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

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

WINNER OF THE HRF KEATING AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION CRIME BOOK 2018An entertaining history of British thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, in which award-winning crime writer Mike Ripley reveals that, though Britain may have lost an empire, her thrillers helped save the world. With a foreword by Lee Child.When Ian Fleming dismissed his books in a 1956 letter to Raymond Chandler as ‘straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety’ he was being typically immodest. In three short years, his James Bond novels were already spearheading a boom in thriller fiction that would dominate the bestseller lists, not just in Britain, but internationally.The decade following World War II had seen Britain lose an Empire, demoted in terms of global power and status and economically crippled by debt; yet its fictional spies, secret agents, soldiers, sailors and even (occasionally) journalists were now saving the world on a regular basis.From Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean in the 1950s through Desmond Bagley, Dick Francis, Len Deighton and John Le Carré in the 1960s, to Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the 1970s.Many have been labelled ‘boys’ books’ written by men who probably never grew up but, as award-winning writer and critic Mike Ripley recounts, the thrillers of this period provided the reader with thrills, adventure and escapism, usually in exotic settings, or as today’s leading thriller writer Lee Child puts it in his Foreword: ‘the thrill of immersion in a fast and gaudy world.’In Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Ripley examines the rise of the thriller from the austere 1950s through the boom time of the Swinging Sixties and early 1970s, examining some 150 British authors (plus a few notable South Africans). Drawing upon conversations with many of the authors mentioned in the book, he shows how British writers, working very much in the shadow of World War II, came to dominate the field of adventure thrillers and the two types of spy story – spy fantasy (as epitomised by Ian Fleming’s James Bond) and the more realistic spy fiction created by Deighton, Le Carré and Ted Allbeury, plus the many variations (and imitators) in between.

Copyright (#ulink_f41b4eaf-6f90-5711-881b-ce2f414d7589)

Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Copyright © Mike Ripley 2017

Foreword © Lee Child 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover illustration: detail from When Eight Bells Toll by Alistair MacLean © HarperCollinsPublishers 1981 (front); Robert Kyle’s Kill Now, Pay Later by Robert McGinnis © Dell Publishing/Penguin Random House 1960 (back).

Author photograph © Mike Ripley

Mike Ripley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions on the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008172237

Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780008172244

Version: 2017-11-20

Dedication (#ulink_ac13e2df-6a58-5562-8c69-af961c56fa77)

For Len Deighton,

who has a lot to answer for.

SPOILER ALERT (#ulink_d2c51c61-aaa8-5887-9e1d-236e6c091755)

There will be spoilers. Live with it. Many of the thrillers referred to here were published fifty years ago. You’ve had time.

THRILLERS (#ulink_d2c51c61-aaa8-5887-9e1d-236e6c091755)

‘A book, film, or play depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense.’

Collins English Dictionary

‘What exactly is a thriller? The term seems to cover a multitude of sins and quite a fair proportion of virtues.’

Margery Allingham, 1931

‘You after all write “novels of suspense” – if not sociological studies – whereas my books are straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety.’

Ian Fleming in a letter to Raymond Chandler, 1956

Contents

Cover (#udc59de6c-705a-5f16-837a-b5dd8684ced7)

Title Page (#uf1e68488-a37a-562f-b537-bfda3990b879)

Copyright (#u410c475b-a55b-50a9-9378-37a894fc292f)

Dedication (#u1de002b6-2251-5630-a02a-a9741f98c9e4)

Spoiler Alert (#uea762348-777a-556b-8256-6b03bf9f65a4)

Thrillers (#u0705f81d-32e3-5069-b28b-8edab0488c8e)

Foreword (#ub1c8256a-9346-5c75-bf20-913967247a37)

Preface (#u50ce7f8c-32b8-5ef5-9edb-12d0d97be045)

Chapter 1: A Question of Emphasis (#u475a4cc9-159f-547b-afcd-024b1ad693f2)

Chapter 2: The Land Before Bond (#u3266babd-843b-5a74-b4c1-0349f0a94fdd)

Chapter 3: Do Mention the War (#u3ff8d1a8-0046-5dff-b7ed-1690d90a5d77)

Chapter 4: Tinkers, Tailors, Soldiers, Spies. But Mostly Journalists. (#u9b2d9f6d-1a02-5a1a-ba20-6ddbfea76b58)

Chapter 5: End of Empire (#uad88998d-aeab-5ff6-aa4c-b1d5f26ebf69)

Chapter 6: Travel Broadening the Mind (#u5b7c88d5-f167-5f71-9c9d-10fb2eeb70f9)

Chapter 7: Class of ’62 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8: The Spies Have It, 1963–70 (#litres_trial_promo)