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Quiller #11
Northlight
In der Beringsee versenken die Russen ein amerikanisches Atom-U-Boot. Ein Schock, der Ost und West auf eine harte Konfrontation zustreben läßt. Eine Weltkrise scheint unausweichlich. Die britische Premierministerin will wissen, wie es dazu kam und was dahintersteckt. Denn die Großmächte sind zu keinen weiteren Verhandlungen mehr bereit. Sie schickt den besten Mann des Geheimdienstes in die eisige Kälte Quiller, der einsame Wolf.
290 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
24 people are currently reading
230 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 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 2, 2018
Adam Hall (one of Elliston Trevor's pen names) wrote nineteen books about Quiller, the British agent, between 1965 and 1996. Hall and Len Deighton were the primary successors to writers like Eric Ambler and Geoffrey Household, say (there are others). They defined spy fiction for more than a generation of readers. (Their present-day equivalents are Olen Steinhauer, Alan Furst, Charles Cumming, Robert Little, Charles McCarry, and Andy McNab. There are obviously others.) Still, the Quiller books are right at the top of my list
Quiller works for the Bureau, a hush-hush intelligence outfit answerable only to the prime minister. The Bureau is disliked by the other British intelligence organizations, but is particularly disliked by the KGB. Quitter is sent to retrieve a longtime mole within the Russian navy. An American submarine has been sunk just off the approaches to Murmansk, the primary Russian naval base in the north. Public awareness of the sinking will shuttle an upcoming summit conference just as surely as the
Russian navy sunk the USN Cetacea with its crew of 105. A recording of the entire action has reached the British government via its mole, but the Russians have blown up the car carrying the recording and a couple of high-ranking British technical whizzes just outside the CIA unofficial HQ in London. Quiller is sent to retrieve the mole, who is on the run, thereby protecting at least fifteen other deep-cover agents around Murmansk as well as the mole's evidence.
Quiller's mission is both a daunting task and a bit less of a challenge than he normally faces, and there is something wrong with the mission from the beginning. "Shadow executives" (the Bureau's euphemism for deep-penetration agents like Quiller) normally get to choose their own control (the agent who coordinates support, arranges cover, provides a link to the Bureau), but Quiller doesn't. he gets a control whom he doesn't like from the beginning. There is no doubt that Quiller is a very difficult agent to "control," but he's also a senior agent with both experience and the willingness to put himself in harm's way. (There's a scene in which Quiller and a Bureau sleeper named Volodarskiy recognize each other as men who like to get as close to the edge as they can. To dare and to survive. It is a telling scene. "I was here because the brink was here," Quiller says.) And then there's the mole, who is on the run in a way that jeopardizes a lot of other people. The opposition is also formidable, and includes elements other than the KGB/GRU/militia.
Quiller is on the run from the beginning. He faces a string of increasingly dangerous situations, and Hall (Trevor) really knew how to ratchet up tension. Hall used a technique rooted in French fiction: Each chapter begins at least a couple of minutes after the situation has ramped up at the end of the preceding chapter, sometimes longer. It is not an emptily formulaic technique because no one has used it as well as Hall did. The books are also manuals on tradecraft (see the section on the difference between covert and clandestine activity on pp. 84-85) without losing anything in the way of suspense. No one matches Hall, not even vintage Deighton, good as he was. This book rates five stars for me, and "The Tango Briefing" would rank even higher were that possible in a one-to-five-star universe.
Quiller works for the Bureau, a hush-hush intelligence outfit answerable only to the prime minister. The Bureau is disliked by the other British intelligence organizations, but is particularly disliked by the KGB. Quitter is sent to retrieve a longtime mole within the Russian navy. An American submarine has been sunk just off the approaches to Murmansk, the primary Russian naval base in the north. Public awareness of the sinking will shuttle an upcoming summit conference just as surely as the
Russian navy sunk the USN Cetacea with its crew of 105. A recording of the entire action has reached the British government via its mole, but the Russians have blown up the car carrying the recording and a couple of high-ranking British technical whizzes just outside the CIA unofficial HQ in London. Quiller is sent to retrieve the mole, who is on the run, thereby protecting at least fifteen other deep-cover agents around Murmansk as well as the mole's evidence.
