Have you seen this spy?
February 16, 2015 11:21 AM Subscribe
Do you have information regarding a (fictional) secret agent for a Commonwealth country?
When I was 7 or 8 I was very much into James Bond and the like. I pilfered my dad's copy of "No Deals, Mr. Bond" and discovered that spy fiction was way better than spy movie. Ravenous, I went to my local public library book sale and asked for "good spy books." What the librarian directed me to was NOT a good spy book, but it has a curious hold on me nearly thirty years on.
The short novel was about a Commonwealth-country operations officer, about as secret as James Bond, who was on a shockingly racist mission in an ersatz Zimbabwe or South Africa. If it was 100 pages long I'd be shocked. It read like part of a series. It was illustrated (unforgivable to a kid who was reading grown-up books). At one point the hero drives or is driven in a Land-Rover, and near the end he shoots an African would-be assassin and remarks "Those rubber bullets kick like a mule" or something to that effect. I want to say the novel was written in the 70s, but I'm not sure. It seemed too violent for YA and too dumbed-down for adult readers.
Do you have any recollection of this series or novel?
When I was 7 or 8 I was very much into James Bond and the like. I pilfered my dad's copy of "No Deals, Mr. Bond" and discovered that spy fiction was way better than spy movie. Ravenous, I went to my local public library book sale and asked for "good spy books." What the librarian directed me to was NOT a good spy book, but it has a curious hold on me nearly thirty years on.
The short novel was about a Commonwealth-country operations officer, about as secret as James Bond, who was on a shockingly racist mission in an ersatz Zimbabwe or South Africa. If it was 100 pages long I'd be shocked. It read like part of a series. It was illustrated (unforgivable to a kid who was reading grown-up books). At one point the hero drives or is driven in a Land-Rover, and near the end he shoots an African would-be assassin and remarks "Those rubber bullets kick like a mule" or something to that effect. I want to say the novel was written in the 70s, but I'm not sure. It seemed too violent for YA and too dumbed-down for adult readers.
Do you have any recollection of this series or novel?
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posted by biffa at 12:43 PM on February 16, 2015