Mike Ripley - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed

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The basic ideas in this book were formulated after fifty years of reading, twenty of them as a reviewer of crime fiction which gave me access to thriller writers, publishers, critics and, best of all, other fans. Many are no longer with us but I would acknowledge the conversations and friendly debates about favourite thrillers which I have had over the years with:

Len Deighton a fund of stories and a great inspiration; Alan Williams a fund of highly entertaining but more disreputable stories; Julian Symons, who had firm views on thriller writers, not all of them complimentary; Ali Karim a true fan of the genre; Randall Masteller, an American expert on spy fiction; Iwan Morelius, a Swedish editor of and friend to some of the biggest names in the business; Marcel Berlins, Jake Kerridge, John Coleman, Matthew Coady, Jeremy Jehu, Harry Keating and Philip Oakes, all gentle, generous and perceptive reviewers; John Higgins, a stalwart champion of Victor Canning, and James Jenkins of Valancourt Books who performs similar heroics for John Blackburn; Barry Forshaw, who shares many of this authors tastes but rarely admits that; Professor B. J. Rahn; Gavin Lyall, Anthony Price, Brian Callison, Philip Purser, Barry and Diana Norman, Jessica Mann, Brian Freemantle, David Brierley, Lee Child, Martin Woodhouse, Clive Egleton, Ted Willis, Peter Guttridge, Justin Scott and Walter Satterthwait all great writers as well as readers; the children or family of Geoffrey Household, Duncan Kyle, James Mitchell, Adam Hall, John Gardner, Alan Gardner and Berkely Mather.

I have also browsed many websites maintained by dedicated and very knowledgeable fans and received particular help from Rob Mallows, Steve Holland, Nigel Alefounder, Philip Eastwood, Lizzie Aayes, Mike Stotter, Tom Cull, David Craggs, Dave Gertler, Fred de Vries and Dave Rice, plus the many excellent sites dedicated to the world of James Bond.

The genesis of this book dates from the course in Creative Crime Writing I developed for Cambridge Universitys Institute of Continuing Education and a particular summer school at the Universitys Madingley Hall and a panel discussion with Barry Forshaw and Peter Guttridge entitled What have oldthrillers ever done for us? at the 2014 Crimefest convention in Bristol. In terms of production, and the chance to be back in the Collins Crime Club, thanks are due to Chris Smith, Georgie Cauthery, Terence Caven and archivist Dawn Sinclair at HarperCollins.

But really, it all began fifty years ago when a good thriller paperback cost 17.5p.

Those were the days.

Allingham, Margery Thriller! (The Bookseller Illustrated, September 1931)

Allingham, Margery The Fine Art of Intrigue (Ladies Home Journal, 1965) a contrived interview (done by post) with John Le Carr, from the original typescript now in the Allingham Archive at the University of Essex.

Atkins, John The British Spy Novel (John Calder, 1984)

Chapman, James Licence to Thrill A Cultural History of the James Bond Films (I.B. Tauris, 2007)

Fleming, Fergus, ed., The Man with the Golden Typewriter, Ian Flemings James Bond Letters (Bloomsbury, 2015)

Forshaw, Barry, ed., British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 2008)

Forshaw, Barry British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Homberger, Eric John Le Carr (Methuen Contemporary Writers, 1986)

Jackson, Ashley The British Empire and the Second World War (Hambledon Continuum, 2006)

Keating, H.R.F., ed., Whodunit? (Windward, 1982)

Kennedy, Paul The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Fontana Press, 1987)

Le Carr, John The Pigeon Tunnel (Viking, 2016)

Lewis, Peter The Fifties (Heinemann, 1978)

Lycett, Andrew Ian Fleming (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995)

Macintyre, Ben For Your Eyes Only Ian Fleming + James Bond (Bloomsbury, 2008)

McCormick, Donald Whos Who in Spy Fiction (Elm Tree, 1977)

Milward-Oliver, Edward The Len Deighton Companion (Grafton, 1987)

Susan Moody, ed., The Hatchards Crime Companion (Hatchards, 1990)

Palmer, Jerry Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre (Edward Arnold, 1978)

Ramet, Carlos Ken Follett and the Triumph of Suspense (McFarland & Co., 2015)

Sellers, Robert The Battle for Bond (Tomahawk Press, 2007)

Sisman, Adam John Le Carr, The Biography (Bloomsbury, 2015)

Steel, Jayne Demons, Hamlets & Femmes Fatales Representations of Irish Republicanism in Popular Fiction (Peter Lang, 2007)

Snelling, O. F. Double O Seven: James Bond A Report (Panther, 1964)

Sutherland, John Bestseller: Popular Fiction of the 1970s (Routledge, 1981)

Sutherland, John Reading the Decades: Fifty Years of British History Through the Nations Bestsellers (BBC Books, 2002)

Symons, Julian Bloody Murder (Penguin, 1974 and [revised] Pan, 1994)

Usborne, Richard Clubland Heroes (3rd edition, Hutchinson, 1983)

Watson, Colin Snobbery with Violence (Methuen, 1987)

Webster, Jack Alistair MacLean: A Life (Chapmans, 1991)

Just Another Angel

Angel Touch

Angel Hunt

Angels in Arms

Angel City

Angel Confidential

Family of Angels

That Angel Look

Bootlegged Angel

Lights, Camera, Angel!

Angel Underground

Angel on the Inside

Angel in the House

Angels Share

Angels Unaware

Angels and Others

Double Take

Boudica and the Lost Roman

The Legend of Hereward

Mr Campions Farewell

Mr Campions Fox

Mr Campions Fault

Mr Campions Abdication

Surviving a Stroke

The Dakota was still moving too fast. Already it was more than half-way down the strip and OHara could see the emptiness ahead where the strip stopped at the lip of the valley. In desperation he swung the rudder hard over and the Dakota swerved with a loud grating sound. He braced himself for the crash. The starboard wingtip hit the rock wall and the Dakota spun sharply to the right. OHara kept the rudder forced right over and saw the rock wall coming right at him. The nose of the plane hit rock and crumpled and the safety glass in the windscreens shivered into opacity. Then something hit him on the head and he lost consciousness.

High Citadel, 1965

In the mid-Sixties Gavin Lyall called him The fastest developing writer in the thriller business. In 2012, leading crime writer Christopher Fowler remembered him as a writer who had hit upon a winning combination of craftsmanship, authenticity, and excitement with the result that all his novels were bestsellers.