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

by Mike Ripley

An 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Thriller, Espionage, Audiobook, British Literature, Literary Criticism, Writing

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Mike Ripley is the author of the award-winning 'Angel' series of comedy thrillers which have twice won the CWA Last Laugh Award. It has been said that he 'paints a picture of London Dickens would recognise' and that 'he writes like the young Len Deighton, wierd and wonderful information and very, very funny'. Described as 'England's funniest crime writer' (The Times), he is also a respected critic of crime fiction, writing for the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times and the Birmingham Post among others.

Reviews

[Karl]

Subtitled "How Britain lost an empire but it's secret agents saved the world"

The back cover has a Robert McGinnis painting (This is the UK Edition)

[Bill]

Mike Ripley's book, covering British thriller writing from the 1950s to the 1970s, starts with an excellent introduction from novelist Lee Child. This is followed by a rather long & unnecessary chapter on the the sort of author's Ripley has decided to include (or exclude) in his book. Fortunately after this the author gets on with the important stuff.
Ripley puts novels & authors into historical context, but in a light & always engaging style that kept me reading. He points out that before the internet the only way you found new authors to read was to browse in bookshops, talk to friends, or see a film version that prompted you to read the original novel. I remember those days very well.
This book worked well for me in a few different ways. Ripley discussed some of my favourite authors, including Ian Fleming. He reminded me of authors I had read when I was young & had forgotten about, such as the excellent Alan Williams. He also discussed novels I had never heard of (& now want to read) by Desmond Cory, Lionel Davidson etc.
He also reminded me that I have a battered old copy of Who's Who In Spy Fiction by Donald McCormick somewhere in the house. Now where did I put THAT book ?!

[Gram]

A labour of love by Mike Ripley, documenting the history of British thrillers from Ian Fleming's James Bond books and Alistair MacLean's thrillers in the 1950s through the big names of Desmond Bagley, Dick Francis, Len Deighton and John Le Carré in the 1960s and on to Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the 1970s.

The title of Ripley's book comes from a 1956 letter to Raymond Chandler in which Ian Fleming dismissed his Bond books in as ‘straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety’.

As well as the major thriller writers, there are chapters devoted to lesser-known names and writers whose books are long out of print. If you're a fan of 20th Century British thrillers, this book is a handy guide to have in your library.

[Barb in Maryland]

3.5 Stars

Oh this was definitely a stroll down memory lane! As a teen I gobbled up these thrillers; I was a die-hard fangirl for Alistair MacLean*. And when there was no new MacLean handy, then I read Hammond Innes, Desmond Bagley and so on. Later on, my husband and I read Jack Higgins before he hit it big with 'The Eagle Has Landed'. Len Deighton--check, Ken Follett--check. You get the picture...

Mike Ripley does a nice job of putting these British action thrillers and spy novels in context with what was happening in England (and the Commonwealth) at the time they were written. He cheerfully discusses the various authors and their books, noting that the books were escapism, pure and simple.

I had a grand time because I had actually read so many of the books discussed by Ripley. Ripley's work make no pretense to be deep academic scholarship; this is a fan's thoughtful tribute to a genre he loved. It is chatty, almost gossipy, in tone while dispensing interesting nuggets of information on the various authors' background--background that often found its way into the books they wrote.
What makes the book valuable are the appendices, which offer thumbnail biographies of the many, many authors who worked in this genre.

*The first adult hardback book I bought was MacLean's "Ice Station Zebra" . It was 1963, the book cost (if I remember correctly) $3.25. I still have it.

[Michael Schramm]

Although there was a bit too much exposition on authors I could probably never get into I appreciated Ripley’s fairly exhaustively researched book on British thriller writers in what is considered to be the golden age (1953-1975). What did intrigue me, though is how a very widely read author by the name of Wilbur Smith completely escaped my attention over the years.

The best takeaway for me is his thesis that thrillers are more than just “airport books” and are a legitimate genre born of geopolitics and the type of world Great Britain was emerging into post WW2. Also, Ripley makes a solid effort in distinguishing “spy fantasy” (which is why on the whole, the genre is unfairly and derisively aligned with novels in the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” vein) from “spy fiction”—gritty, realistic stories of espionage and intrigue that are rooted in historical, Cold War events.

