Баракуда

Quiller #14

by Adam Hall, Стефан Величков (Translator)

Тайният агент Куилър се превръща в ходеща мишена, още щом влиза в Маями. Някой е насъскал срещу него местната мафия, за да го разкара от града.
Операция "Баракуда" е на път да свърши, още преди да е започнала. Шефовете му решават да го изтеглят, но Куилър вече е хванал дявола за опашката и много му се иска да я подръпне.
Трябва само да си предплати ковчега и да се опита да разбере кой забърква мафията в шпионски игри и дали единствено наркотиците са на дъното.

Genres: Espionage, Thriller, Fiction, Spy Thriller

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Author also wrote as Elleston Trevor.

Author Trevor Dudley-Smith was born in Kent, England on February 17, 1920. He attended Yardley Court Preparatory School and Sevenoaks School. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force as a flight engineer. After the war, he started writing full-time. He lived in Spain and France before moving to the United States and settling in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1946 he used the pseudonym Elleston Trevor for a non-mystery book, and later made it his legal name. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Adam Hall, Simon Rattray, Mansell Black, Trevor Burgess, Roger Fitzalan, Howard North, Warwick Scott, Caesar Smith, and Lesley Stone. Even though he wrote thrillers, mysteries, plays, juvenile novels, and short stories, his best-known works are The Flight of the Phoenix written as Elleston Trevor and the series about British secret agent Quiller written as Adam Hall. In 1965, he received the Edgar Allan Poe Award by Mystery Writers of America and the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for The Quiller Memorandum. This book was made into a 1967 movie starring George Segal and Alec Guinness. He died of cancer on July 21, 1995.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of the same from Quiller, but in this case that's a good thing. Because plot aside (which I'll get to in a minute), this book sticks super-closely to Hall's distinct, proven style that varies little from book to book, at least in the "second series" of Quiller stories, (i.e., numbers 11-19, which followed a three year break from his first ten books). I just re-read my review of the previous book, Quiller KGB, and every observation there is equally relevant here: Hall's endless, paragraph-if-not-page-long sentences*; the endless car chases which always end in a ball of flame; each chapter ending in a cliffhanger that then picks up hours or days later in the next; the actual plot (such as it is) not becoming clear until at least two-thirds through the story; an exotic locale that Hall never really takes advantage of; Quiller basically never having a plan except to repeatedly throw himself in front of the bad guys to see how they react (which begs the question: if the baddies simply ignored him, would they just get away with their evil plots?); and finally a super-abrupt ending which ties everything together in the last two pages. But again — isn't that what keeps bringing us back in the first place?

This time around, we have Quiller "in the drug-infested streets of Miami," and so I reluctantly went into this expecting a lame "Live and Let Die" kinda thing, (as British spy stories set in the U.S. rarely age well). But to my surprise, the plot (again, such as it is) turned out to be equal parts The Manchurian Candidate, Donald Trump's 2016 presidential run**, and any James Bond movie featuring an evil cabal like Spectre. That is, there's a Russian plan to "buy" the American presidency, while a sinister group of international industrialists wants to set up a global government nominally headed by said president but actually manipulated by Candidate-style mind control.

Anyway — good, well-written-but-silly fun; both Quiller and Hall have yet to disappoint.
_________________________________

* "Pick-up truck on the left and I grazed the side and tore some metal away, someone shouting, a two-tone cab pulling out from the gap between the wharves but keeping its distance as I pulled the rear end straight and look for a clear clear passage, but there wasn’t one — three or four people with bags and fishing rods were walking down from the street and I hit the brakes and we slid and I let them off but the speed was still too high and I chose the only way out that wouldn’t hurt anyone and put the car between a capstan and a rusting trailer and flexed the seatbelt to make sure it was tight and then they tried again and after that there was just a lot of metal screaming as we ricocheted and hit the trailer at ten degrees and dragged the wings off and the car windows on that side burst into snow and we bounced and corrected and hit the rear end of a private car and swung it around, glass smashing again and the pop of a tire bursting and then there was a shed straight in front of me and at this speed it was going to be a jolt and I sank lower into the seat and settled the belt again and waited with my foot hard down on the brake and the tires shrilling across the concrete." (And thanks here to the voice-to-text function on my phone!)

** Okay, well kinda like Trump's campaign; in that the candidate is "telling the voters there's so much wrong with America after the previous administration that the country needs taking apart and rebuilding;" but then Hall also describes the candidate as "a figure of almost majestic dedication to the serious and solemn business of leadership," not some ignorant man-child Fascist/populist buffoon who chums around with Meatloaf, Gary Busey and Kid Rock. So obviously the analogy only goes so far…but this was back in 1990; who could have possibly imagined?

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't been reading this series in any particular order. I've read two previous books in this spy series. Quiller Barracuda by Adam Hall is the 14th book in the series and finds Quiller on assignment in Florida. His mission is to find and bring home an agent, Charles Proctor, who seems to have gone off the radar, after starting to act irrationally. Quiller will find himself involved in political intrigue and also with Florida drug dealers as he gets involved in this story.

