A Cool Day for Killing

by William Haggard

When the Sultan of Shahbaddin is murdered by revolutionaries, his daughter, Sheila Raden, struggles to protect the valuable Raden tiara from Chinese agents

Genres: Crime

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

William Haggard (born Croydon 11 August 1907, died Frinton-on-Sea 27 October 1993) was the pseudonym of Richard Henry Michael Clayton, the son of the Rev. Henry James Clayton and Mabel Sarah Clayton. He was an English writer of fictional spy thrillers set in the 1960s through the 1980s, or, as the writer H. R. F. Keating called them, "action novels of international power." Like C. P. Snow, he was a quintessentially British Establishment figure who had been a civil servant in India, and his books vigorously put forth his perhaps idiosyncratic points of view. The principle character in most of his novels is the urbane Colonel Charles Russell of the fictional Security Executive, (clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service), who moves easily and gracefully along Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. During the years of the fictional spy mania initially begun by the James Bond stories, Haggard was considered by most critics to be at the very top of the field.

Reviews

[Gerald Sinstadt · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Haggard wrote this in 1968. In today's world of political correctness no publisher would look at it. A Cool Day for Killing in concerned with the fictional island of Shabadeen, formerly ruled benevolently by the British Raven family. But now that will no longer do. The natives want to claim their own. But the natives are either Malay or Chinese. Britain has a political interest in the outcome but has no high regard gor either side.

Harry Duke is the Minister responsible, though seeking a resolution at arm's length. Charles Russell is the Head of the Security Executive whom Dukeenlists as an ally. There are also two Ravel descendants, Sheila and Oliver.

The plot teeters on the brink of implausibility from time to time and has to be rescued by too much reliance on coincidence, which cost it two stars. But there is much pleasure to be had from Haggard's delineation of the English upper middle classes in the twilight of empire, all stiff lips and gentlemanly conduct, a world of nods and winks where everyone knows his place.

Not recommended for 21st Century liberals but very enjoyable for others.

[Margareth8537 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoy the character of Charles Russell. Spy stories without a great deal of action at times. Demand a bit more of the reader than Fleming