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Harry Maxim #3
The Crocus List
The assassination attempt on the American president in London bore the hallmark of the KGB. But with Britain about to hold unilateral talks with the Russians over Berlin, why should Moscow Centre rock the boat? Major Harry Maxim smelled conspiracy. Trouble was, nobody wanted to believe him.So the Major goes hunting, taking with him his old mentor from Downing Street days, George Harbinger, and another colleague from former times, the not so old and much more attractive Agnes Algar, MIS.It's all highly unofficial. But that doesn't stop Maxim shooting and pistol-whipping his way from London to East Berlin via the Cotswolds, Eastbourne and Illinois, until he finally tracks down the Crocus List - a group of earnest patriots playing God and soldiers to open the country's eyes to the Russian menace...
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 1986
89 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Gavin Lyall
66 books31 followersGavin was born and educated in Birmingham. For two years he served as a RAF pilot before going up to Cambridge, where he edited Varsity, the university newspaper. After working for Picture Post, the Sunday Graphic and the BBC, he began his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, published in 1961. After four years as Air Correspondent to the Sunday Times, he resigned to write books full time. He was married to the well-known journalist Katherine Whitehorn and they lived in London with their children.
Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.
He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.
Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).
All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.
In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.
Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.
Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.
He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.
Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).
All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.
In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.
Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 23, 2018
Years ago Lyall was my favorite intelligent thriller author and it was fun to re find this. It is a reminder that the 80s was the heyday of the Cold War, even as the USSR was lurching towards collapse.
Our hero, British Major Maxim, is doing security for a (slightly alt-history) US President’s visit to London when what looks like an assassination attempt takes place. From there the action spirals across England and the US. Everything is confusing to our hero and his variegated enemies and semi allies (the CIA plays a suitably ambiguous role).
Even when Maxim and his friends figure out (pretty much) what is going on the continuously escalating action pulls the reader along. And the climax, at least for this reader, left me checking back for missed clues (and they are there).
Intelligently written, with well drawn characters (even for the minor players), this is a very nice way to spend a rainy Sunday, or any other day!
Our hero, British Major Maxim, is doing security for a (slightly alt-history) US President’s visit to London when what looks like an assassination attempt takes place. From there the action spirals across England and the US. Everything is confusing to our hero and his variegated enemies and semi allies (the CIA plays a suitably ambiguous role).
Even when Maxim and his friends figure out (pretty much) what is going on the continuously escalating action pulls the reader along. And the climax, at least for this reader, left me checking back for missed clues (and they are there).
Intelligently written, with well drawn characters (even for the minor players), this is a very nice way to spend a rainy Sunday, or any other day!
August 3, 2022
The Crocus List
First class story, well written and thoughtful. Our hero Major Harry Maxim is ruthless and dedicated as usual and you are left with the feeling that he is a decent man. I am loving these particular books.
First class story, well written and thoughtful. Our hero Major Harry Maxim is ruthless and dedicated as usual and you are left with the feeling that he is a decent man. I am loving these particular books.
November 17, 2022
As the last of the Bletchley Park and S.O.E heroes and heroines fade away, this book, written in the 1980s, is perhaps a timely reminder of the personal cost of their exploits. Major Harry Maxim, still loosely attached to Whitehall as their trouble-shooter in a very literal sense, is heading up a small team covering a Royal Duke's funeral at Westminster Abbey to offer extra protection to the USA President in a possible emergency. When shots are fired, narrowly missing said President, British politicos are keen to stick to the lone wolf theory. Harry's activism involving two intruders in the Abbey and therefore his certainty of a conspiracy is not popular. The possibility of a reawakening of a WW2 "stay-behind" group trying to influence British foreign policy just as the Cold War may be thawing, is accepted only by his friend and mentor at Defence, George Harbinger. From ex S.O.E member Dorothy Tuckey's cottage in the wilds of Gloucestershire, a sad and dilapidated boatyard in Marlowe run by a matching ex WW2 Intelligence Officer, the trail leads Harry through Washington and the mid-west, with Agnes Algar offering her own unique style of support. With a now nostalgic (for us) pass through Check-Point Charlie, the denouement has our Harry trying to prevent an unthinkable act, while the mandarins in the corridors of power are desperately imitating ostriches at the same time as trying to cover their own backsides. A perfect blend of action, sharply accurate but thoughtful characterisation and dry, laconic prose, this is a worthy continuation in the Harry Maxim series by a much-missed, intelligent and often overlooked writer, Gavin Lyall.
