”SS-GB” by Len Deighton (published by Penguin Books)
If Nazi jackboots had tramped down Whitehall
SS is an abbreviation of Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron), the black-uniformed elite corps that was one of the most feared organisations in Nazi Germany. GB is short for Great Britain. ”SS-GB” is Len Deighton’s 1978 novel imagining what might have happened if Germany had fought ...
“Call for the Dead” by John le Carré (published by Penguin Books)
Telephone sets alarm bells ringing
People who have enough spare time to enjoy themselves ranking an author’s books – and you’d need to have read all 26 of John Le Carré’s to do so – don’t often include this one among the very best. But it still fares well ...
"Fall Out: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to The Prisoner” by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore (published by Telos)
Why a TV program continues to captivate
What a program that was. British TV viewers had never seen anything quite like it when "The Prisoner” aired for 17 episodes in 1967-68, each as inscrutable as the last. What was it – spy story, sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, allegory, dream? A bit of ...
"The Night of the Hunter” by Davis Grubb (published by Penguin Books)
A good bloody yarn, or a bloody good tale
Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel about slayer Harry Powell is based on real-life Dutch-born American five-time killer Harry F. Powers, who was hanged in Moundsville, West Virginia, in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children, earning him nicknames such as "the lonely ...
“Journey Into Fear” by Eric Ambler (published by Penguin Books)
All aboard with a hired killer
“Journey Into Fear” is a title to entice, as it has been doing on and off for 83 years. Who is taking the journey? From where to where? By car, boat, train or plane (well, there is a boat sailing into the distance on ...
"The Drowning Pool” by Ross Macdonald (published by Penguin Books)
Gumshoe follows familiar noir tropes
Here is a reissue for the second of the 18 books by American author Ross Macdonald featuring private eye Lew Archer, and it’s hard not to disagree with learned opinion that, Initially at least, Archer was similar to (if not completely derivative of) Philip ...
"in a Lonely Place" by Dorothy B. Hughes (published by Penguin Books)
Noir and more from a grand master
Published 76 years ago in 1947 and notably filmed with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in 1950, this latest edition adds another captivating cover illustration to the several different editions released over the years. "In a Lonely Place” holds its place on bookshelves with ...
28th International Book Festival opens in Budapest
Hungarians are a book-loving people, Dutch Ambassador Desiree Bonis said in her address at the 28th International Book Festival that opened in Budapest on Thursday. The Netherlands is guest of honour this year.
Gulyas: Waldheim case helped Austria process its past
Facing up to the case of Kurt Waldheim helped Austrians process their role in the second world war, Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Prime Minister's Office, said at the book presentation on Thursday of Vince Szalay-Bobrovniczky's Austria and the Waldheim Case.
“Echoes: A Memoir Continued…” by Will Sergeant (published by Constable)
Further adventures of a Bunnyman are heaven up here
This is the motherload – well, partly. Sergeant’s first memoir in 2021 detailed his upbringing in the 1960s and 1970s outside Liverpool up to his first year as amateurish guitarist in Echo and the Bunnymen. And there, frustratingly, it ended, leaving we aficionados in ...