It helps considerably if the reader has read at least a few of the novels contained within the pages to gain some insight into an author’s motivations and philosophy for writing how he did, and in that regard Ripley did a splendid job. Having read approximately 55 novels by Bagley, Maclean, Higgins, Forsyth, Fleming, Lyall and Le Carre, I was intrigued as I turned the pages to gain some valuable insight into the genesis of the novels I’ve enjoyed over the years.

[Philip]

Generally well-written and lovingly researched overview of British thrillers from the immediate post-war years through a rather arbitrarily chosen late-70's cutoff. Ripley covers all the big names — Fleming, MacLean, Innes, Deighton, Ambler, Higgins — and stories in detail, as well as a number of lesser-known figures and books. But more importantly, he does an excellent job explaining the whole phenomena in historical terms: how the post-war changes in Britain (loss of empire, rationing, large number of returning troops who'd seen the world, introduction of truly global vs. local villains, etc.) shifted the market away from the likes of Leslie Charteris and Agatha Christie crime stories and whodunits to international thrillers, whether adventure thrillers or spy stories.

So as war stories move into post-war stories move into Cold War stories and beyond, we get the whole progression from early-50's WWII-based adventures (think HMS Ulysses, Guns of Navarone) and early spy fantasies (James Bond and all his imitators*), through general adventure (killers on the ice, killers in the jungle, killers under the ocean, as well as anything by Cussler, Forsythe or Francis) and finally more realistic "spy fiction" (Deighton, le Carré, etc.).

The book itself gets off to a bit of a slow start, and at 400+ pages seems at first glance overly long — but give it a chance. It hits its stride around 20 pages in, and the whole last third of the book consists of two large appendices entitled "The Leading Players" and "The Supporting Cast," which are brief (and then briefer) author bios that you can flip through or skip entirely at that point.

Just one minor complaint — a lot of footnotes, so why couldn't they just put them at the bottom of the page instead of making me flip back and forth every couple of paragraphs??

Anyway, a lot of memories here, as well as a lot of new information and writers to explore — so I ran down to the big secondhand bookstore in Manassas this afternoon and picked up 20 paperbacks for just around $10; not a bad deal...

* The book offers up a number of goofily named characters and U.N.C.L.E./S.P.E.C.T.R.E-like organizations, my favorites being S.A.T.A.N. ("Society for Activation of Terror, Anarchy and Nihilism") and D.I.E.C.A.S.T. ("Disorganization of International Espionage and Counter Activities for Stability and Trust") — WTF? Actually, "W.T.F." might itself be a great name for an evil organization — something like "Worldwide Terrorism Force" or whatever 😁)
____________________________

LISTED AUTHORS I'VE READ (and # of books — so far):*
• Eric Amber - 6 books
• Kingsley Amis - 1 book
• Desmond Bagley - 5 books
• Lionel Davidson - 4 books
• Len Deighton - 5 books (with 1 on TBR list)
• Ian Fleming - 14 books
• Ken Follett - 4 books
• Frederick Forsythe - 1 book
• John Gardner - 1 book
• Adam Hall - 14 books (with 4 on TBR list)
• Jack Higgins - 4 books
• Ted Lewis - 1 book
• John le Carré - 13 books
• Gavin Lyall - 1 book
• Alistair Maclean - 17 books

[Mark]

This book I found through the words of Bill Lynas one of those interesting people you find GR and his review and my love for James Bond and his genre did make me want to read this book which is no thriller or spy novel but the story of the spy genre in the '60's & 70"s and he does highlight the important writers and their place in history.

The first chapter is a bit of work out, a decent editor could have altered the book a wee bit so this chapter could have been added in the rest of the book. Anyhow when Mike Ripley finally gets underway with his story he will place the the spy genre in its historical perspective, he does mainly talk about the British spy books and their writer. he does a splendid job. It makes for fun ready and quite a few Aha moments when I recognize writers or books. I had forgotten my youthful days looking through dark and sometimes seedy 2nd hand bookstores ( I still like to visit them today, they have this magnetic effect on me and draw me straight of course of any different direction I was planning to go) for anything of interest. Writers like Alistair MacLean, Ian Fleming, Len Deigton, Hammond Innes, John le Carre get a light aimed at them and you get to find out where they can be placed within the Western post war history of England mostly.

The book does offer me some new insights in writers and books I might like to find or visit again. However it has little meat on its bones. From page 267 onward we get a large amount about the major writers of the spy book era written about in this book and quite a few pages of the little gods from the genre.

Overal well written and interesting for people who love the genre nonetheless and do enjoy a trip on memory lane. But do remember this is the British story of writers that were part of a changing world and Empire and kept the British end up.