Quiller's mission is both a daunting task and a bit less of a challenge than he normally faces, and there is something wrong with the mission from the beginning. "Shadow executives" (the Bureau's euphemism for deep-penetration agents like Quiller) normally get to choose their own control (the agent who coordinates support, arranges cover, provides a link to the Bureau), but Quiller doesn't. he gets a control whom he doesn't like from the beginning. There is no doubt that Quiller is a very difficult agent to "control," but he's also a senior agent with both experience and the willingness to put himself in harm's way. (There's a scene in which Quiller and a Bureau sleeper named Volodarskiy recognize each other as men who like to get as close to the edge as they can. To dare and to survive. It is a telling scene. "I was here because the brink was here," Quiller says.) And then there's the mole, who is on the run in a way that jeopardizes a lot of other people. The opposition is also formidable, and includes elements other than the KGB/GRU/militia.
Quiller is on the run from the beginning. He faces a string of increasingly dangerous situations, and Hall (Trevor) really knew how to ratchet up tension. Hall used a technique rooted in French fiction: Each chapter begins at least a couple of minutes after the situation has ramped up at the end of the preceding chapter, sometimes longer. It is not an emptily formulaic technique because no one has used it as well as Hall did. The books are also manuals on tradecraft (see the section on the difference between covert and clandestine activity on pp. 84-85) without losing anything in the way of suspense. No one matches Hall, not even vintage Deighton, good as he was. This book rates five stars for me, and "The Tango Briefing" would rank even higher were that possible in a one-to-five-star universe.
June 12, 2017
A good enjoyable cold war spy suspense thriller up to an through the end.
November 21, 2015
Quiller in Berlin and the Murmansk region, trying to exfiltrate a sleeper agent in order to save a fictional upcoming US-Soviet summit in Vienna. Published in 1985, this is a better than average Quiller novel (4.2), and that is really saying something, but 0.2 points deducted because of the implausibility of the main story line that Reagan and Thatcher would have been so desperate to save a summit . Thatcher gets a cameo appearance.
In reality, Reagan held no summits with the Soviet Union from his election in 1980 until November 1985 and famously walked away from a deal at the 1986 Reykjavik summit over Gorbachev’s insistence that the US abandon its Strategic Defense Initiative. Probably a little bit of wishful thinking here by Hall, who seems to have been in the “The USSR is here to stay, so the US and USSR have to make nice with each other or we’re all going to die” camp at the time. Hall may have wished that Reagan and Thatcher were desperate to make some kind of accommodation with the Soviet Union, but they weren’t. They actually meant what they said. They sought the Soviet Union's demise and the liberation of the Warsaw pact nations, which was achieved just four short years later in 1989.
A pretty big miss for Hall, but he had plenty of company. The publication of this novel in 1985 marked the end of the only four year hiatus in the Quiller series. Possibly Hall just didn't know what to make of Reagan and Thatcher. Still a great Quiller novel, with lots of good plot twists and action.
In reality, Reagan held no summits with the Soviet Union from his election in 1980 until November 1985 and famously walked away from a deal at the 1986 Reykjavik summit over Gorbachev’s insistence that the US abandon its Strategic Defense Initiative. Probably a little bit of wishful thinking here by Hall, who seems to have been in the “The USSR is here to stay, so the US and USSR have to make nice with each other or we’re all going to die” camp at the time. Hall may have wished that Reagan and Thatcher were desperate to make some kind of accommodation with the Soviet Union, but they weren’t. They actually meant what they said. They sought the Soviet Union's demise and the liberation of the Warsaw pact nations, which was achieved just four short years later in 1989.
A pretty big miss for Hall, but he had plenty of company. The publication of this novel in 1985 marked the end of the only four year hiatus in the Quiller series. Possibly Hall just didn't know what to make of Reagan and Thatcher. Still a great Quiller novel, with lots of good plot twists and action.
November 13, 2025
Just to get it out of the way: this is a pretty lazy-ass title for what is the 11th out of 19 Quiller books written between 1965-1995.