The Quiller books are quite different in tone from other spy series I've read. Quiller spends much of the book in his own self-analysis, at the same time moving the story along. I also find it interesting how they conduct the 'administration' (wrong word, I think) of conducting a mission. Quiller is the Executive, his name on the big board at MI6, assigned to Barracuda. Ferris is his Controller, sent to Florida to debrief Quiller, to assign followers, to maintain security and to provide the link back to London. The whole process is fascinating.

Quiller finds himself in an international plot, a group that wants to affect an upcoming Presidential election, affect the World order. Proctor is involved, he's hooked on drugs, he wants Quiller dead and has set a contract out with the local drug lord. The Russians may be involved. It's a complex, interesting plot. There are various intelligent, independent, beautiful women who help Quiller in various ways to advance his investigation. There is a terrifying episode involving a shark.

It's an interesting take on the spy story and I will continue to explore the series. (4.0 stars)

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although there were a few good moments, this is a weaker Quiller entry. A large part of the plot rests on pseudo-science, and that was particularly annoying as the rest of the plot could have been quite frightening without that element. Particularly today (2018) when there are some eerie parallels between the plot here and real life regarding Russia and POTUS.

[Mark Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Quiller series of spy novels are amongst some of my favourite books of all time. Reading like a much more true to life version of James Bond, they follow the exploits of an ‘executive’ known only as Quiller who is very often sent out into ‘the field’ to deal with matters of national security that need to be handled discretely.
We learn very early on that Quiller is not his real name, but that is all the personal information we ever learn about the character other than that he likes to work alone and never accepts a gun on any of his assignments.
Each book details another of his ‘missions’, which all too often end up with Quiller fighting for his life.
They are a very realistic depiction of what it must have been like to work in the Intelligence community during the Thatcher years and although they are obviously fiction, are still all very highly enjoyable reads.
Barracuda sees Quiller dispatched to check in on another agent, situated in America, who has been sending back reports that are out of character enough to have made the Bureau begin to question his loyalty.
Almost immediately after meeting his contact, whom Quiller knows well from working with him on missions in the past, Quiller’s hackles and suspicions are raised and it isn’t long before he finds himself in up to his neck in what is Adam Hall’s take on The Manchurian Candidate.
This was another great read from veteran spy author, Adam Hall - a pseudonym for another author who saw the majority of his success come from these books.
It all ends a bit sudden, hence the 4 star and not a 5, but that is something readers of these books have come to expect.
Like I say, these books are very James Bond-esque, but without all the unnecessary frills, and that is what makes these such a good read.
Reading these books, you can almost well imagine that this is the kind of espionage that still goes on even now behind the scenes, and that many of us in the general public never get to learn about.
Another top class thriller from Adam Hall...

[Karl Jorgenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Adam Hall (pen name of Elleston Trevor). I imagine the original idea was that Trevor would write the QUALITY stuff under his own name (Flight of the Phoenix) and the quick-read action pulp stuff under Adam Hall. But his true colors show: his Quiller spy-thrillers are breathlessly paced, credible, and oh-so-enjoyable.
His writing is exemplary, the books in first person. His special trick: the sentence fragment to avoid repeating 'I'. Instead of 'I turned the light on' he writes 'Turned the light on'. It seems like a tiny thing, but it isn't. The absence of the hammering 'I' at the start of sentences is invigorating and eases my immersion in the action. When I read a Quiller, I am Quiller.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Quiller Barracuda" is the 14th of the 19 Quiller books. Set in Nassau and Miami, it sends Quiller after an apparently rogue Bureau agent who is involved with both the Mafia and a shadowy international group of wealthy men that seems to be out to buy itself an American president. But to what end? The central objective of the group, mentioned briefly, is too absurd to matter, but the chase after them, and them after Quiller, is first rate stuff. There's particularly good scenes on board a boat full of killers, and in the water amidst a killer bunch of sharks. Quiller's sardonic commentary is worth the read alone.

[Dr Susan Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a bit addicted to Quiller novels this lat year but Barracuda is not as gripping as others I've read. Only one chapter really grabbed me and that was when he was underwater - a tense bit of shark interaction (but no actual barracudas despite the cover of my paperback (344 pp) and not in the list. The mission to combat world domination was a good idea and as others have noted, timely given the apparent interference affecting democratic elections these days.
Worth a read as the character is so good and he clearly likes women too.

[Peter Reiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

What fun it is to read how British secret agent Quiller finds himself in tough situations where his life hangs from a thread and he manages to use his wits and combat skills to save himself. He is also a knight in armor saving the poor Russian ballerina from an evil mafia man and his organization. Quiller takes you for a ride both in Moscow and a prison camp deep in Siberia to how you how he outwits everyone and finishes his mission.

[Ollie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite hard to read the poor sentences and the sprawling disconnected train of though. Based of a psudoscience to whihc is disappointing. Could have been a good book if not for the writing.

[Ivo Stoykov · Rating 3 out of 5]

good action novel