Ebook Kiss Kiss Bang Bang The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed Mike Ripley Books
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WINNER OF THE HRF KEATING AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION CRIME BOOK 2018
An entertaining history of British thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, in which award-winning crime writer Mike Ripley reveals that, though Britain may have lost an empire, her thrillers helped save the world. With a foreword by Lee Child.
When Ian Fleming dismissed his books in a 1956 letter to Raymond Chandler as ‘straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety’ he was being typically immodest. In three short years, his James Bond novels were already spearheading a boom in thriller fiction that would dominate the bestseller lists, not just in Britain, but internationally.
The decade following World War II had seen Britain lose an Empire, demoted in terms of global power and status and economically crippled by debt; yet its fictional spies, secret agents, soldiers, sailors and even (occasionally) journalists were now saving the world on a regular basis.
From Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean in the 1950s through Desmond Bagley, Dick Francis, Len Deighton and John Le Carré in the 1960s, to Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the 1970s.
Many have been labelled ‘boys’ books’ written by men who probably never grew up but, as award-winning writer and critic Mike Ripley recounts, the thrillers of this period provided the reader with thrills, adventure and escapism, usually in exotic settings, or as today’s leading thriller writer Lee Child puts it in his Foreword ‘the thrill of immersion in a fast and gaudy world.’
In Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Ripley examines the rise of the thriller from the austere 1950s through the boom time of the Swinging Sixties and early 1970s, examining some 150 British authors (plus a few notable South Africans). Drawing upon conversations with many of the authors mentioned in the book, he shows how British writers, working very much in the shadow of World War II, came to dominate the field of adventure thrillers and the two types of spy story – spy fantasy (as epitomised by Ian Fleming’s James Bond) and the more realistic spy fiction created by Deighton, Le Carré and Ted Allbeury, plus the many variations (and imitators) in between.
Ebook Kiss Kiss Bang Bang The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed Mike Ripley Books
"Warning, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang could seriously devastate your bank account! But for good reasons. Mike has shone a light on spy writers and books I never knew existed. Most of us know the works of Greene, Ambler, Le Carre and Deighton, but how about Anthony Price, Geoffrey Household, Derek Marlowe (and many many more!) Spy and thrillers fans will frantically scribble notes of books they must buy as Mike takes us on a humorous guided tour through the golden age of British thriller writing.
As the host of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast I read a lot of spy novels, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has highlighted some serious gaps in my 'Spybrary'. Mike Ripley shows us in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang why he is an authority on thrillers - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is like getting a Masters degree in Spy Literature.
Lee Child gets it spot on in the foreword: '‘Some of us had older brothers blazing the way and that is what this book is, the perfect older brother equipped with 20/20 hindsight, saying read this, and then this, and this and this’ '
Buy the book then several book cases as you are going to need them for all the novels you are going to want to race out and buy!"
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed Mike Ripley Books Reviews :
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed Mike Ripley Books Reviews
- This is an AWESOME read. I run a website devoted to spy series, many of them from the 60s and 70s, and I like to think I know a thing or three about thrillers from that time. I read, I thought, most of the great books coming out then. I was stunned at how much I was learning about the times, the authors, and the books - all told in a super entertaining way that kept me flying through the pages.
The info presented is fascinating. The way the author presents it is almost beyond words. It is that entertaining. Fun historical observations to put things into perspective. Terrific anecdotes about the authors and the plots and the characters and the publishers and the critics, all told in the delightful way that made me a fan of Mike Ripley's Angel series years ago. He can be respectful and still playfully get a jab in now and then.
It is not unusual for me to be reading a couple of books at the same time. I would read one for a while and then switch. Several times during my reading of this book, I tried that and each time I got a paragraph or so before I would grin and go back to this. And then I would really get back to grinning.
In all the research I've done over the years for my site, I have read many books about the industry or about the writers or about the characters but up until now I have never read one that made me go, "Darn, I wish I had written this!" With no hesitation at all, I say that about this book.
If you like thrillers you owe it to yourself to check out this book. The number of authors and titles you will learn about that you probably had no idea of is stunning. And the perspectives about the books and the times in which they were written is so well done that I say again, "I wish I had written this." I didn't write it but lucky for us fans, we get to read it. - Warning, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang could seriously devastate your bank account! But for good reasons. Mike has shone a light on spy writers and books I never knew existed. Most of us know the works of Greene, Ambler, Le Carre and Deighton, but how about Anthony Price, Geoffrey Household, Derek Marlowe (and many many more!) Spy and thrillers fans will frantically scribble notes of books they must buy as Mike takes us on a humorous guided tour through the golden age of British thriller writing.
As the host of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast I read a lot of spy novels, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has highlighted some serious gaps in my 'Spybrary'. Mike Ripley shows us in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang why he is an authority on thrillers - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is like getting a Masters degree in Spy Literature.
Lee Child gets it spot on in the foreword '‘Some of us had older brothers blazing the way and that is what this book is, the perfect older brother equipped with 20/20 hindsight, saying read this, and then this, and this and this’ '
Buy the book then several book cases as you are going to need them for all the novels you are going to want to race out and buy! - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a fascinating survey of the Golden Age of British thrillers covering those written in the Sixties and Seventies. To quote the author in his Preface, "This book concentrates unashamedly on the British spies, secret agents, and soldiers, and their creators and publishers, who saved the world from Nazis, ex-Nazis, proto-Nazis, the secret police of any (and all) communist country, super-rich and power-mad villains, traitors, dictators, rogue generals, mad scientists, secret societies, ruthless businessmen … ."
Much more an easy-to-read biography of spy fiction written for fans who enjoy reading such novels than a reference book, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang gives a rundown of the leading English thriller authors and their most notable books written during the period before American thriller authors began to flourish. For me, a passionate reader and collector of espionage fiction, this book gave me insights on some of my favorite authors as well as information on the best titles to read by those authors who had previously escaped my attention.
To say that Mike Ripley is supremely knowledgeable about this subject is a huge understatement. In addition to having read most of the books mentioned, he has met a large number of their authors and counts many of them as good friends. If you’re a big fan of spy thrillers, this book is for you.