BUT OTHERWISE, despite my general lack of enthusiasm for Russia-based spy stories (I’ve gotten my fill from le Carré), this was an altogether great book. Sure, Hall is a little too fond of car chases and car bombs. However, his actual spycraft at least seems convincing. This is especially true when it comes to the grunt work of detecting surveillance, which as far as I understand (i.e., not far at all), is way more important than the sexier tradecraft we see in movies — dead drops, passes and paroles, gunplay and seduction and “honey traps.” Indeed “knowing his status” plays an important role throughout this book, as it is apparently the decision point for any and all other operational acts: am I clean; am I alone; is it go or abort?
The story itself is straightforward enough: Quiller has to go into Russia and find/bring out a blown sleeper agent. Of course, things quickly get complicated, and there’s a very neat twist about 2/3’s of the way in.
But what I really like (at least so far) about these books is Quiller’s hard-boiled first-person narrative. He (i.e., Hall) can get overly reflective at times, and his noir outlook on “the business” occasionally crosses the line into parody, (“Among the back alleys of this trade I’d used up my nine lives long ago, and every new risk was a step closer to death”). But Hall is a true master of the endless run-on sentence, which he uses often but effectively, especially for action scenes or Quiller’s personal venting (see examples below).
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this one despite the bleak Russian setting — and now really want to get my hands on some of his other adventures set in Asia (The Ninth Directive, The Mandarin Cypher, The Peking Target, Quiller’s Run, Quiller Bamboo, Quiller Salamander) , where I have a more personal connection.
__________________________________
Most of the fuel had been hurled rearwards but there were flames all around the car and I dragged the door open to get Brekhov out before the upholstery caught, but he was twisted sideways against the seat squab with his head at the wrong angle and I just ripped at his shirt and felt for the sticking-plaster and found it and tugged at it but couldn’t break it because there were several layers round his body, so I broke a sliver of glass from the smashed driving window and used it for cutting until the small thin rectangular pack was free; then I got clear with the flames catching my clothes and the heat blinding me until I got out of range, rolling over and over in the puddles and beating at my legs till the flames were out and I started running.
It’s the thought of getting trapped, of feeling the sudden shock as the thing closes on you with a single wrong word, cutting you off from the world you knew a minute ago where you ate and slept and moved freely along your way through the labyrinth, and shutting you into the new world of black vans and doors and bars and keys and dangerous questions, dangerous answers, and finally the bright light and the brute force pushing you beyond the point where they can get anything out of you, when the aminazin or the sulfain or the reserpine has wiped out the memory and left them with nothing but a husk to throw onto the heap where once there had been a man.
There are three main phases of any given mission on foreign soil: when you get access and when you reach the objective and when you bring the objective or product back across the border, and things get more difficult as the mission progresses, and if I picked up the slightest hint of any surveillance at this critical stage I would break off and leave the contact to go on along until I’d gone to cover and closed in on the opposition and wiped them out before they could tag himi to the objective and blow the whole mission out of the ground or even worse than that, because if the KGB or the Rinker cell or anyone else reached Karasov first they’d put him under the light and prime the needle and get everything out of him, everything in his head, his local contacts and Moscow communications and courier routes and operational history, the whole ultra-sensitive scenario reaching as far as London and sending reverberations right across the network from Hong Kong to Washington.
But between missions you're technically allowed to unwind and lick your wounds and try to forget the frontiers and the searchlights and the cry of the dogs getting louder in the night and the thud of boots as the bastards come out of the van at the double with their guns drawn while you look for a doorway or an alley or a bit of wasteground where you can at least try zig-zagging flat out for dear life instead of just standing there with death already creeping into your body because you know that this time they won't let you go again, this time they want you badly and they're going to break you until you scream, until you feel the slow surprise in the last remnant of conscious thought that it's happening this way, with the brains beaten out of the skull and the life draining out with the blood instead off the blessing of a cold clean shot from the distance to nail the spine to the dark and leave you hanging there with a shred of your honor still intact because you didn't talk, you didn't tell them, you kept the faith.
