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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Mike Ripley 2017
Foreword copyright © Lee Child 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Mike Ripley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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: 9780008172251
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008172244
Version: 2019-03-04
For Len Deighton,
who has a lot to answer for.
‘That’s one of the reasons I wrote my first crime novel, because my father was reading Alistair MacLean. I didn’t want to write Dubliners. I wanted to write something he would read’
Ian Rankin
‘Indispensable and destined for awards’
Maxim Jakubowski
‘Ripley produces funny lines as often as most people breathe’
The Times
‘[Ripley] reduced me to tears of laughter with some of his deadpan summaries of the period’s lesser lights’
Daily Telegraph
There will be spoilers. Live with it. Many of the thrillers referred to here were published fifty years ago.
You’ve had time.
‘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
Copyright
Dedication
Spoiler Alert
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: A Question of Emphasis
Chapter 2: The Land Before Bond
Chapter 3: Do Mention the War
Chapter 4: Tinkers, Tailors, Soldiers, Spies. But mostly journalists.
Chapter 5: End of Empire
Chapter 6: Travel Broadening the Mind
Chapter 7: Class of ’62
Chapter 8: The Spies Have It, 1963–70
Chapter 9: The Adventurers, 1963–70
Chapter 10: The Storm Jackal Has Landed – The 1970s
Chapter 11: The New Intake
Chapter 12: Endgame
Appendix I: The Leading Players
Appendix II: The Supporting Cast
Notes & References
Acknowledgements & Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Also by Mike Ripley
About the Publisher
