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Quiller #13
Quiller KGB
Quiller is asked by London's Bureau to accept a mission with a completely new to work with Russia's formidable and ruthless KGB. The Soviet Union's charismatic leader is headed for a diplomatic visit to East Berlin at a time when tensions surrounding the hated Berlin Wall are at their height. Quiller uncovers more than one conspiracy as he tries to stop a highly sophisticated assassin from killing Russia's General-Secretary. "Few writers handle action as excitingly as Hall ... The dialogue is crisp and cryptic, with Quiller's thoughts tossed in at random, keeping the reader on his toes." - The Houston Chronicle on QUILLER KGB Praise for the QUILLER "For fans and students of the genre, it's a must … pure adrenaline!" - The Chicago Times "Hall has been turning out Quiller novels, each one a winner, for years. Over the years, the character has grown in eccentricity, depth and appeal." - The Chicago Tribune "Hall has created a new the spy thriller that is all action and yet cerebral, a writing feat few can match … Hall delivers!" - The Boston Globe "Riveting and taut … you won't be disappointed!" - The Denver Post "Quiller is one of suspense literature's great secret agents!" - The Houston Chronicle "Thrilling." - The Los Angeles Times "They don't get any tougher or more intelligent than the Quiller tales." - The Rocky Mountain News "Quiller is by now a primary reflex." - Kirkus Reviews "Tense, intelligent, harsh, surprising..." - The New York Times (Quiller is) "the greatest survival expert among contemporary secret agents." - The New York Times "Stunningly well done, tense, elliptical, without a misplaced word." - The New York Republic "Espionage at its best!" - The London Times "Breathless entertainment!" - The Associated Press "White-hot intensity." - The Washington Post Praise for ADAM "Tension in a novel is difficult to maintain at a pitch that actually creates a physical impact on the reader. A few of the best writers can do it, and among them is Adam Hall." - London Times Literary Supplement "Nobody writes espionage better than Adam Hall!" - The New York Times "When it comes to espionage fiction, Adam Hall has no peer." - Eric Van Lustbader, author of "The Ninja" "[Adam Hall] is the unchallenged king of the spy story." - Buffalo News "Adam Hall is an exemplary writer and one of the few in this genre to do his job with a poet's skill and fierce pride in the language." - The Hong Kong Times "Adam Hall writes the most exciting, original and authentic espionage novels to be found on bookshelves today." - The Banner author Elleston Trevor’s novels, plays, and short stories range from light, witty mysteries to dramas, usually about ordinary individuals experiencing extraordinary situations. To cover a wide diversity of subject matter Elleston wrote under various Adam Hall, Trevor Burgess, Roger Fitzalan, Simon Rattray, Mansell Black, Caesar Smith, Howard North, Warwick Scott, and even a woman’s name, Leslie Stone.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1989
8 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
About the author
Adam Hall
157 books99 followersAuthor 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 1, 2023
At the Bureau, we don’t have a license to kill; we have a license to die.
Great line. Best line in the book, in fact, because after that I’m afraid this isn’t all that strong a story. Basic plot has Quiller in Berlin trying to stop an assassin and working against a ticking clock. With no real clues to go on, his only hope is to draw out the assassin…and so the whole book becomes a running joke of Quiller exposing himself while the bad guys keep trying (and failing) to kill him, until he finally captures one of them and gets the information he needs to stop the plot.
So…WHAT IF the bad guys had just ignored Quiller and proceeded with their plan? It probably would have worked, and Quiller would have failed.
And that was it. Whole story was a big MacGuffin to allow Hall to pump out another entry in his by-now annual series.* Hall definitely has style, and in past books has exhibited some fairly good tradecraft; but in this book it all boils down to car chases (which almost always end in exploding vehicles – is that really a thing?) and Quiller’s impressive martial arts skills.
One bright spot: I noted in two previous Quiller reviews that Hall places him in some pretty exotic locations, but then doesn’t really do anything with them, (understandable perhaps, as they were written pre-internet and pre-Google street view, and so it was a lot harder to do research without actually traveling somewhere, and both Singapore and Tibet are pretty damned far from England). However, with this book set mainly in Berlin, he does a much better job creating a real feel for the place, based I imagine on at least some level of personal experience. ALSO: fun fact, but this is probably one of the very last Berlin Wall spy book, since it was published just six months before the Wall came down in November 1989.
As always, half the fun of these books comes from Hall's trademark run-on sentences. And so here in it’s entirely, I present page 285, which consists of just two single-sentence paragraphs:
___________________________________
* Hall started writing Quiller in 1965, and wrote ten books between then and 1981 before taking a three-year break. Those earlier books are pretty hard to find – at least within my used book price range – and all have titles like The Warsaw Document, The Striker Portfolio, The Peking Target, etc. He then returned in 1985 with plain old Quiller, then followed up with a “rebranded” series of stories called Quiller’s Run, Quiller KGB, Quiller Bamboo, Quiller Meridian, etc., until his last book – Quiller Balalaika – published posthumously in 1996. (Hall’s real name was Trevor Dudley-Smith, but he wisely chose to write under not just Adam Hall, but at least eight other pseudonyms).
I’ve only read one of the earlier books - The Tango Brief – but with this book have now read books 1, 2, 3 and 5 in the Quiller-named series, and have #4 ready to go, (thank you McKay’s Used Books!). And it does help to read these sequentially, as the stories do link together in terms of supporting characters and Quiller’s overall career; and so for anyone new to the series, I would humbly (and more affordably) recommend starting with Quiller - which is pretty easy to find - and moving forward from there.
Great line. Best line in the book, in fact, because after that I’m afraid this isn’t all that strong a story. Basic plot has Quiller in Berlin trying to stop an assassin and working against a ticking clock. With no real clues to go on, his only hope is to draw out the assassin…and so the whole book becomes a running joke of Quiller exposing himself while the bad guys keep trying (and failing) to kill him, until he finally captures one of them and gets the information he needs to stop the plot.
So…WHAT IF the bad guys had just ignored Quiller and proceeded with their plan? It probably would have worked, and Quiller would have failed.
And that was it. Whole story was a big MacGuffin to allow Hall to pump out another entry in his by-now annual series.* Hall definitely has style, and in past books has exhibited some fairly good tradecraft; but in this book it all boils down to car chases (which almost always end in exploding vehicles – is that really a thing?) and Quiller’s impressive martial arts skills.
One bright spot: I noted in two previous Quiller reviews that Hall places him in some pretty exotic locations, but then doesn’t really do anything with them, (understandable perhaps, as they were written pre-internet and pre-Google street view, and so it was a lot harder to do research without actually traveling somewhere, and both Singapore and Tibet are pretty damned far from England). However, with this book set mainly in Berlin, he does a much better job creating a real feel for the place, based I imagine on at least some level of personal experience. ALSO: fun fact, but this is probably one of the very last Berlin Wall spy book, since it was published just six months before the Wall came down in November 1989.
As always, half the fun of these books comes from Hall's trademark run-on sentences. And so here in it’s entirely, I present page 285, which consists of just two single-sentence paragraphs:
A long shot, oh yes indeed it was a very long shot and for the first time I wondered if this had been the only way to shift into the end-phase and get to the target in time, but the left brain was almost shut down by now and my hands moved the wheel of their own accord as the eyes sighted and the brain interpreted and instinct triggered the motor nerves and we hit a wall and bounced and ran on with torn metal screaming against a tyre while headlights swung in from their vectors and blinded me time after time and I drove unseeing, with memory trapping the last image to the far side where vision came in again and the kaleidoscope of the street’s perspective was broken into a semblance of order and I hit the throttle and braked and swung the wheel and used the kerb to kick me straight and the corners to get me clear until the police sirens began and the flashing of lights coloured the night.So wait…they throw a grenade into his front seat, and so he flips the car and somehow gets out of it at the same time and uses the car as a shield against the explosion before running away, all without being noticed by any of the four cars full of bad guys? Cool.
Then they came for me and I wasn’t ready for it but there was nothing I could have done as a Mercedes came up very fast in the mirror and swung out and drew alongside and I felt the impact of something against my leg and heard it thud to the floor and knew what it was and hit the brakes and wrenched at the wheel to roll the car over and use its underside for a shield as the explosion came and its force blew glass and metal in a hot wind through the air and I was pitched headlong across the pavement as the fuel tank went up in a burst of orange light and the heat came against my back like a blowtorch and I got up and tripped and pitched down and got to my feet again and ran, ran anywhere, just away from the inferno in the street behind me with the sirens coming in, wailing and dying as the first patrol car slammed on its brakes and backed off as the black smoke billowed between the buildings.
___________________________________
* Hall started writing Quiller in 1965, and wrote ten books between then and 1981 before taking a three-year break. Those earlier books are pretty hard to find – at least within my used book price range – and all have titles like The Warsaw Document, The Striker Portfolio, The Peking Target, etc. He then returned in 1985 with plain old Quiller, then followed up with a “rebranded” series of stories called Quiller’s Run, Quiller KGB, Quiller Bamboo, Quiller Meridian, etc., until his last book – Quiller Balalaika – published posthumously in 1996. (Hall’s real name was Trevor Dudley-Smith, but he wisely chose to write under not just Adam Hall, but at least eight other pseudonyms).
I’ve only read one of the earlier books - The Tango Brief – but with this book have now read books 1, 2, 3 and 5 in the Quiller-named series, and have #4 ready to go, (thank you McKay’s Used Books!). And it does help to read these sequentially, as the stories do link together in terms of supporting characters and Quiller’s overall career; and so for anyone new to the series, I would humbly (and more affordably) recommend starting with Quiller - which is pretty easy to find - and moving forward from there.
December 19, 2015
Quiller is asked to work with the KGB, instead of against it. The goal is to stop a plot targeting Mikhail Gorbachev, or is it two plots? Notable for speculating about the fall of the Berlin Wall just before it happened, this Quiller novel doesn’t stand out in any other way and the whole series has become quite formulaic. This is the 13th in the series and there has been little or no development, growth or evolution in the central Quiller character the whole time. The settings and supporting cast change to add a little spice, but it is always the same basic recipe and that is starting to wear pretty thin. The ending feels weak and rushed, as if to make a publication deadline. Hall’s writing idiosyncrasies are also getting more out of hand. What was occasionally amusing initially is now all too frequently distracting.