[Tim Pendry]

Mike Ripley certainly knows his stuff. He has undertaken a great deal of original research in what is clearly a labour of love - recovering the lost world of the post-war British thriller up to and through the 1970s and providing a bit of pop history and sociology along the way.

This is the world of Desmond Bagley, Francis Clifford, Lionel Davidson, Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, Frederick Forsyth, Dick Francis, Adam Hall, Jack Higgins, Hammond Innes, John Le Carre, Gavin Lyall, Alistair Maclean, Berkely Mather, Wilbut Smith and Alan Williams.

It is a world of wartime derring-do, high seas adventure, exotic locations, heroes (true and flawed), fantasy, espionage, Nazis, SMERSH, treachery, honour, beautiful women, fast cars, jungles and deserts, terrorists and fanatics - classically male territory.

The male beast, chained to modernity, had a brief period in Britain when he may have had a memory of war or watched major events unfold in the media but was now stuck in the 9-5, suited or blue collared, and expected to 'provide' for nuclear families in an era of nuclear threat.

Although life loosened up a little in the 1960s (for the few and not the many), the 1970s were grey and depressed in Britain and the thriller in book and film relieved that sense of constraint. It is probably no coincidence that the British thriller started to die off a bit with the Thatcher revolution.

Whatever you thought of her, the woman did make life more insecure and possibly she created our currently emasculated world. If you were struggling to cope with the world she made, you might find yourself less interested in reading about excitement than when there was none to be had.

The thriller has, of course, never quite died (indeed, the American thriller soon replaced the British for the airport market) but the era of Maclean, Innes and Fleming, then Deighton, Forsyth and Le Carre gave way to the British crime novel with its appeal to personal insecurity and women readers.

The mentality of fighting torturing mad Nazis in the jungles of South America tends to be a little different from coping with the mild neighbour who turns out to be a serial killer. The first is a demand for violence against known evil, the second is a fear of violence from unknown evil-doers.

The trajectory is similar to that of the British film industry - a native tradition looking back to empire and dealing with the trauma of war working its way through to collapse in exhaustion and replacement by American equivalents and by new genres more suitable for a new generation.

It is, like so much written by men born in the 1950s, an elegiac book, with nostalgia for a market that had its own design and content formulae. Variations on themes acted much as poetic forms did in an earlier age. Innovation would come but lead to extensive copying and then new variations.

The reader was conservative but he could accept a radical change and a new convention if the innovation provided that 'frisson', the thrill of believing one was vicariously involved in a life or death struggle with the elements, an enemy or (later) treachery on one's own side.

Unfortunately the subject is still a slight one - this is, after all, just a branch of popular entertainment. Ripley struggles to give the subject coherence. It does not contain an analysis that surprises or is of any great depth. It can occasionally feel a little repetitive and over-stretched.

There are, however, many insights - notably the professional origins of the authors (with a strong showing for journalists, former service personnel and even technical and business types). It was a genre intimately related to its market, giving it what it wanted on cue in its social context.

The year 1962 is marked as a pivot of sorts with the film of 'Dr. No' which triggered the massive influence of Ian Fleming in spy fantasy, the dominance of Alastair Maclean in the adventure market and Len Deighton's 'Ipcress File'.

A market that had been looking back towards a time when British adventurers mastered the world, wilderness and the seas shifted both into greater fantasy (the Bond influence) and into defensive Cold War spy fiction although Nazis remained a staple for villainy throughout (as they do today).

There now appears to be a resurgence of interest in the thriller - in its American forms (which are respected), in the appearance of works from the back catalogue and with some new British writing of consequence beginning to be noticed - and some authors never stopped writing.

It would be interesting to know what is driving this - genre antiquarianism, nostalgia (especially for the Cold War), an interest in conspiracy as way station between the convoluted crime novel and the adventure novel, the influence of television and film, a quiet rebellion in favour of masculinity?

The book certainly has value. I am happy to keep it in my library if only because of the lengthy (a third of the book) reference sections with short biographies of the main writers of the genre and what Ripley calls the 'supporting cast', many of whom clearly deserve rediscovery.

[Daniel]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good book. Rated 3.0 of 5

I can't imagine anyone who reads this review not knowing who James Bond is. He is the epitome of the British spy - he gets the job done, he looks great doing it, and he plays, sexually, as hard as he works. But while Bond may be the most famous name in the literary spy business (thanks, I'm sure, in great part due to the movie franchise) he is far from the only spy.

