A standard question found on practically all manuscript submission forms, digs deep into the author’s likes, in terms of books written by other authors. Also, upon which shelf in a bookstore he or she would picture their books adjacent to other authors within their genre and how these authors may have influenced their writing.
It’s often a tough choice to pin point an exact answer to this question, particularly where one has read and liked the books of many authors. As such, I though I would highlight a few names of the past and look at novels that had a profound effect on me during my teenage years, when I was reading books all the time, particularly while I was studying at Oundle or while traveling on holiday during school breaks.
These were books that took readers to all sorts of remote locations across the globe immersing you in a series of nail biting plots. What’s more the paperback versions were usually of a size that would fit in your jacket pocket and as such were a great distraction for long train or plane journeys as today’s more modern entertainment systems were of course then non existent.
Three names falling into this category and which immediately spring to mind would be as follows:
1. Hammond Innes
Hammond Innes produced his books in a regular sequence, usually with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His protagonists were often not “heroes” in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance and in a away not too dissimilar to that of George Drake within my own KV66 trilogy.
Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment such as the Arctic, the open sea & deserts, or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. The protagonist generally is forced to rely on his own wits and making best use of limited resources, rather than the weapons and gadgetry commonly used by thriller writers.
Some of the titles I recall reading almost 5 decades perviously included:
Campbells Kingdom – 1957 Having been diagnosed with a terminal disease, Bruce Campbell returns to a town in the Canadian Rockies to prove his grandfathers theory that there is oil in the hills. No-one believes him and to make matters worse, Owen Morgan plans to build a dam and flood the land where the oil lies.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare – 1956 This book tells the story of a very old deathtrap of a ship found adrift at sea by salvager John Sands. Sands finds the ship is not completely abandoned with one crew member, first officer Gideon Patch still aboard. Patch convinces Sands to help him beach the ship and on returning to London, Patch ends up in front of a board of inquiry and soon it becomes apparent, the shipowners had had other plans for this old wreck.
Wreckers Must Breathe – 1940 Set in the early stages of WW2, it tells the story about German U-boats operating from a secret base in Cornwall UK.
2. Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Flemming’s eventual Bond series.
As a teenager, I enjoyed staying up late at night watching the old Hammer House of Horror movies and was intrigued, almost with a type of fear of the occult and as such enjoyed Wheatley’s novels that frequently touched on the subject. I even remember writing a letter to him while at school to which I received a warm response, although he did also give me a stark warning at the time never to dabble with the occult as it was not a subject to be reckoned with.
Books within this category included:
The Devil Rides Out – Written in 1934 and set in 1930s London and the South of England, the Duc de Richleau and Rex van Ryn rescue their friend Simon Aron from a devil-worshipping cult. Rex falls in love with another initiate of the cult, Tanith. The book eventually culminates in a desperate chase across Europe to an abandoned Greek Monastery where the evil cult leader is defeated but has an added twist to it. The Duc de Richleau was one of Wheatley’s principal protagonists and in the film version “The Devil’s Bride” made by Hammer Studios, Christopher Lee also took on the lead role as De Richleau.
To The Devil A Daughter – Written in 1953 and also subsequently made into a film with the same title the plot, the book follows an American occult researcher in England who attempts to save a young girl preyed upon by a satanic cult led by a fallen Roman Catholic priest. The cast of the movie included iconic actors of the era such as Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark and Honor Blackman.
The White Witch of the South Seas – First published in 1968, the novel feature’s Gregory Sallust who, when visiting Rio de Janeiro, becomes drawn into perilous action. Circumstance leads to him becoming the friend of a young South Seas Rajah, Ratu James Omboluku, there to secure finance to recover treasure from a sunken ship lying off the island he rules; and he intends to use this treasure for the betterment of his people. But others, led by the unscrupulous Pierre Lacost, are also planning to recover the treasure, and it is not long before Gregory, having an affair with the passionate Manon de Bois-Tracy, finds himself surrounded by murder, magic, blackmail, kidnapping and some of the most ruthless thugs he has ever encountered.
3. Agatha Christie
I couldn’t end not mentioning Agatha Christie, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) A prolific writer known best for her 66 detective novels, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. These were always enjoyable reads and it was most probably her novel Death on the Nile that inspired me to stay at the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan, sit on the veranda overlooking the Nile sipping a G&T and remember these memories for inclusion into my first novel Siptah’s Legacy.
Death on the Nile – Published in 1937 and possibly one of Agatha Christie’s most daring travel mysteries! “The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life”. Hercule Poirot also on board the luxury Nile cruiser, steps into action to solve the case. The novel has since been filmed twice one in 1978 featuring Peter Ustinov as Poirot and more recently in 2022 with Kenneth Branagh taking on the role.
This is just a bare glimpse of some of the names I could add to the bookshelf along side my own books. Others would include the likes of Henry Rider Haggard, Alistair Maclean, Clive Cussler and many more.
Just the mention of these iconic writers, makes me want to dig out some of their works and re-immerse myself away into their world filled with adventure, intrigue and mystery.