such, his Black Magic books being more accurately described as occult thrillers, there are certainly some effective and very macabre horror moments in this one.
Wheatley is always good trashy fun, with plenty of excitement and a dash of sex, and The Ka of Gifford Hillary is immensely entertaining. Highly recommended.
March 25, 2013
It's sad that Dennis Wheatley is so neglected today. He was one of the most entertaining, lucid writers of his time. And as well as being able to write action thrillers that made "Sapper" (of Bulldog Drummond fame) or Dornford Yates run away and hide in shame, he had another gimmick to make his stories even more interesting.
You see, in Wheatly, his suave aristocratic clubland heroes aren't just taking on Russian spies or nasty Nazis. No, they're after bigger game - Satan and his earthly minions themselves. In fact, what at first seems like a simple earthly conflict (A British secret agent against his Nazi counterpart, for example) inevitably turns out to be yet another round of the struggle between darkness and light.
"The Ka of Gifford Hillary" is a typical black magic tale, written when Wheatley was at the height of his powers. A rich British aristicrat/businessman is murdered (or so you think), but somehow his ka, or life force, remains earthbound, and sets out to influence earthly affairs and save his own life. What happens can't be told without bringing in too many spoilers... let's just say you get more twists and turns in this book than in the entire James Bond canon. Including live burial, social comment, and even a chance to play the voyeur at a prostitute doing a poo!
And given that so much of this story tales place on the astral plane, might even say it is - in a sense - a proto cyberpunk novel, with the spirit world substituted for the virtual universe!
There is, however, a small caveat for modern readers. Dennis is... let's put this as nicely as possible... a somewhat unreconstructed conservative. To him, it's taken for granted that aristocrats are there by right, that Britain was the center of the universe and Johnny Wog, the working class and the parvenu should know their place. Villains are usually ugly, deformed and surly, heroes are handsome, frank and open, women can act heroically but still usually need rescuing at some point, and everything stops for the heroes to dine on fine caviar and expensive wines. And don't get him started on homosexuals or communists!
If you're anything but British in Wheatley's universe, and you want to be a hero, you'd better damn well be a European aristocrat, or at the very least a rich Jewish or American banker.
Once you can get by this however, and realize that Wheatley was simply expressing views normal for his class and era, you'll find this one a fascinating read. In my opinion, a Wheatley revival is long overdue.
You see, in Wheatly, his suave aristocratic clubland heroes aren't just taking on Russian spies or nasty Nazis. No, they're after bigger game - Satan and his earthly minions themselves. In fact, what at first seems like a simple earthly conflict (A British secret agent against his Nazi counterpart, for example) inevitably turns out to be yet another round of the struggle between darkness and light.
"The Ka of Gifford Hillary" is a typical black magic tale, written when Wheatley was at the height of his powers. A rich British aristicrat/businessman is murdered (or so you think), but somehow his ka, or life force, remains earthbound, and sets out to influence earthly affairs and save his own life. What happens can't be told without bringing in too many spoilers... let's just say you get more twists and turns in this book than in the entire James Bond canon. Including live burial, social comment, and even a chance to play the voyeur at a prostitute doing a poo!
And given that so much of this story tales place on the astral plane, might even say it is - in a sense - a proto cyberpunk novel, with the spirit world substituted for the virtual universe!
There is, however, a small caveat for modern readers. Dennis is... let's put this as nicely as possible... a somewhat unreconstructed conservative. To him, it's taken for granted that aristocrats are there by right, that Britain was the center of the universe and Johnny Wog, the working class and the parvenu should know their place. Villains are usually ugly, deformed and surly, heroes are handsome, frank and open, women can act heroically but still usually need rescuing at some point, and everything stops for the heroes to dine on fine caviar and expensive wines. And don't get him started on homosexuals or communists!
If you're anything but British in Wheatley's universe, and you want to be a hero, you'd better damn well be a European aristocrat, or at the very least a rich Jewish or American banker.
Once you can get by this however, and realize that Wheatley was simply expressing views normal for his class and era, you'll find this one a fascinating read. In my opinion, a Wheatley revival is long overdue.
January 2, 2020
3.4 stars!
Warning. Dry, slow-burn horror. DRY! Lot's of post WW II political brinkmanship. If you can make it past the initial 90 page setup then you reach the chewy horror center then you're good to go. Highly recommended for 1950's UK horror fans.
Warning. Dry, slow-burn horror. DRY! Lot's of post WW II political brinkmanship. If you can make it past the initial 90 page setup then you reach the chewy horror center then you're good to go. Highly recommended for 1950's UK horror fans.