And of course, the incomparable:
Then a crowd of sailors coming down with their whooping laughter sending echoes along the curved ceiling, out of the barracks on a weekend pass with their boots clattering on the stairway and their blue canvas bags swinging above the heads of the crowd as they raced each other to the platform below, it was uphill work for me, I can tell you, uphill work, and when I turned to look down the stairs to see if the man had decided not to stop for the militia, had decided to follow me instead and at all costs, I didn't see him, I only saw the other man, the one who'd been with him on the train, the more professional one if you want to look at it that way who'd stayed at the other end of the compartment and gone through the doors and followed me more easily and without attracting attention — or that was perhaps the plan they'd agreed on, one of them setting out to follow me at close range while the other — this one — covered the possibility that I would go in the opposite direction past the stationary train — but in any event he was here now and only two or three stairs below me and since we were both hemmed in by the pack of people and I couldn't move any faster in the hope of getting away from him there was no real choice for me in this last hour of the mission when it was paramount, absolutely paramount that I should reach the objective and get him out, so I turned right round and let the weight of the crowd force me down against him and then I went for the one area that will kill without a cry and watched his eyes open very wide before I turned again and went on up the stairs, no excuses, this is the trade we're in and this is the way we ply it.
BUT OTHERWISE, despite my general lack of enthusiasm for Russia-based spy stories (I’ve gotten my fill from le Carré), this was an altogether great book. Sure, Hall is a little too fond of car chases and car bombs. However, his actual spycraft at least seems convincing. This is especially true when it comes to the grunt work of detecting surveillance, which as far as I understand (i.e., not far at all), is way more important than the sexier tradecraft we see in movies — dead drops, passes and paroles, gunplay and seduction and “honey traps.” Indeed “knowing his status” plays an important role throughout this book, as it is apparently the decision point for any and all other operational acts: am I clean; am I alone; is it go or abort?
The story itself is straightforward enough: Quiller has to go into Russia and find/bring out a blown sleeper agent. Of course, things quickly get complicated, and there’s a very neat twist about 2/3’s of the way in.
But what I really like (at least so far) about these books is Quiller’s hard-boiled first-person narrative. He (i.e., Hall) can get overly reflective at times, and his noir outlook on “the business” occasionally crosses the line into parody, (“Among the back alleys of this trade I’d used up my nine lives long ago, and every new risk was a step closer to death”). But Hall is a true master of the endless run-on sentence, which he uses often but effectively, especially for action scenes or Quiller’s personal venting (see examples below).
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this one despite the bleak Russian setting — and now really want to get my hands on some of his other adventures set in Asia (The Ninth Directive, The Mandarin Cypher, The Peking Target, Quiller’s Run, Quiller Bamboo, Quiller Salamander) , where I have a more personal connection.
__________________________________
Most of the fuel had been hurled rearwards but there were flames all around the car and I dragged the door open to get Brekhov out before the upholstery caught, but he was twisted sideways against the seat squab with his head at the wrong angle and I just ripped at his shirt and felt for the sticking-plaster and found it and tugged at it but couldn’t break it because there were several layers round his body, so I broke a sliver of glass from the smashed driving window and used it for cutting until the small thin rectangular pack was free; then I got clear with the flames catching my clothes and the heat blinding me until I got out of range, rolling over and over in the puddles and beating at my legs till the flames were out and I started running.
It’s the thought of getting trapped, of feeling the sudden shock as the thing closes on you with a single wrong word, cutting you off from the world you knew a minute ago where you ate and slept and moved freely along your way through the labyrinth, and shutting you into the new world of black vans and doors and bars and keys and dangerous questions, dangerous answers, and finally the bright light and the brute force pushing you beyond the point where they can get anything out of you, when the aminazin or the sulfain or the reserpine has wiped out the memory and left them with nothing but a husk to throw onto the heap where once there had been a man.
There are three main phases of any given mission on foreign soil: when you get access and when you reach the objective and when you bring the objective or product back across the border, and things get more difficult as the mission progresses, and if I picked up the slightest hint of any surveillance at this critical stage I would break off and leave the contact to go on along until I’d gone to cover and closed in on the opposition and wiped them out before they could tag himi to the objective and blow the whole mission out of the ground or even worse than that, because if the KGB or the Rinker cell or anyone else reached Karasov first they’d put him under the light and prime the needle and get everything out of him, everything in his head, his local contacts and Moscow communications and courier routes and operational history, the whole ultra-sensitive scenario reaching as far as London and sending reverberations right across the network from Hong Kong to Washington.
