Mike Ripley passed along a notice about the latest titles from the Top Notch Thriller imprint of Ostara Publishing (edited by Ripley), whose aim is to revive great British thrillers which don't deserve to be forgotten. In its first 18 months, Top Notch Thrillers has reissued 16 titles from the 1960s and 1970s, including books by John Gardner, Brian Callison, Duncan Kyle, Francis Clifford, Victor Canning and Geoffrey Household, with four more to be added this year.
One of the latest reissues is the third in the "Quiller" series by Adam Hall, a/k/a Elleston Trevor, The Striker Portfolio. Quiller is an early antecedent to tough-guys Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne, the type who head into danger unarmed and alone. In The Striker Portfolio, we find Quiller in West Germany investigating the crashes of 36 military aircraft patrolling NATO's front line, as he tries to unravel a conspiracy and survive on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Before it's all over, Quiller is involved in "one of the most detailed car chase sequences in spy fiction," and earns his code name that ends with the suffix "9," which means "reliable under torture," which brings to mind the newly-revamped Bond movies starring Daniel Craig.
Another recently-featured title is The Eliminator by Andrew York (a/k/a Christopher Nicole), the first of seven books featuring British Security Service assassin Jonas Wilde, who cultivates the air of a "gentleman-yachtsman and slightly seedy playboy." The book was filmed as Danger Route in 1967 starring Richard Johnson, Gordon Jackson and Diana Dors.
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