Quiller

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Quiller is the alias of a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor and featured in a series of Cold War thrillers written under the pseudonym "Adam Hall".

The series focuses on a solitary, highly capable spy (named for Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch). This spy works, usually on his own, for a British government bureau - referred to as "The Bureau" - that "doesn't exist." Quiller narrates his own adventures, addressing the reader in an informal style with such phrases as "my very good friend." Quiller occupies a literary middle ground between James Bond and John le Carré's characters. He is a highly skilled driver, pilot, diver, linguist and martial artist. In his choice of self-defense methods, he favors a primary specialization in Shotokan karate, like the author. Additionally, Quiller has knowledge of Chin Na -- a related, complementary art focused on advanced joint manipulation. He does not carry a firearm "in peacetime." Indeed, this may mean that he has not carried one since World War II. reasoning that if he were caught, he would be able to explain anything he was carrying except a gun. He also believes that guns give their carriers a dangerously false sense of security, and he dislikes the bang they make. His resistance to interrogation is exceptional and he has managed to keep the "suffix-nine" designation that indicates that he is "reliable under torture".

Quiller's narration of the tradecraft skills he routinely employs is one of the defining elements of the novels.

His creator summed up Quiller as follows[1]:

About his past there are various rumors: that he was someone in the professional category of lawyer or doctor, denied his license; that he once served a prison term, undeservedly (hence his bitterness, which is never far below the skin); that he is a man on the run who has found a perfect cover in the Bureau. In his forties, he is as fit as an alley cat and his whole makeup is tense, edgy and bitten-eared. Without the imagination to see that life is wide open to any man's need for self-expression, Quiller seems to have to synthesize drama for himself, to invite danger and privation and bitter challenge so that his life can have significance. He needs to live close to the crunch. Like bullfighters and racing drivers, he is a professional neurotic, half in love with death. Obviously antisocial, shy of people and human contact, he is wary of giving anything of himself to others. But, on rare occasions when the pressures of a mission have forced him into a position where he must consider other people — sometimes a deadly opponent — he reveals compassion, surprising himself. His last will and testament is revealing: "Nothing of value, no dependents, next of kin unknown."

Contents

[edit] The novels

  • The Berlin Memorandum aka The Quiller Memorandum (1965)

In this book, Quiller is introduced as a veteran of some unidentified World War II British clandestine service, possibly a component of the Special Operations Executive, who is consumed by guilt because he was unable to do more to stop the Final Solution. During and after his wartime service, Quiller became a specialist in Nazi clandestine activities, and in the understanding of the so-called "ratlines" used by Nazis to escape from justice. Quiller has since become an agent for the Bureau, and they have been employing him to secretly provide large amounts of useful intelligence information to West Germany's main war crimes investigation agency, the Z Commission. Quiller is tired and wants to return home, but instead the Bureau persuades him to investigate the plans of a dangerous Nazi secret society. He agrees to do so in part because that secret society has just assassinated a friend and colleague whom he had deeply respected, and who may also have been a mentor figure.

  • The 9th Directive (1966)
  • The Striker Portfolio (1968)
  • The Warsaw Document (1971)
  • The Tango Briefing (1973)
  • The Mandarin Cypher (1975)
  • The Kobra Manifesto (1976)
  • The Sinkiang Executive (1978)
  • The Scorpion Signal (1979)
  • The Peking Target (1981)
  • Quiller/Northlight (1985)
  • Quiller's Run (1988)
  • Quiller KGB (1989)
  • Quiller Barracuda (1990)
  • Quiller Bamboo (1991)
  • Quiller Solitaire (1992)
  • Quiller Meridian (1993)
  • Quiller Salamander (1994)
  • Quiller Balalaika (1996)

[edit] Short story

  • Last Rites (Espionage Magazine, April 1986)

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] References

  1. ^ Elleston Trevor, quoted in Otto Penzler, The Great Detectives, 1978

[edit] External links