But between missions you're technically allowed to unwind and lick your wounds and try to forget the frontiers and the searchlights and the cry of the dogs getting louder in the night and the thud of boots as the bastards come out of the van at the double with their guns drawn while you look for a doorway or an alley or a bit of wasteground where you can at least try zig-zagging flat out for dear life instead of just standing there with death already creeping into your body because you know that this time they won't let you go again, this time they want you badly and they're going to break you until you scream, until you feel the slow surprise in the last remnant of conscious thought that it's happening this way, with the brains beaten out of the skull and the life draining out with the blood instead off the blessing of a cold clean shot from the distance to nail the spine to the dark and leave you hanging there with a shred of your honor still intact because you didn't talk, you didn't tell them, you kept the faith.
And of course, the incomparable:
Then a crowd of sailors coming down with their whooping laughter sending echoes along the curved ceiling, out of the barracks on a weekend pass with their boots clattering on the stairway and their blue canvas bags swinging above the heads of the crowd as they raced each other to the platform below, it was uphill work for me, I can tell you, uphill work, and when I turned to look down the stairs to see if the man had decided not to stop for the militia, had decided to follow me instead and at all costs, I didn't see him, I only saw the other man, the one who'd been with him on the train, the more professional one if you want to look at it that way who'd stayed at the other end of the compartment and gone through the doors and followed me more easily and without attracting attention — or that was perhaps the plan they'd agreed on, one of them setting out to follow me at close range while the other — this one — covered the possibility that I would go in the opposite direction past the stationary train — but in any event he was here now and only two or three stairs below me and since we were both hemmed in by the pack of people and I couldn't move any faster in the hope of getting away from him there was no real choice for me in this last hour of the mission when it was paramount, absolutely paramount that I should reach the objective and get him out, so I turned right round and let the weight of the crowd force me down against him and then I went for the one area that will kill without a cry and watched his eyes open very wide before I turned again and went on up the stairs, no excuses, this is the trade we're in and this is the way we ply it.
July 8, 2023
Breathtaking and thrilling. My favourite Quiller so far.
September 23, 2020
After the first book in the series, this is by far my favorite to date. Quiller started getting too James Bond-sie being a demolition expert, sniper, aerial assault master, etc, plus now getting all the women.
This book was Cold War at its core, psychological, and I liked seeing him say “no” for once and stand his ground.
This book was Cold War at its core, psychological, and I liked seeing him say “no” for once and stand his ground.
June 2, 2022
I can't decide whether to give it 3 stars because I'm not likely to pursue the rest of the series, or 4 stars because I liked it better than I expected, so I'll go 3 for now and up it if it sits well with me.
While spy novels aren't really my thing and I expected to be confused by most of the political plot points (as I was), I was able to follow along with it surprisingly well. My favorite thing about it is the fast-paced writing style. It was fascinating... the super long and rambling sentences which often had no commas but jumped from action point to action point in a way that makes you read them hurriedly and breathlessly as you wait to see how the action will end... his conversations back and forth with himself in italics where he's clearly freaking out and he's trying to control himself... the way the author keeps things moving in between dialogue by jumping immediately into Quiller's observations and plans even while he's having a separate conversation.
The whole thing is busy and rushed and tense and hopping, and while the plot didn't interest me, Quiller did. I'm mostly just upset that there are sequels because after all that happened I really want Quiller to quit because he deserves some peace, but I guess that won't happen. Gosh, I would be a terrible spy.
While spy novels aren't really my thing and I expected to be confused by most of the political plot points (as I was), I was able to follow along with it surprisingly well. My favorite thing about it is the fast-paced writing style. It was fascinating... the super long and rambling sentences which often had no commas but jumped from action point to action point in a way that makes you read them hurriedly and breathlessly as you wait to see how the action will end... his conversations back and forth with himself in italics where he's clearly freaking out and he's trying to control himself... the way the author keeps things moving in between dialogue by jumping immediately into Quiller's observations and plans even while he's having a separate conversation.
The whole thing is busy and rushed and tense and hopping, and while the plot didn't interest me, Quiller did. I'm mostly just upset that there are sequels because after all that happened I really want Quiller to quit because he deserves some peace, but I guess that won't happen. Gosh, I would be a terrible spy.