Author Mike Ripley explores the rise of spy thrillers, specifically British thrillers, from the late 1950's through the revolutionary 1960's, to the early 1970's. Ripley examines the biggest names in action/thriller fiction, but gives adequate attention to some of the lesser-known authors.

Ripley has done some remarkable research and his analysis of the authors, characters, and books herein is quite strong. Based on my reading of this book I have added a few authors in my 'to be read' list and I've read a couple of books that I found through mention by Ripley.

The book is definitely interesting, but it seems to me that the audience for this non-fiction read is somewhat limited. I was hoping, perhaps for a little comparative association for the times in which these books were written. How did the 'free love' movement impact Bond? Did news reports of Nazis discovered living quietly in rural neighborhoods have an impact on the cold war spy stories? How could they not?

But really this is an examination of the books and the authors among all the other books and authors in the field. It was an educational read and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the genre, but it's not a 'must-read' for the general reading public.

Looking for a good book? Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by Mike Ripley is an examination of British spy thriller fiction, primarily in the 1960's, and anyone interested in this specific genre will find some valuable insights here.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

[Matthew Kresal]

Chances are you've heard of James Bond and George Smiley. You might even have heard of their creators, Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Have you heard of Alistair MacLean, Alan Hall, Francis Clifford, Ted Allbeury, or James Mayo? All of them were part of an explosion in the thriller genre headed by British authors over a twenty odd year period between the 1950s and 1970s. A period which the noted writer and critic Mike Ripley now examines with his book Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (itself a paraphrasing of a Fleming quote in fact) which explores this very British contribution to an ever popular genre.

As Ripley willingly admits, this isn't so much a work of literary criticism so much as a readers guide to the incredible explosion of talent. In a way the book may be the better for it as Ripley takes the reader on a journey that really begins in the inter-war period, tracing the seeds laid down by writers like John Buchan in novels like The Thirty-Nine Steps. Seeds that began to be harvested with the publication of Ian Fleming's first 007 outing Casino Royale in 1953 and really came to the fore in the 1960s with 1962 being perhaps the peak thanks in part to the release of the film version of Fleming's Dr. No and to the release of Len Deighton's seminal spy work The IPCRESS File among other factors. It's a journey that is well worth taking for fans of the genre.

That is largely due to the fact that Ripley isn't content just to hit the well-known stops. Another advantage of his approach to the book being that it is a readers guide is that he isn't just content to mention the Fleming's and le Carré's as important as they are to the genre (and indeed continue to have popularity well into the 21st century). Ripley is just as keen to mention authors whose books have, sometimes unfairly, come to be overlooked. Writers like Francis Clifford and Ted Allbeury, popular in their heyday whose work has been relegated to used bookstores (or as the Brits like to say secondhand bookshops) or online sites where they can go for silly money at times. Ripley also is able to sift through the myths and legends surrounding writers like Jack Higgins aka Harry Patterson and just how many novels he actually wrote before hitting it big with The Eagle Has Landed. The results are informative and engaging the whole way through.

Something else which makes the book of interest, and where perhaps it does delve a bit into literary criticism, is how it traces the evolution of the thriller genre. What started largely as adventure stories in the years before and immediately after the Second World War eventually branched off into different directions. There continued to be straight adventure tales as exemplified by many of works of Alistair MacLean for example. Even spy fiction branched off into sub-genres with spy fantasy (usually featuring a large amount of gadgets and exotic locales) reaching a high point in the 1960s thanks in large to Fleming and 007 with characters like Modesty Blaise while more realistic spy fiction seems to have had a longer shelf life with writers like Deighton and le Carré. Not to mention works where the line between pure adventure and spy fiction were blurred such as MacLean's Ice Station Zebra. Lastly, Ripley notes how much these British writers paved the way for American thriller writers who came to the fore during the 1970s and 1980s ranging from Robert Ludlum to Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy. It is on their shoulders that they built their successes, perhaps without realizing it.

Perhaps the best way of summing up Ripley's work on Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is that it's like walking into a massive library for the first time. Reading the pages is like browsing shelf after shelf, only to discover books you never knew existed and were delighted to discover. All the while, Ripley is there as a guide pointing out highlights from writers well known and forgotten that help the tell the story of these very British thrillers.

