The battle-scarred Major Harry Maxim, Intelligence aide at Number 10 Downing Street, must find what links a deserting corporal, East German politics, a double killing in West Germany, a South London fight club, and a widowed Yorkshire piano teacher

The Conduct of Major Maxim

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Lyall,Gavin

Mystery

Penguin??Books

The Crocus List

Major Harry Maxim finds himself at odds with the KGB, the CIA, and his own government while uncovering a secret that threatens his life and the world

Literature & Fiction

"Our spies are the worst in the world, always getting caught," King George V told the German ambassador in 1910. But already the new Secret Service Bureau was trying to change that, seeking bright, well-travelled, socially acceptable, and thoroughly decent chaps - just the sort who would regard spying as dishonourable. Against this background, Captain Matthew Rankin is faced with a choice - either a transfer from the Artillery to the nascent Secret Service Bureau or face the disgrace of bankruptcy. Choosing a spy's life, he quickly finds himself on the trail of a notorious anarchist in Ireland. There he teams up with the scruffy but street-wise Conall O'Gilroy and together they traverse the Continent embroiled in the tangled webs of espionage woven by agents of the Kaiser and Archduke Ferdinand. Aided by the unconventional and beautiful Corinna Finn, daughter of a prominent American financier, Rankin sets out to investigate the mysterious death of a British agent at the Kiel Yacht Regatta in Germany. What they discover is a plot that threatens the peace of Europe, one that only they can thwart - if they can unravel it in time.

Spy's Honour

St Martins Pr

'Mr Kemp - I believe you smuggle art? I have a little proposition...'It  seemed like money for old rope. All Kemp had to do was arrange the  smooth passage of a Cezanne across the border to Switzerland, so it  could then be transported to its new owners in Nicaragua. And anything  was preferable to London in January.After the train-ride, he  awakes in a Zurich park with a bump the size of a burial mound on his  head, minus the priceless work he'd been carrying. The very next day he  runs into Harry Burroughs at the airport. Kemp suspects that it wasn't  just coincidence. Burroughs is a fine-art dealer, and an even finer  crook. If he is mixed up in all this, Kemp knows that from now on he  will have to earn his money the hard way.First published in 1969, Venus with Pistol was Gavin Lyall's fifth novel.

Venus with Pistol

Pan/Macmillan

Bill Cary is a bush pilot living in Lapland in northern Finland, making a precarious living flying aerial survey flights looking for nickel deposits, and occasional charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy in his beat-up old de Havilland Beaver. Towards the end of the flying season, a wealthy American hunter hires him to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border in order to hunt bear. Subsequently, he is assaulted by thugs when he refuses a charter contract to search for a lost Tsarist treasure, comes under suspicion from the Finnish police for smuggling when Tsarist-era gold sovereigns start turning up, and from the Finnish secret police for espionage. However, things get more serious when the wealthy American's hunter's beautiful sister turns up to search for her brother, and his fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents. Cary suspects that the events he is increasingly involved in may stem from an incident in his wartime past. The Most Dangerous Game was a runner-up for the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award in 1964. Gavin Lyall (1932-2003) lived in Hampstead and enjoyed sailing on the Thames in his motor cruiser. From 1959 to 1962 he was a newspaper reporter and the aviation correspondent for the Sunday Times. His first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, was published in 1961, drawing from his personal experiences in the Libyan Desert and in Greece. Lyall left journalism in 1963 to become a full-time author, writing 17 novels before his death in 2003.

The Most Dangerous Game

'Terrific – when better novels of suspense are written, lead me to them' P. G. WodehouseMaking a threadbare living flying charter cargos of dubious legitimacy around the Mediterranean, Jack Clay's ambition of starting his own chartering company remains a distant dream.All this changes in Athens when Clay bumps into an old wartime buddy helping the former Nawab of Tungabhadra recover his stolen fortune. Clay joins the hunt, but he is not the only one looking; there are many men – and women – who are prepared to lie and cheat, murder and maim, in order to get to the diamonds first.First published in 1961, The Wrong Side of the Sky was Gavin Lyall's debut novel and became an international bestseller.'A model thriller … Like its hard-flying hero, it's a natural' New York Herald Tribune

The Wrong Side of the Sky

Pan Books

Pan X530 1967 edition paperback, good In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Midnight Plus One

James Card loses his reputation as a bodyguard when his client, a Lloyd's underwriter, is shot right under his nose. So he begins research into the dead man's background.

BLAME THE DEAD

Thrillers & Suspense

The battle-scarred Major Harry Maxim, Intelligence aide at Number 10 Downing Street, must find what links a deserting corporal, East German politics, a double killing in West Germany, a South London fight club, and a widowed Yorkshire piano teacher

Conduct of Major Maxim

British & Irish

Major Harry Maxim finds himself at odds with the KGB, the CIA, and his own government while uncovering a secret that threatens his life and the world

Pan.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lyall,Gavin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lyall,Gavin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lyall,Gavin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Conduct of Major Maxim

The Crocus List

Spy's Honour

Venus with Pistol

The Most Dangerous Game

The Wrong Side of the Sky

Midnight Plus One

BLAME THE DEAD

Conduct of Major Maxim

The Crocus List