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Gregory Sallust #7

Traitors' Gate

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30 Mar 1942 - Oct 1942
Traitors' Gate is the sixth of seven volumes incorporating all the principal events which occurred between September, 1939, and May, 1945, covering the activities of Gregory Sallust, one of the most famous Secret Agents ever created in fiction about the Second World War.

In the summer of 1942, Hungary was still little affected by the war and while on a secret mission to Budapest, Gregory lived for a long time in a pre-war atmosphere of love and laughter. But his mission involved him with Ribbentrop's beautiful Hungarian mistress, and soon the laughter was stilled by fear as he desperately struggled to save them both from the result of their clandestine association...

383 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1958

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About the author

Dennis Wheatley

384 books248 followers
Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) [Born: Dennis Yeats 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

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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Profile Image for barrieboy.
46 reviews
July 7, 2018
Enjoyed this book by Mr Wheatley concerning the antics of British Agent Gregory Sallust in wartime Budapest. Lots of historical military detail and interesting facts about Hungary. The story is a bit over the top, but it's free of foul language - excellent!
Profile Image for Keith.
25 reviews
June 3, 2012
a good read this book i shall be reading more wheatley books i was put of reading his books because of the scary nature (dont like scary) but theres more to wheatley then i thought
3 reviews
March 8, 2013
I think it was pretty good. First of his books that I've read. Intriguing but obvious.
219 reviews
March 29, 2017
Poor, an unexciting, uninteresting thriller. The only redemption is that it's part of a sequence. However, you learn nothing & the sequence is not interrupted or altered.
This is a world away from the slightly edgy unknowns of the 1940/41 books. It's flabby nostalgic and uninteresting. There's no sense of danger.
Added to this in the interval between the wartime books and this the premise for Sallust had been re-applied to another character, and Mr. Bond is rather more dangerous and compelling.
I doubt it shall stop me reading the last of the sequence, but it ought to.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews

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