[Alice]

A trip through the adventure and espionage novels of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, written in a breezy, accessible style. A reminder of old favourites, plenty of ideas for new authors to try, and confirmation that I probably don't ever need to read any Wilbur Smith.

[Tim Trewartha]

Very very good book on the 'golden age' of British thrillers from the early 50's to the mid to late 70s. Ripley obviously has a great love of the genre (he writes crime and thriller novels), which comes through in the writing and research. He covers the obvious writers like Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, Alistair McClean but also writes about authors and books that have been lost to the mists of time, some of whom I know about and read, others which I will be checking out for sure.

[Mark]

In the two decades that followed the mid-1950s, the English detective novel was displaced in popularity in Britain by a new genre of fiction. Dubbed "thrillers," they were action-oriented books that reflected the legacy of the recent war and the issues of a nation coping with imperial decline and an ongoing Cold War against the Soviet Union. For all of the range of the characters and their foes, what these books shared was a common premise of British spies and adventurers facing off against a range of nefarious foes, typically in an exotic locale, for which various degrees of violence were necessary in order to win the day.

Having grown up reading these novels, Mike Ripley makes it clear from the start that he is an unabashed fan of the genre. His book looking at the genre is a reflection of this, serving in many ways as an extended love letter to works he looks upon nostalgically, albeit with a healthy dose of criticism. Tracing their emergence in the specific environment of postwar Britain, he charts their evolution from their origins in the sometimes bleak atmosphere of "austerity Britain" through their James Bond-driven emergence as a global phenomenon in the 1960s to their fade by the late 1970s. In his best chapters he explains how they reflected the circumstances of the moment, providing a measure of escapism for people pining for distant places and an assertion of national importance during a period of global eclipse. While the latter part of the book is little more than a recounting of various series by a growing range of authors, his work nonetheless serves as an entertaining study of an important genre, one that Ripley demonstrates reflected both their times and their audience.

[Karl Øen]

The Talented Mr Ripley!

[Jon Zelazny]

90% skip-able. Ripley's writing is like sitting next to somebody's windbag uncle at a wedding.

[Brendan Newport]

Although the science-fiction genre was my chosen favourite reading genre of my youth, it wasn't the only one.

I remember in particular, being on holiday in Wales or The Lake District, and bereft of a book to read, our families guest house would have a bookcase/bookshelf of paperbacks for guests to read. And that's how I ended-up reading quite a few British 'thriller' novels. Although I've never read an Ian Fleming (James Bond) novel, I've read quite a few Maclean novels. Forsyths The Day of The Jackal though was probably the first serious novel I read, and it's still a favourite.

There was though, many many more thriller writers and the books they wrote than I had an inkling about as an acne-riddled teen in the 1970s. As mentioned, 'sci-fi' was my chosen genre, and the one I spent my meagre pennies on. Mike Ripley's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang put me right, a bit late in life, but not too late to remind me to re-read some old favourites, and perhaps check-out some authors and novels I missed from decades past. Which of course means re-reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy again after a gap of 45 years!

Although primarily a reference book, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is also a pretty good source for a summary of British history of the 1950s-1970s. I was too young to appreciate the golden year for the genre (1962) but there was still plenty of steam in thriller-writing to keep me amused.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is well-written, though a little perfunctory on occasions. Some of the 'big' novels, like Ice Station Zebra & The Day of The Jackal enjoy a close examination, but others, such as notably The Eagle Has Landed don't really gain the in-depth insight they deserve.

There are though other useful insights. The cover of Len Deighton's The Ipcress File (a coffee cup, fag-end, paperclips, snub-nosed revolver & bullet) is as brilliant a cover as The Beatles White Album & Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Indeed the genre did attract some decent covers, certainly better than those that science-fiction and western novels gained in the 60s & 70s. Although scantily-clad blondes holding pistols became de rigueur in later years, you have to go back to the cover of Alan Williams' 1971 paperback reprint of Snake Water to see even the faintest hint of a nipple. And Ripley often notes that Alistair Maclean never wrote of a sexual encounter in any of his books, though Ian Fleming couldn't claim the same.

That so many novels made it to movies isn't skipped, and there are extracts from key passages for some of the titles covered. Two appendices The Leading Players and The Supporting Cast provide summaries of the leading authors, and the ones who won't. There are lots of illustrations of front covers, though strangely, no pictures of the authors themselves. I reckon a revised edition could be improved-upon with these, and perhaps a table summarising the sales of the top-ten bestsellers. If you reckon JK. Rowling does well, the success of The Day of The Jackal worldwide might be a surprise.