December 1, 2019
Although nothing is disclosed via an author bio or in an acknowledgements section, Adam Hall possesses either some fantastic resources, or - more likely - a first hand set of experiences in spy-craft/espionage. This author exceeds the capabilities of any writer in this genre - to include John LeCarre. In "Quiller", the story involves an old hand in espionage, who is pitted against not only the KGB and the Chinese, but perhaps even his own agency, as he tries to survive a world-threatening incident in the former Soviet Union, and extract an agent from that country. The character development is really exemplary, and the ever-present tension is enough to keep you reading way past bedtime. Very well done. I've got to read more by Adam Hall!
February 18, 2019
Outstanding spy-fiction thriller! It was recommended to me last year and I read it in two days. The story was a non-stop fuel of adrenaline. Another similar book about spies chameleons, blending with their environment as needs dictate, without the 007 flash in a tux, without relying on gadgets, and pure skills in human intelligence is King of Pawns: A deadly game of espionage chess. The main character will fraternize with anybody, even an ice-cold killing machine.
November 1, 2019
The second Quiller I've read. Well-written, pacy and so full of cynicism it can get a little wearing. There's a tendency to end chapters on a cliffhanger, then start the next one when the action's all over and explain how it worked out later, which I started to find annoying. Enjoyable overall, though, full of freezing Russian atmosphere.
October 21, 2020
Quiller is sent on a secret mission behind the Iron curtain. The quick mission does not go as planned and he is left on his own to keep out of the hands of the KGB. If you like espionage fiction that is action packed, then "Quiller" is the book for you.
September 2, 2017
Ok
Endings a disappointment and it's all a little unbelievable really although the characters quite likeable and the pace is good
Endings a disappointment and it's all a little unbelievable really although the characters quite likeable and the pace is good
January 2, 2021
Pretty damn good
I was bugged by a few technical items, however they were quickly forgotten after I realized I had been reading a well made gripping novel.
I was bugged by a few technical items, however they were quickly forgotten after I realized I had been reading a well made gripping novel.
Read
April 6, 2022The best of the three re-read so far
December 13, 2022
reread. It just doesn't stop!
January 27, 2023
Another good one, as are they all.
October 10, 2022
Always my favorite "Quiller." Fane is a fascinating character - the only "director in the field" other than Ferris it seems like Hall wanted to detail. Once again Quiller is in a hostile, cold zone and this is when Quiller is at his best (with the exception of the Sahara in "The Tango Briefing" and some Asian scenes in others). "Quiller" is loaded with Hall's excellent passages on life in the USSR; you feel the cold and the surly nature of people in totalitarian Murmansk. Particularly good is the passage where Quiller wonders about *staying* behind the Iron Curtain, or rather getting stuck there and having to make a life of it. And I'm not aware of any other bit in the Quiller novels where he reacts the way he does here to having to kill someone, the moment coming here after he takes out a tag in the metro.
For whatever reason, "Quiller" was the first book I read in the series and it completely captivated me - so much so that I wrote Adam Hall a fan letter and was stunned to receive a thank you call at Citicorp one day. Amazing. Elleston Trevor (Hall's real name) told me he was working on a Quiller book told in the third person, "so we'd get more of what other people see of and think of Quiller." Alas, he never wrote that book, which is a shame because I've always been fascinated by what others do see and think, particularly Ferris.
For Quiller fans who have somehow missed "Quiller," then a genuine treat awaits. Other readers, take note and get on the Quiller train.
For whatever reason, "Quiller" was the first book I read in the series and it completely captivated me - so much so that I wrote Adam Hall a fan letter and was stunned to receive a thank you call at Citicorp one day. Amazing. Elleston Trevor (Hall's real name) told me he was working on a Quiller book told in the third person, "so we'd get more of what other people see of and think of Quiller." Alas, he never wrote that book, which is a shame because I've always been fascinated by what others do see and think, particularly Ferris.
For Quiller fans who have somehow missed "Quiller," then a genuine treat awaits. Other readers, take note and get on the Quiller train.
July 1, 2012
I think I read one of these Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor's pen name) Quiller books years ago and wasn't really that impressed, but things (and tastes) change. When this one was recommended to me as being 'better than Ian Fleming' I thought I would give it a second chance. Unfortunately, I now remember why - generally speaking - I don't really read spy novels.