Did Not Finish
April 15, 2026Watch me climb out of the trenches and wave a white flag. I’m not finishing this novel. Mr Wheatley never writes one sentence when he could write twenty. The man rambles, and not like your ancient, divorced aunt rambles, where you might hope to hear a conclusion after three hours on the telephone, and where familial duty softens your impatience. The man can write entire paragraphs which mean nothing.
Chekhov argued that if a gun is mentioned, it must be used, or there’s no point to it. Mr Wheatley believes if anything is mentioned, it must be described in full detail. When he casually mentions a Board of Directors, you best believe, he’ll brief you on every director, and when I say “brief”, I don’t mean brief, I mean: elaborate.
In the very text of this novel, the narrator (and protagonist) advises readers to skip to a certain page, if they’re not interested in a conversation, which is irrelevant to the plot, but goes on for ages. He doesn’t need to ask me twice.
Chekhov argued that if a gun is mentioned, it must be used, or there’s no point to it. Mr Wheatley believes if anything is mentioned, it must be described in full detail. When he casually mentions a Board of Directors, you best believe, he’ll brief you on every director, and when I say “brief”, I don’t mean brief, I mean: elaborate.
In the very text of this novel, the narrator (and protagonist) advises readers to skip to a certain page, if they’re not interested in a conversation, which is irrelevant to the plot, but goes on for ages. He doesn’t need to ask me twice.
March 8, 2008
I've been having a really good run of books so far this year. The Ka of Gifford Hillary unfortunately breaks my streak coming in as the first turkey of 2008.
Most of The Ka of Gifford Hillary is an incredibly boring, long paragraph with little action and no dialogue recollection of espionage and other Cold War stuff. If you enjoyed Day of the Jackal and want to see it peppered with some occult stuff, then you'll probably like this book.
At about the midway point, just when I was going to chuck the book across the room unfinished, Gifford Hillary is suddenly a ghost and he spends much of the remainder of the book trying to bring his would-be murderer to justice while of course saving the free world from Cold War baddies. Unfortunately Gifford is as boring a ghost as he was a living character!
Of course though Gifford isn't really dead. He's just having an extended out of body experience. To see it done better, watch the Family Guy episode where Death pulls Peter out of this body on the golf course.
Most of The Ka of Gifford Hillary is an incredibly boring, long paragraph with little action and no dialogue recollection of espionage and other Cold War stuff. If you enjoyed Day of the Jackal and want to see it peppered with some occult stuff, then you'll probably like this book.
At about the midway point, just when I was going to chuck the book across the room unfinished, Gifford Hillary is suddenly a ghost and he spends much of the remainder of the book trying to bring his would-be murderer to justice while of course saving the free world from Cold War baddies. Unfortunately Gifford is as boring a ghost as he was a living character!
Of course though Gifford isn't really dead. He's just having an extended out of body experience. To see it done better, watch the Family Guy episode where Death pulls Peter out of this body on the golf course.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2022
It’s a running joke in my marriage that if very occasionally my husband recommends a book or film which I find I don’t then enjoy as much as he did I will roll my eyes and say “Mmm, the Ka of Gifford Hillary”! He’d told me it was quite entertaining! (Admittedly most of the time his taste is very reliable!)
I beg to differ, and can only amend a line from Gene Wilder’s ‘Young Frankenstein’:
It was doo-doo!
I know Wheatley was enormously popular in his time (I remember my teenage brother in the 1960s reading The Devil Rides Out in bed, quite terrified!😁), but found this very dated.
I beg to differ, and can only amend a line from Gene Wilder’s ‘Young Frankenstein’:
It was doo-doo!
I know Wheatley was enormously popular in his time (I remember my teenage brother in the 1960s reading The Devil Rides Out in bed, quite terrified!😁), but found this very dated.
October 7, 2018
Big Dennis Wheatley fan here. In this book, he explores the concept of the "ka" or soul and what might happen if body and soul are separated. Brace yourself for lots of post world war II history, attitudes and lengthy descriptions at the get-go.
I have only read a few of his Black Magic books but intend to read as many of them as I can despite a wide streak of political incorrectness that permeates them all. Great adventures if one is a patient and tolerant reader.
I have only read a few of his Black Magic books but intend to read as many of them as I can despite a wide streak of political incorrectness that permeates them all. Great adventures if one is a patient and tolerant reader.