[Matt Raubenheimer]

Mike Ripley’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an invaluable guide to British spy and adventure thrillers of the 50s, 60s and 70s. As a reader who is very familiar with James Bond novels, has some familiarity with Deighton and Le Carré and a few other big names, but little knowledge of the ‘deeper cuts’ of classic thriller fiction this book has certainly broadened my awareness of what is available in the genre and as a result I have a long shopping list of authors and titles that I will be looking out for in my second hand book trawling expeditions. Already I have started reading the first novel that I’ve picked up from that list - A Grue of Ice by Geoffrey Jenkins - and there will be many more in the future.

An added bonus with the hardcover edition of this book is the brilliant collage of colourful book covers that adorns the endpapers of the book. Book jackets and paperback covers were just so much more exciting in those days!

[Vic Lauterbach]

I borrowed this compendium after seeing it listed with Mr. Ripley's Campion series and I found it quite informative. You probably won't want to read this book cover to cover, although you could, but rather use it as a reference work to find authors and series that interest you. For that purpose, it's very well suited. It also provides context for the event of the title, namely why so many of the best post-war thrillers were written by authors from the United Kingdom. Recommended to anyone searching for books to read that fall into the often overlapping thriller/adventure/espionage/mystery genres. I settled on four stars only because the relationship between the narrative in the chapters and the appendix of authors and works wasn't clear. I'm sure Mr. Ripley had a reason for covering some authors at length in both places, but I never figured out what it was. It's not a major issue but it was annoying.

[Mark]

A canter through the thriller genre from the golden age of thrillers. It took a while to get going, as a little too much explanation of why he is including this author and ignoring that author or sub genre, so reads a bit like a dissertation. Once the story starts to flow, the book worked much better for me, as Ripley works his way through the. The authors and heroes of those stories. The only quibble would be that the way the chapters are set out means that it often feels as if you are being told biographical details for the second or third time, as you are reminded of this or that.

A good read, enjoyable, bringing back memories of authors I read when younger and had forgotten, and others I should look out. It did send me straight back to my pile of Alistair MacLean’s!

[Michael Gregorio]

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” takes Mike Ripley’s lifelong love of thrillers to its logical conclusion: indeed, this is a brilliant history of the genre. He charts the first flowering of the British adventure story immediately after the Second World War, its evolution into the spy fantasies of James Bond in the 1950s and ’60s, and its transition into the cooler, more cynical spy fiction which arrived with the Cold War “when the reading public was steeped in an espionage culture.”
An expert and entertaining guide for those who wish to know more.
Highly recommended!

[Jeff Crosby]

Part literary criticism, part cultural history and part bibliography, this is a terrific book.Ripley examines the scope of male British thriller writers from 1953 to 1975. The gold standard is established with Fleming, Maclean, and Higgins. The author basically has taken the same journey I have in my reading habits. But, he has given me a cache of unread material that needs my attention.

[David]

A very interesting and informative history of all types of thrillers to come out of the UK in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Introduced me to a whole new array of authors to seek out and read and interesting history on authors I already enjoy. Only real issue is many of the books I now want to read are long out of print and very hard to find. But that's half the fun anyway...

[Josh Hitch]

Nice overview of the huge influx of British thrillers in the 50s thru the 70s covers the span with breakout writers and explains the influence of this run. Also has a great Appendix that list dozens of British writers with short overviews of their work.

Recommended, always enjoy a book about books and this one talks about Higgins and MacLean, what's not too like.

[Ant Koplowitz]

Brilliant summary and analysis of thriller/spy fiction, with a focus on the 1960s to the 1980s. Love Mike Ripley's books, as he's so knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter; plus, I always learn so much new stuff about favourite authors and the genre as a whole. Thoroughly recommended.

© Koplowitz 2023

[Sean O'Hara]

I should know better than to read this kind of book in audio format. Too hard trying to find the books mentioned when you don't know how the author's name is spelled.

[M.]

An essential resource for researchers and fans of postwar British thrillers.

[Vi]

Excellent reference of available material in this genre. Not sure about the Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang part of the title. Quite funny though.

[Satyajit shetty]

well researched with lots of information; not meant for entertainment.

[Jay Rothermel]

An insightful and lovingly encyclopedic celebration of the brightest years in UK thriller history.

[Raymond Huber]

3.5 stars. Useful introduction to the great British thriller writers.