January 24, 2024
Major Harry Maxim is no longer at No. 10. There’s a new Prime Minister and Harry’s brand of security is out, He’s been shuffled back to an SAS liaison role and wallowing in boring lectures and procedural duties. When the US President visits London to attend the funeral of an aristocratic war hero, Maxim is placed in charge of surveillance. Not surprisingly there’s an assassination plot afoot and the President narrowly escapes with his life. Maxim’s quick thinking eliminates the shooter but sets in motion a plethora of questions and actions which all need investigation, answer and resolution. At first it appears to be a lone gunman, but Maxim spies a photograph of the assassin pinned on the wall of a Dorothy Tuckey’s cottage and his suspicions are aroused. Returning surreptitiously to steal it, he finds the military historian dead from torture and an enemy agent searching the house. But who is attempting to kill the President: the Russian KGB, a disparate unnamed terrorist group, the CIA or is it the members of the Crocus List, a shady antiauthoritarian organisation dedicated to upholding the capitalist free world?
Starting in London and the Home Counties, but jetting to New York, Washington and Manston, Missouri, before reaching its heart-stopping climax in East Berlin, Gavin Lyall conjures a believably convoluted thriller with plenty of Cold War intrigue. Enemies lurk at every corner, country and in every committee room. Small clues deliver much importance. The network of spies and spymasters feels genuine and a little but frightening. You do wonder if the security services are so devious and underhand.
Strong characters abound although there may be a touch too many of them. It’s difficult for the author to create interest and tension with desk bound committees, but he just about succeeds. The forays beyond Whitehall and the US Treasury make the novel more buoyant. You do feel it needs a lift. Lyall seems to have drifted into sub-Le Carre territory where the machinations of the craft seem to mean more than the physical action. There is an awful lot of dialogue which fills pages but doesn’t spur the plot on any faster. Repetitions abound.
Overall, a good read, if a tad longwinded.
Starting in London and the Home Counties, but jetting to New York, Washington and Manston, Missouri, before reaching its heart-stopping climax in East Berlin, Gavin Lyall conjures a believably convoluted thriller with plenty of Cold War intrigue. Enemies lurk at every corner, country and in every committee room. Small clues deliver much importance. The network of spies and spymasters feels genuine and a little but frightening. You do wonder if the security services are so devious and underhand.
Strong characters abound although there may be a touch too many of them. It’s difficult for the author to create interest and tension with desk bound committees, but he just about succeeds. The forays beyond Whitehall and the US Treasury make the novel more buoyant. You do feel it needs a lift. Lyall seems to have drifted into sub-Le Carre territory where the machinations of the craft seem to mean more than the physical action. There is an awful lot of dialogue which fills pages but doesn’t spur the plot on any faster. Repetitions abound.
Overall, a good read, if a tad longwinded.
December 8, 2023
Gavin Lyall's Major Maxim series, which sadly comprises only four books, is a superb blend of espionage and military adventure. Lyall was a proflific British thriller author who wrote from the sixties up through the nineties. His books are literate, knowing and action-packed; in my estimation he was one of the top writers of the great British post-war thriller generation, and he reached the top of his form with the Maxim novels.
The series hook is that Maxim is a crack SAS officer who gets shunted into a 10 Downing Street sinecure because nobody quite knows what to do with him; the hope is that the post will keep him out of trouble. Instead, he becomes the guy that does things the government needs done but cannot possibly admit to, often on his own initiative, driving the politicians nuts but getting the job done the way he was trained to do.