July 26, 2015
Being fascinated by spiritualism since a wee young lad who was dragged (thankfully) out of a Methodist Church and into a Christian Spiritualist church, I devoured this book. My approach and understanding of spiritual matters, shunning the traditional religious view which to me is absurd, has been the driver for me to learn more. The Ka of Gifford Hillary is a tale of a wealthy man, Sir Gifford, who finds that he has an 'out of body' experience in the most literal sense. His spirit, or 'ka', has escaped from his body and wanders around southern England. It drew me in at that young age and while it is just a tale of fantasy (and not black magic as so many label the book) was something that held my interest. For me, it was just another though provoking piece of alternative perception.
June 27, 2025
This is a good occult thriller novel that includes some quite extensive (but in my view not too extensive) background on what a Ka is, including the difference between a Ka and the spirit of someone who has "passed over", delving right back into ancient Egyptian religious beliefs. Most of this explanation was very familiar to me but I enjoyed refreshing my knowledge. For many readers it will be quite new and hopefully therefore even more fascinating.
There are thrills in it, with several strands contributing to them. It is a good thriller even though it is not a mystery thriller. We know exactly who did what and when, so it is certainly not a "whodunnit", but what we do not know until right at the end is how it will turn out, and particularly whether the authorities will know.
As is the case in several of his novels, and in particular in "Faked Passports", Dennis Wheatley unfortunately spends a little too much time showing the reader how knowledgeable he is about the UK's military secrets due to his position in the powerful “London Controlling Section" during the second world war. In "The Ka of Gifford Hillary" he does this in his focus on the top level political discussions immediately after the war on how our military should function in the "new era" in which it is believed that nuclear warfare is likely to be more important than conventional warfare. Even Wheatley seems to recognise he might have gone further than necessary in this technical background and suggests that a reader who is not interested in it could leave out a whole section without worrying about losing the plot of the story! In truth, just as Wheatley suggests, you could happily avoid all the war planning analysis and enjoy the novel better. Perhaps it would therefore have been better if he had followed his instinct and simply omitted all this detail!
He expresses opinions with which I completely disagree. For example, that nuclear warfare might be the best way to fight with countries that have superior military forces when they themselves do not use or even have nuclear weapons. Views on this have mostly changed since he wrote this, and hopefully even those who accept the need for a nuclear deterrent do not agree with Wheatley that nuclear weapons should be our weapons of choice.
He also shows himself to be very much a man of his time, with views on class and a rather condescending attitude towards women that would certainly not be fashionable or even generally acceptable today. This is noticeable in most of his novels and may distract many readers from enjoying his works, although I can happily see past this and be gripped by the thrills of those novels anyway.
Having said all this, the novel is still extremely interesting if you can avoid being too disconcerted by the rather distracting and pretty irrelevant military background and out of date views. Despite those distractions I found myself eager to turn the page to find out what happens next and didn't want to put the book down. This, to me, is the essence of a good thriller novel.
There are thrills in it, with several strands contributing to them. It is a good thriller even though it is not a mystery thriller. We know exactly who did what and when, so it is certainly not a "whodunnit", but what we do not know until right at the end is how it will turn out, and particularly whether the authorities will know.
As is the case in several of his novels, and in particular in "Faked Passports", Dennis Wheatley unfortunately spends a little too much time showing the reader how knowledgeable he is about the UK's military secrets due to his position in the powerful “London Controlling Section" during the second world war. In "The Ka of Gifford Hillary" he does this in his focus on the top level political discussions immediately after the war on how our military should function in the "new era" in which it is believed that nuclear warfare is likely to be more important than conventional warfare. Even Wheatley seems to recognise he might have gone further than necessary in this technical background and suggests that a reader who is not interested in it could leave out a whole section without worrying about losing the plot of the story! In truth, just as Wheatley suggests, you could happily avoid all the war planning analysis and enjoy the novel better. Perhaps it would therefore have been better if he had followed his instinct and simply omitted all this detail!
He expresses opinions with which I completely disagree. For example, that nuclear warfare might be the best way to fight with countries that have superior military forces when they themselves do not use or even have nuclear weapons. Views on this have mostly changed since he wrote this, and hopefully even those who accept the need for a nuclear deterrent do not agree with Wheatley that nuclear weapons should be our weapons of choice.
He also shows himself to be very much a man of his time, with views on class and a rather condescending attitude towards women that would certainly not be fashionable or even generally acceptable today. This is noticeable in most of his novels and may distract many readers from enjoying his works, although I can happily see past this and be gripped by the thrills of those novels anyway.
Having said all this, the novel is still extremely interesting if you can avoid being too disconcerted by the rather distracting and pretty irrelevant military background and out of date views. Despite those distractions I found myself eager to turn the page to find out what happens next and didn't want to put the book down. This, to me, is the essence of a good thriller novel.
