RARA-AVIS: RE: Boysie Oakes and other spies for hire

From: dlochte ( dlochte@adelphia.net)
Date: 02 May 2002


From: Ray Skirsky < rskirsky@qualcomm.com>

There was a '60s series about hit man, Boysie Oakes, the Liquidator. But they are more spoofs of Bond than hard-boiled. Can't remember the author's name.

John Gardiner wrote the Oakes series, very good and very much a spoof of Bond. The hero is squeamish around weapons but likes the percs of spydom, so he hires a genuine hit man to perform his sanctions. Gardiner then carried the joke to ultimate extremes by writing a few estate-approved Bonds after Ian Fleming passed.

I think that nearly every post-Bond spy series (The Avengers excepted) involved hit men or hit women/spies. One, IIRC, featured a hit priest for the Vatican named Father Blackie (something), whom the Church possibly could use now. Maybe by Greeley, though I could be far off on that. Of the whole batch of killer spies, I much prefer Remo Williams, The Destroyer, and his wise teacher, Chiun, both of whom are hardboiled, ruthless and hilarious and have been mentioned before on this list. Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir created the characters and the books have been written by them and a cast of hundreds.

Dick Lochte

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