The Exploits of Tommy Hambledon

by Manning Coles

Drink to Yesterday (Bk 1)
A toast to Tomorrow (Bk 2)
Alias Uncle Hugo (Bk 14)

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Manning Coles is the pseudonym of two British writers, Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891–1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899–1965), who wrote many spy thrillers from the early 40s through the early 60s. The fictional protagonist in 26 of their books was Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon, who works for the Foreign Office.

Manning and Coles were neighbors in East Meon, Hampshire. Coles worked for British Intelligence in both the World Wars. Manning worked for the War Office during World War I. Their first books were fairly realistic and with a touch of grimness; their postwar books perhaps suffered from an excess of lightheartedness and whimsy. They also wrote a number of humorous novels about modern-day ghosts, some of them involving ghostly cousins named Charles and James Latimer. These novels were published in England under the pseudonym of Francis Gaite but released in the United States under the Manning Coles byline.

Many of the original exploits were based on the real-life experiences of Coles, who lied about his age and enlisted under an assumed name in a Hampshire regiment during World War I while still a teenager. He eventually became the youngest officer in British intelligence, often working behind German lines, due to his extraordinary ability to master languages. Coles had 2 sons (Michael and Peter, who were identical twins and who are both still alive, living in the UK) and the Ghost stories were based on the tales he used to tell his young sons when he was 'back from his travels'.

Reviews

[Mario · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed each book separately, as I read them. The are here, too, if you are really that interested. The short version is that each one was a substantial improvement over the one that came before.

Drink to Yesterday

I found this to be surprisingly boring. It has all of the hallmarks of an autobiographical novel, as what should be tense moments dissolve quickly and easily (presumably, the true stories for which this does not happen rarely end well for the protagonist); some of the more typical, random, everyday things are described in unnecessary detail; and characters that clearly mean a lot to the author pop in now and again, even though the author makes no effort to ingratiate those characters to the reader (I have a theory about why the author was particularly cagey about Dixon). It is also far too fast-paced; the main character travels from one country to another with barely a mention, for example. It was easy to read, but not worth having done so.

Toast to Tomorrow

Much better than the first book in the series. The transitions are just as abrupt, but the story is a little more exciting. It feels much more like a traditional spy novel than the first also, which was more like a memoir than anything else. It still isn't great, but its fine. I'd skip the first and just read this, if you are that interested. Hopefully, my advice here does not come too late.

Alias Uncle Hugo

This is a pretty short book, but it's quite a bit improved over the previous Tommy Hambledon books I've read so far. It's just a quick little spy story.