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Joe Gall Mystery #6
The Star Ruby Contract
In Washington they call him The Nullifier. The reason behind the label goes something like this...
If you influence a man to tell you something important, that is intelligence; if you steal the same material when he's out of the room, that's espionage.
But if, when matters get too irritating for diplomatic channels, you pay a man to obliterate situations or people, you have a takeout, an expert on planned violence, a nullifier.
It is a suitably vague and bureaucratic word, nicely calculated to insulate the policy-makers themselves from Joe Gall—the devil of their own creation.
If you influence a man to tell you something important, that is intelligence; if you steal the same material when he's out of the room, that's espionage.
But if, when matters get too irritating for diplomatic channels, you pay a man to obliterate situations or people, you have a takeout, an expert on planned violence, a nullifier.
It is a suitably vague and bureaucratic word, nicely calculated to insulate the policy-makers themselves from Joe Gall—the devil of their own creation.
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1967
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About the author
Philip Atlee
35 books8 followersPseudonym of James Atlee Phillips
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Atlee's first book was an expose about local country club members. An avid flyer, he was a member of the Flying Tigers before WWII. He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor. He ran Amphibian Airways in Burma, probably for the CIA, and it is from this experience that his first Joe Gall book, Pagoda, came.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Atlee's first book was an expose about local country club members. An avid flyer, he was a member of the Flying Tigers before WWII. He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor. He ran Amphibian Airways in Burma, probably for the CIA, and it is from this experience that his first Joe Gall book, Pagoda, came.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 21, 2012
Sixties spy novel. Free agent Joe Gall goes to Burma, hires an escort, has lots of sex and curry, gets captured, gets a finger cut off, blows shit up, plays poker for his life against a drunken monk, is captured by a tribe of headhunters, plays one dictator off against another, and comes out in mostly one piece by the end. Beyond that I'm not sure what it was about. Told with lots of hardboiled laconic delivery. I liked it for a what it was. I'll read some more by this author.
Displaying 1 of 1 review