Written and set during the mid 80s, this is the time of the Cold War, when the Iron Curtain was still up and when the Iron lady (Margaret Thatcher) was still in power. In this, Quiller has to go undercover into Soviet Russia to investigate the sinking of a US submarine. Told in first person as Quiller remembering the mission, I found this hard to get into, slow moving and - unfortunately - not really that exciting.
Doubt I'll read any more anytime soon.
Written and set during the mid 80s, this is the time of the Cold War, when the Iron Curtain was still up and when the Iron lady (Margaret Thatcher) was still in power. In this, Quiller has to go undercover into Soviet Russia to investigate the sinking of a US submarine. Told in first person as Quiller remembering the mission, I found this hard to get into, slow moving and - unfortunately - not really that exciting.
Doubt I'll read any more anytime soon.
Read
November 27, 2019Hall does this story brilliantly.
He shows his very human agent, Quiller, as
Everyman. Quiller weighs the dangers of taking
the next assignment versus the peril of rusting
away, drinking coffee with the other agents in the
canteen. We sympathize with him in this.
Unlike many more modern spy heroes, Quiller
is no martial arts unbeatable Superman. He is
a cool pro who knows when to freeze and when
to move.
Hall has written a classic.
Dip a toe into his ocean. You will
enjoy it.
++++Frank Hickey, writer of the Dancing Max
Royster crime novels of the world's only ballroom
dancing detective.
February 28, 2020
About forty years after I'd read my last Quiller book and having liked several of the series, I took a trip down my dodgy memory lane to revisit Adam Hall's unique style: an agent's stream of inner thoughts as he went about his spy tradecraft. Unfortunately for me, there was too much of that in "Quiller" and I began to skip over much of it toward the end of the story, a complex tale of duelling spy agencies set behind the Iron Curtain.
February 2, 2017
Quiller
I loved the pace of this book, and having read all Len Deighton's novels for the tenth time I was desperate to find something as good. This easily ranks in the same class, which is as good an accolade as I can think of. His habit of making us wait until half way though the next chapter to discover what happened in the last was at first annoying, but then I began to enjoy it. I look forward to the next from this excellent writer.
I loved the pace of this book, and having read all Len Deighton's novels for the tenth time I was desperate to find something as good. This easily ranks in the same class, which is as good an accolade as I can think of. His habit of making us wait until half way though the next chapter to discover what happened in the last was at first annoying, but then I began to enjoy it. I look forward to the next from this excellent writer.
July 24, 2012
Each of Quiller's missions redefines "impossible."
Up until this volume, each of the books had a unique title. This is the first one that uses the character's. Mme. Since one if the earlier books contains quite a screed about why they aren't named Quiller this and Quiller that, I have to assume that the publisher's marketing department simply took control of the titling.
Up until this volume, each of the books had a unique title. This is the first one that uses the character's. Mme. Since one if the earlier books contains quite a screed about why they aren't named Quiller this and Quiller that, I have to assume that the publisher's marketing department simply took control of the titling.
May 6, 2012
One of the grimmest, tensest Quiller novels out of the series as Quiller is sent into Russia to extract a souble agent...only to find that there's more to the mission than he's been told. The Quiller books were an influence on my own writing, and while the final entries in the series slip a bit, the books generally still hold up completely on a decades-later rereading.
October 31, 2012
3.5 stars. Enjoyable, page turning action as well as insight into the mind of the spy well beyond stone cold stereotypes. Rambling sentences and abrupt transitions sometimes used. I would like to read more of this series.
September 9, 2016
Full of action as usual, what was unusual is that we learned most things in this one at the same time Quiller did whereas he is usually five or ten steps ahead. There is quite a high body count here particularly as this starts as a simple mission.
June 5, 2017
Re-read after thirty years. It is still a good Cold-War spy thriller.
October 3, 2024
5 minus. Intense spy novel. Qilller sent on an almost impossible mission. Will he be taken by KGB this time?
April 14, 2017
"Parempi kuin Ian Fleming" sanoi joku joskus jossain. Paskan marjat. "Tylsähkö James Bond-kopio" sanon minä.
Hyvää Englannin ja Brittiläisyyden kuvausta kyllä, mutta en tule kauheasti kaipaamaan toista Quiller kirjaa.
Hyvää Englannin ja Brittiläisyyden kuvausta kyllä, mutta en tule kauheasti kaipaamaan toista Quiller kirjaa.
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