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Category Archives: Mike Ripley
Crime at Christmas
As Britain gets ready for a very chilly yule indeed (and no, I don’t just mean the weather), my mind inevitably turns to the comforts of fictional crime! There are some splendid books being made available for crime aficionados this … Continue reading
Summer of Spies
This Summer the Waterstones bookchain is running a “Summer of Spies” promotion at its Gower Street shop in London, as a run-up to the publication of the new Smiley novel by John le Carre, A Legacy of Spies, due to … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, George Smiley, John le Carre, Mike Ripley
8 Comments
KISS KISS, BANG BANG by Mike Ripley
The subtitle really does say it all: The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed Though I sadly missed the launch party last week due to an international incident (but which sadly I can’t discuss due … Continue reading
MR CAMPION’S FAULT by Mike Ripley
Almost exactly fifty years after the death of Albert Campion creator Margery Allingham (1904-1966), her celebrated sleuth is back in action thanks to Mike Ripley with Mr Campion’s Fault, the third in his new series, following on directly from the … Continue reading
Posted in Albert Campion, Margery Allingham, Mike Ripley
14 Comments
TALES ON THE OFF-BEAT by Youngman Carter
Philip ‘Pip’ Youngman Carter was an illustrator, writer and also the husband of famed queen of crime, Margery Allingham. After her death he completed the Campion novel she had started, Cargo of Eagles (1968), and then went on to write … Continue reading
CALLAN UNCOVERED 2 by James Mitchell
Following on from the success of the first collection of James Mitchell’s long-thought lost short stories about his classic Cold War secret agent David Callan, here’s comes a very welcome and unexpected surprise – a sequel! The diffident protagonist was … Continue reading
Posted in Cold War, David Callan, Espionage, James Mitchell, Mike Ripley, Ostara Publishing
Tagged Edward Woodward
19 Comments
CALLAN UNCOVERED by James Mitchell
David Callan is an agent for British Intelligence and his great skill is marksmanship – but he is tortured by ethical and moral dilemmas. For every double agent uncovered or paid assassin eliminated, there is always a cost, usually borne … Continue reading
Posted in Cold War, David Callan, Espionage, James Mitchell, Mike Ripley, Ostara Publishing
Tagged Edward Woodward
27 Comments
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ANGEL by Mike Ripley
Fitzroy Maclean Angel is the driver of a de-licensed taxi who doubles as an unofficial private eye and triples as an occasional musician. Which is to say that he does a bit of this and a bit of that, surviving … Continue reading
Posted in London, Mike Ripley, Scene of the crime
28 Comments
Callan is back!
More great news from Mike Ripley and those great people at Ostara Publishing. Almost half a century after he first electrified British television screens in the “one-off” drama A Magnum for Schneider, the enigmatic, ruthless and tragic hero David Callan … Continue reading
Posted in David Callan, James Mitchell, Mike Ripley, Ostara Publishing
30 Comments
THE SAINT IN EUROPE (1953) by Leslie Charteris
I can’t quite believe it but this may in fact be the first Saint book I have read in about 35 years! I do remember picking up some of the tie-ins reprinted when Return of the Saint premiered on TV in 1978 … Continue reading
MR CAMPION’S FAREWELL by Mike Ripley
I first got hooked on the world of Margery Allingham and her crime-solving adventurer Albert Campion by proxy, through the scripts written by Alan Plater for the criminally underrated Campion TV series starring Peter Davison. I mention this because what we … Continue reading
Posted in Albert Campion, England, Margery Allingham, Mike Ripley
36 Comments
Historically Criminal
Here’s a news item from Mike Ripley that I am very glad to re-post here at Fedora as the following event should be of great interest to crime fiction fans who can be in London on Monday 18 February Join … Continue reading
Posted in Mike Ripley
28 Comments
Ostara Crime imprint launch
There’s some exciting news from Ostara Publishing which I am very glad to be able to help pass on. After three years (and 28 titles) as Series Editor of Top Notch Thrillers, Mike Ripley has taken on the additional role … Continue reading
Posted in Mike Ripley, Ostara Publishing
2 Comments
Getting Ripped
Mike Ripley, author of the Angel mysteries currently available in print and in ebook format from Telos (www.telos.me.uk), the most recently released of which is Family of Angels, has published his new roundup of crime fiction news and views over … Continue reading
Posted in Mike Ripley
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THAT ANGEL LOOK (1997) by Mike Ripley
The Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog this week reaches the letter T, and my nomination, is …
THAT ANGEL LOOK by Mike Ripley
“I resorted to one of my long-standing philosophical maxims and thought: Stuff this for a bunch of soldiers.”
What can you say about a crime novel in which the hero, despite being bright, articulate, University-educated and a worldly-wise musician, spends most of his time driving a black cab and working as a gopher? 
That this same protagonist, when he’s not getting pushed around by cops and drug dealers, is also clearly under the thumb of not just his ambitious girlfriend but also completely at the mercy of his vicious pet cat? That this is the kind of novel in which the leading ladies turn out to be either neo-Nazis, witches or Thatcherite scum? Well, for starters, you would have to accept that this is a paradoxical book, one that treats subjects such as racism without levity and yet has a wisecracking laugh-to-page ratio to make most hardboiled wordsmiths envious. Welcome to Angel’s world, which resembles London, England in the 1990s on the cusp of the Internet revolution. Continue reading
Posted in Crime Fiction Alphabet, London, Mike Ripley, PB Yuill, Scene of the crime
4 Comments
