The Tango Briefing in Espionage Aficionados

Apr 26, 2013 Feliks rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-thrillers

I’ve loudly announced myself in other reviews, as a devout Adam Hall/Elleston Trevor fan. I’ve stated it plainly. Ain’t no news ’bout that.

I'm never subdued in my assessment that the Quiller novels are the most exciting reads I've probably ever encountered outside of Hammett. Or else, the horror yarns from Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, etc.

Hall’s Quiller romps are so good they make me short-of-breath and goggle-eyed, as Hammett does. But Hammett’s bibliography is slender, and Adam Hall gives me ...more

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Oct 12, 2015 cool breeze rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Quiller in the Sahara investigating a mysterious cargo on board an air freighter crashed in the desert. There are some plot points that seriously stretch credibility (view spoiler). This Quiller novel has an unusually good exploration of the relationship between an agent and those who control him. ...more

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Jul 28, 2018 Philip rated it liked it

Shelves: spy-fiction-british, desert, noir, 1970s, africa-north, first-person, fiction-series, mckays, kiss-kiss-bang-bang

My first Quiller book, although I vaguely remember "The Quiller Memorandum" as a George Segal movie back in the mid-60's. This one, the fifth in the series, might be slim on plot (a plane crashes in the Sahara and Quiller has to find and destroy it - that's literally the entire story - although there is a pretty slick twist in the final two pages), but Hall makes up for it with apparently endless inner dialogue. Early on, it takes 50 pages for Quiller to avoid surveillance and get from Point A t My first Quiller book, although I vaguely remember "The Quiller Memorandum" as a George Segal movie back in the mid-60's. This one, the fifth in the series, might be slim on plot (a plane crashes in the Sahara and Quiller has to find and destroy it - that's literally the entire story - although there is a pretty slick twist in the final two pages), but Hall makes up for it with apparently endless inner dialogue. Early on, it takes 50 pages for Quiller to avoid surveillance and get from Point A to Point B; couple chapters later Quiller jumps out of a plane on page 101 and doesn't hit the ground until 106, (although later on, it only takes Quiller three pages to do the exact same jump in the exact same spot!).

Hall at least sounds like he knows his tradecraft, and Quiller is a more realistic spook than Bond. Quiller's first-person narration is appropriately underplayed, and I like his overall run-on style. This is how he describes an attemped assassination attempt by blowing up his car:

So at 1915 I checked out of the Hotel Africa and went across to where the Chrysler was parked and they said later at the hospital that the glass had been the worst trouble because some very small fragments had got stuck in my face and they'd been difficult to find.

And this is the first paragraph of the whole book, which just nicely prepares you for the tone to follow:

I came in over the Pole and we were stacked up for nearly twenty minutes in a holding circuit round London before they could find us a runway and then we had to wait for a bottleneck on the ground to get itself sorted out and all we could do was stare through the windows at the downpour and that didn't help.

Hall was another recommended author from Mike Ripley's excellent reference Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, and I may look for some other Quiller's if I can find them for under a buck somewhere (found this one for 65-cents at our huge used bookstore in Manassas), but no rush - still have another dozen or more to go through from my first spree. ...more

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Nov 27, 2015 Larry Loftis rated it liked it

Elleston Trevor's (Adam Hall) fifth Quiller installment. Like the last three, great prose, plotting, spycraft, etc, but with a very weak ending. ...more

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