August 5, 2024
Probably not even a 3. Not sure. I think I will remember it though. Hokum, but it seemed an original creative concept and I kind of wanted to know what would happen to the main disembodied then reembodied character and kept reading.
But it is certainly very flawed. The dialogue tends to be extremely clunky and cliche a minute. I frequently wanted to tell the overanalysing narrator to just shut up. There are so many edits that could be made - so many side alleys that were really not necessary for the plot or characters just let go of. At the very beginning there is a huge amount of terse military strategy that is far more than is necessary for the story as if the publisher has asked him to add an extra 50 pages by tomorrow. And he puts his narrator in such a difficult muddled place reinventing his legal defences that he has to come up with a third party character deciding to investigate herself out of the blue to get him out of it. Frustrating because it's my first Wheatley and I was looking forward to reading books like The Devil Rides Out and am really not sure now what level of claptrap I'd be getting myself into.
But it is certainly very flawed. The dialogue tends to be extremely clunky and cliche a minute. I frequently wanted to tell the overanalysing narrator to just shut up. There are so many edits that could be made - so many side alleys that were really not necessary for the plot or characters just let go of. At the very beginning there is a huge amount of terse military strategy that is far more than is necessary for the story as if the publisher has asked him to add an extra 50 pages by tomorrow. And he puts his narrator in such a difficult muddled place reinventing his legal defences that he has to come up with a third party character deciding to investigate herself out of the blue to get him out of it. Frustrating because it's my first Wheatley and I was looking forward to reading books like The Devil Rides Out and am really not sure now what level of claptrap I'd be getting myself into.
October 5, 2025
Wow! The build up in tension was just incredible. There are moments of long drawn out conversations, some of board meetings and things which would seem quite boring but the way they are written keep them from being so. The shocking scene of death and the journey of one man's travel through the after life are stories in will never forget. Every character seems so realistic that it forced me to have great care for how events would unfold for them. Also the very many pages detailing the main character Gifford's awakening in his own grave is some of the most terrifying events I have ever read. The brilliant tension of final book continues right up to the final two pages. And although such a large novel, the ending left me wishing there was more. It is a sudden resolve to the climax, which was very welcome, but in mind the brilliance of the storytelling had me creating the final scenes myself. Of a man reuniting with his family and friends and continuing the life which was closely taken from him
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 31, 2020
This book is a delight and silly beyond measure. Gifford Hillary, the central figure is a wealthy man, the complaisant husband of a wayward wife with an improbable name. As wealthy men do, he keeps a mad scientist in one wing of his mansion. This scientist is much taken with the wife (she's not much interested in him) and sets out to murder Hillary. Hillary has also been recruited to manipulate government policy on the armed forces in a most devious fashion. These are not spoilers; they're in the first few pages. The plot then becomes even less probable with a very great many ramifications. The book fuses so many genres: occult, political conspiracy theory (Wheatley kindly invites readers to skip the most extreme passages on this topic with full page references), 1930s thriller and courtroom cliffhanger.
July 23, 2023
This is a fascinating story.
Caution. Written in 1956. If you are intolerant of the opinions of yesteryear, and can't suspend your dislike for what was mostly seen as within normal limits then, you should read something else.
Or, you could see it as a time documentation.
On the surface a Cold War story. Mr Wheatley is anti-communist,and not even a little apologetic. The setting is about whether or not the UK should build nuclear bombs, and the keeping of secrets.
But this is just nescessary background.
The important tale is about a man that gets murdered, but his ghost hangs around, and is witness to what happens afterwards. A very frustrated witness, who finds it difficult to communicate with the living.
If written today it would be classified as Urban Fantasy.
I recommend this, as long as you are not too prejudice about how people thought and acted just 67 years ago.
Caution. Written in 1956. If you are intolerant of the opinions of yesteryear, and can't suspend your dislike for what was mostly seen as within normal limits then, you should read something else.
Or, you could see it as a time documentation.
On the surface a Cold War story. Mr Wheatley is anti-communist,and not even a little apologetic. The setting is about whether or not the UK should build nuclear bombs, and the keeping of secrets.
But this is just nescessary background.
The important tale is about a man that gets murdered, but his ghost hangs around, and is witness to what happens afterwards. A very frustrated witness, who finds it difficult to communicate with the living.
If written today it would be classified as Urban Fantasy.
I recommend this, as long as you are not too prejudice about how people thought and acted just 67 years ago.