In this one, an attempt to assassinate the U.S. president, in London for a state funeral, alerts Maxim and his boss, George Harbinger, a security adviser to the PM, to the existence of a long-buried network of CIA assets in Britain, now coming to life to thwart a dovish British government's rapprochement with the Soviets. The quest to ferret out the fanatics takes Maxim to the U.S. and ultimately East Berlin and pits him against the KGB, who are pursuing their own agenda. Of course, Maxim's approach is rather more kinetic than the toffs at 10 Downing would prefer, which is why we love Major Maxim.
The style is polished and clever and the book deeply researched, full of inside dope on U.K. government, espionage tradecraft and Maxim's severe British army ethos. I only wish Lyall had written more of these.
The series hook is that Maxim is a crack SAS officer who gets shunted into a 10 Downing Street sinecure because nobody quite knows what to do with him; the hope is that the post will keep him out of trouble. Instead, he becomes the guy that does things the government needs done but cannot possibly admit to, often on his own initiative, driving the politicians nuts but getting the job done the way he was trained to do.
In this one, an attempt to assassinate the U.S. president, in London for a state funeral, alerts Maxim and his boss, George Harbinger, a security adviser to the PM, to the existence of a long-buried network of CIA assets in Britain, now coming to life to thwart a dovish British government's rapprochement with the Soviets. The quest to ferret out the fanatics takes Maxim to the U.S. and ultimately East Berlin and pits him against the KGB, who are pursuing their own agenda. Of course, Maxim's approach is rather more kinetic than the toffs at 10 Downing would prefer, which is why we love Major Maxim.
The style is polished and clever and the book deeply researched, full of inside dope on U.K. government, espionage tradecraft and Maxim's severe British army ethos. I only wish Lyall had written more of these.
July 22, 2024
After his stint at No. 10, Harry is pulled into a brief job as part the US presidents protection duty when he visits the UK. The British government are about to hold unilateral talks with Moscow about the state of Berlin.
An assassination attempt on the president looks like it is a clumsy KGB affair, but why would they jeopardise talks with London? Harry Maxim, on the scene, thinks something does not add up, so he does what he always does – he starts digging. With George Harbinger and Agnes Algar on his side, can he figure out what is going on?
This is another excellent read from Mr Lyall. It is nicely paced, with enough action interlacing the political machinations of the myriad agencies stepping on each-others toes. We get a bit deeper into Harry’s life, and the 80s setting is just right. It is a shame the Maxim series is only four books long, and I am through three of them. The last is on my Kindle.
An assassination attempt on the president looks like it is a clumsy KGB affair, but why would they jeopardise talks with London? Harry Maxim, on the scene, thinks something does not add up, so he does what he always does – he starts digging. With George Harbinger and Agnes Algar on his side, can he figure out what is going on?
This is another excellent read from Mr Lyall. It is nicely paced, with enough action interlacing the political machinations of the myriad agencies stepping on each-others toes. We get a bit deeper into Harry’s life, and the 80s setting is just right. It is a shame the Maxim series is only four books long, and I am through three of them. The last is on my Kindle.
August 4, 2024
The entire Major Maxim series are some of the best Cold War era espionage books out there. They tend to get overlooked in light of the excellent books by Len Deighton and John Le Carre. Excellent books where the protagonist, British SAS Major Harry Maxim isn't a spy but ends up thrust into the game.
May 4, 2024
clever spy thriller
Really enjoyed this spy thriller.
Maxim is a great character and second book of his exploits I have now read.
Looking forward to more.
Highly recommended.
Really enjoyed this spy thriller.
Maxim is a great character and second book of his exploits I have now read.
Looking forward to more.
Highly recommended.
December 24, 2024
Excellent series
June 25, 2015
Another gem of the genre - with sharp dialogue, memorable characters and a plot that based on the intriguing but mostly correctly premise that internal zealots are the worst, and most insidious, threat possible...
March 23, 2014
Great yarn, I love all Gavin Lyall's books.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews