Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Mike Ripley

and neo-Nazis, but latterly against the KGB. In theory, Fedora should have been as well-known as Bond in this period – his adventures were well regarded in America and well-reviewed by no less than Anthony Boucher¹⁰ who publicly preferred him to 007 – but UK titles such as Johnny Goes East, Johnny Goes North, Johnny Goes West and, you’ve guessed, Johnny Goes South, perhaps made him sound more a competitor to Biggles rather than Bond. (His adventures in American editions had far more exciting titles such as The Swastika Hunt, Overload, and Mountainhead.)

      Two new heroes – both very British but spymasters rather than spies or secret agents – came on the murky espionage scene in 1958 and both were to attract strong, if not numerically overwhelming, supporters. Neither was remotely like James Bond, although John Blackburn’s General Charles Kirk did have a secretary called, cheekily, ‘Miss Bond’. The ageing General Kirk, with his war-damaged hand and a phobia about feeling cold, was billed as the Head of Foreign Office Intelligence and he made his debut in A Scent of New-mown Hay. In a nod to the traditions of the genre, Kirk is described in another novel (Broken Boy) as looking ‘like one of Buchan’s aristocratic villains, plotting a very low blow against the Crown’. Blackburn’s novels took spy fantasy to the limit, often including elements of supernatural horror and even science fiction and as a result he attained a cult rather than a mass following, though several of the books reflected the development of, and paranoia about, biological weapons of mass destruction. The other leading man (he was far too refined to be labelled anything as common as a popular hero) to emerge was Colonel Charles Russell, of the mysterious and seemingly autonomous Security Executive, created by William Haggard in Slow Burner. The urbane and patrician Russell, who could get on with traitors and his KGB opposite number far better than he could with his own political masters, was of similar mature years to General Kirk – and more the equivalent of ‘M’ than Bond – but not the old warhorse that Kirk was; more a rather superior, very senior, civil servant, which is exactly what his creator was.

      The Night of Wenceslas, Penguin, 1962

      One other promising character, although reluctant spy and certainly no match for James Bond, to appear in 1960 was Nicolas Whistler who found himself, much against his better judgement, up to his neck in espionage in Czechoslovakia in the award-winning The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson. The book was soon filmed as the romantic comedy Hot Enough for June, starring that quintessentially British hero Dirk Bogarde, but no more was ever heard of Nicolas Whistler. His creator Davidson, though, went on to become one of Britain’s most respected – and best – thriller writers.

      That debut novel of Lionel Davidson is as good a punctuation point as any. The 1950s had well and truly ended and the Swinging (and Spying) Sixties were upon us.

      Lots of things, especially thriller-writing, were about to change.