November 24, 2023
I like the idea of Dennis Wheatley books more than the books themselves. I've read a handful and the only one I really like is The Devil Rides Out, probably because I read it as a teenager when I tended to like everything. This one has a good idea: the title character is murdered and returns as a kind of ghost to watch the outcome of the murder. But eventually he figures out he's not a ghost but a Ka, an Egyptian concept of a human soul. A Ka is not quite the same as a ghost, but to explain the difference would be a mild spoiler, so I won't. The idea is solid but the execution is poor: at nearly 400 pages, the book is bloated with repeated details and occasional political polemic and unlikable characters. Only for Wheatley enthusiasts.
August 8, 2018
Not Wheatley's best frankly, but interesting for the premise alone.
Gifford Hillary is murdered, yet his soul lives on in limbo, searching for a way to re-inhabit his (now buried) corpse.
This itself makes for a fairly engaging read, but Wheatley insists on peppering his novel with pretentious Daily Mail type politics, inserted like a literary version of the "pottery wheel" tv shorts that the BBC used to paper over the cracks in programming in the 70's
Gifford Hillary is murdered, yet his soul lives on in limbo, searching for a way to re-inhabit his (now buried) corpse.
This itself makes for a fairly engaging read, but Wheatley insists on peppering his novel with pretentious Daily Mail type politics, inserted like a literary version of the "pottery wheel" tv shorts that the BBC used to paper over the cracks in programming in the 70's
January 6, 2022
I enjoyed this book despite the rather rushed ending: a real insight into upper middle class life and values in the 1950s. The pace of the book is strange as it can be slow and over detailed in parts and then unnecessarily fast, perhaps reflecting the author’s interest in his subject and characters. IMO the book would have been better if the “Sir Charles” nonsense had been removed as it was ultimately pointless and probably added 20% to the length of the book.
July 30, 2023
Before so many entered the supernatural field there was an Englishman who dabbled in the occult genre. His books are a bit dated but the stories are good reads. And if you find them in used book shops you might get them for a good price.
September 1, 2019
Despite a problematic author ( though his views were not that unusual for his time and class, sadly) and a bit of a rushed ending, this was an exciting and enjoyable story.
January 30, 2020
My dad gave me this book to read many years ago. I loved it and the story has stayed with me ever since.
April 6, 2021
I read this book many years ago, very late 60's. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was always a D.W. fan.
May 17, 2021
Not quite as amusing as the better known works.
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July 21, 2021I read this as a teen, and don't really remember how much I liked it.
August 25, 2022
I can almost feel myself on that coffin. This is also my worst fear! Loved this book, as it sent shivers up my back!
October 8, 2023
We should all read more Dennis Wheatley, I had avoided him for years, but after this I’m going to read more.
November 22, 2023
Interesting plot, however ending far from exciting
October 26, 2024
Very poor. I struggled to finish it. A daft plot and not a horror story.
July 8, 2012
The sheer audaciousness in actually getting you to follow some of the more preposterous aspects of the plot mark this book out for comment.
This book is even more full than usual of Wheatleys howlingly amusing and refreshing "political incorrectness" and love of all things British.It only really gets a little bit long winded in the chapter where the board are discussing defence strategy (and boy is Dennis piling on the politics for us here)for me he could have chopped 10 or fifteen pages and the book would not have suffered.
This book is even more full than usual of Wheatleys howlingly amusing and refreshing "political incorrectness" and love of all things British.It only really gets a little bit long winded in the chapter where the board are discussing defence strategy (and boy is Dennis piling on the politics for us here)for me he could have chopped 10 or fifteen pages and the book would not have suffered.
October 14, 2015
Well, indeed, another Wheatley. Like eating gum, quick, easy, and enjoyable. The story of a wealthy toff, murdered by his wife's lover, whose spirit (Ka) wonders the Earth for a week, collecting evidence, and then returns to his preserved (but buried) body. His wife suicides, he finds the truth about his family, and he is accused of murder, but, just in the nick of time, he is found innocent, and released.
Moderately compelling, entertaining, even creepy in parts.
Moderately compelling, entertaining, even creepy in parts.
April 26, 2012
A different departure for Mr Wheatley, building from his experience in the war. A different twist on the supernatural, as the tale explores what happens after death, and what really is your Ka. Wheatley's attention to detail brings the period and characters to life with his usual panache, and although not as suspenseful as some of his other novels this book still excels.
June 20, 2018
Typical Dennis Wheatley. Outdated and corny. Wooden prose, clunky dialogue. Bunch of toffs getting themselves in the poo. A rather abrupt denouement. But meanwhile Wheatley has taken you on a whirlwind ride, and it's been a heap of fun. Nothing like a Wheatley for a bit of undemanding fun when you need a break from "Ulysses" or "À la Recherche du temps Perdu".
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