In each of the last three Quiller novels, it has become progressively clearer that Adam Hall believes the Soviet Union is a permanent fixture on the international scene and the West has to find a way to live with it. He has an unnatural fetish for summits as the way to do this (he likes Nixon on this score and obviously dislikes Reagan and Bush Sr.). He has a schoolgirl crush on Gorbachev. He is clearly sympathetic to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s program of unilateral disarmament by the Western European nations. All very ironic, as the book was published in July 1989 and the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and not at all in the way Hall imagined it.
In each of the last three Quiller novels, it has become progressively clearer that Adam Hall believes the Soviet Union is a permanent fixture on the international scene and the West has to find a way to live with it. He has an unnatural fetish for summits as the way to do this (he likes Nixon on this score and obviously dislikes Reagan and Bush Sr.). He has a schoolgirl crush on Gorbachev. He is clearly sympathetic to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s program of unilateral disarmament by the Western European nations. All very ironic, as the book was published in July 1989 and the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and not at all in the way Hall imagined it.
September 11, 2017
Another strong entry in the Quiller series. There are several hair's breadth escapes that kept me turning the pages, but which were nevertheless relatively believable, and the plot is convoluted enough to keep me guessing to the end. Quiller himself does not change except perhaps that he admits to a bit more fear and contemplates his own death a little more readily, and Adam Hall could still stand to work on his endings it took me several times reading the last couple pages to really understand what had happened. Reading this in 2017 one wonders what the author would have thought of Putin.
Popsugar challenge 2017: an espionage thriller
Popsugar challenge 2017: an espionage thriller
October 8, 2017
Another strong entry, and I liked Cone (a first appearance); this isn't the height of the series but it certainly kept me on board. The very final denouement was a trifle 'blink and you'll miss it' but the strength of Hall's writing more than makes up for it. Just what I needed, today.
June 12, 2020
Elleston Trevor (Adam Hall) never disappoints. Quiller is the thinking man's James Bond.
November 25, 2020
Great
The best quiller !!! Adam hall is number one espionage writer.
A classic in the genre.A must read for quiller fans.
The best quiller !!! Adam hall is number one espionage writer.
A classic in the genre.A must read for quiller fans.
December 10, 2015
This was the first Adam Hall book I ever read; as a big fan of spy stories (and in particular of the early Le Carré ones), I had mixed feelings about "Quiller KGB". The story is intriguing, the narration is essential and tense, the novel has many of the typical ingredients of the good old cold war spystories....though by no means this could be put next, not to say compared, to absolute masterpieces of the genre such as The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
What I found odd in the book is that the writing style is at times difficult to follow; some sentences are constructed in an awkward way, making it hard to understand who's saying what and why and when (lots of phrase in italic: are they flashbacks? Someone else speaking? Or maybe an inner conversation between Quiller and his mind? Or a blend of all this? Well, up to you to figure out...); plus sometimes the narration jumps suddenly from one situation to another without possibility to understand what happened in-between - a few times I went back in search of a chapter which I thought could be missing, but it was not...
Overall, I thought it was an ok book, I was a little surprised by the end, which I found rather flat.
What I found odd in the book is that the writing style is at times difficult to follow; some sentences are constructed in an awkward way, making it hard to understand who's saying what and why and when (lots of phrase in italic: are they flashbacks? Someone else speaking? Or maybe an inner conversation between Quiller and his mind? Or a blend of all this? Well, up to you to figure out...); plus sometimes the narration jumps suddenly from one situation to another without possibility to understand what happened in-between - a few times I went back in search of a chapter which I thought could be missing, but it was not...
Overall, I thought it was an ok book, I was a little surprised by the end, which I found rather flat.
November 20, 2011
Of all the spy books that I have read, this series is probably the best, for it uses real trade craft instead of relying on a lot of fancy gadgets.
The series has been compared favorably to John Le Carré's Smiley.
Under the pseudonym "Adam Hall", Trevor Dudley-Smith wrote the Quiller spy novel series, beginning with The Berlin Memorandum (US: The Quiller Memorandum, 1965), a hybrid of glamour and dirt, Fleming and Le Carré. The writing is literary and the tradecraft believable. (From Ask.com spy fiction)
The series has been compared favorably to John Le Carré's Smiley.
Under the pseudonym "Adam Hall", Trevor Dudley-Smith wrote the Quiller spy novel series, beginning with The Berlin Memorandum (US: The Quiller Memorandum, 1965), a hybrid of glamour and dirt, Fleming and Le Carré. The writing is literary and the tradecraft believable. (From Ask.com spy fiction)
October 23, 2012
Set mainly in East Berlin when reunification was a remote possibility, Quiller KGB offers an uncomfortable alliance between an agent who has trouble working and playing well with others at the best of times and a KGB officer as they try to preserve the best hope for a peaceful future and an end to the Cold War. It's a good thing that ferrets have more than nine lives to play with.
June 24, 2020
Reread rating between 3.5 & 4
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews