I'm late with my mails, having traveled for two weeks in the
South of France and participating also to a Convention
devoted to noir literature.
About Gerard de Villiers, further to the infos given by Juri,
I have to warn you about his kind of "mysteries" and spy
novels. His fame and huge readership came during the top of
the modern spy novels craze (East-West, Reds-Free Nations,
Good guys -bad guys... that kind of subtle stuff) with his
SAS (Malko) series (SAS- nothing to do with the special
forces). The series started in French early 1965 (first
publisher : Plon- only later he published himself his SAS).
Very simple writing, plot orientated stories wherein the
highlights are sado-masochistic scenes mixed with
"porno-chic" performed by cardboard characters. Always using
some real facts from the international news, a good factual
documentation about countries and places, gave some alibi to
claim realism for his novels. Befor doing novels, de Villiers
was a journalist for years, close to paparazzi, living of
sensationalism and not exactly the reporter he loves to claim
to be during interviews, bios...etc. His recent autobiography
was full of holes. A good marketing feeling, crass
commercialism, manipulation and no real writing talent is a
good description of GdV.
Even 10 pence, is IMO a high price for this kind of junk
lit.
If Marianne reads French, I suggest she reads my comments
concerning the GdV's autobio, in POLAR NOIR at:
http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir/livrescr33.html#devilliers_memoires
E.Borgers POLAR NOIR http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
Marianne Macdonald
>
> But I'm about to have a giggle with a couple of pbs
found in a ten pence
> bin at a local charity shop: Gerard de Villiers, La
Source Yahalom and
> Au Nom D'Allah - "Malko vit parfaitement le gros
automatique Colt 45 que
> la femme brandissait dans sa main droite." I suspect
a conglomerate,
> since the first of these, copyright 1999, claims G
de V had published,
> or possibly self-published, 133 books. I suspect
very old-fashioned hb
> pulps. Anybody read "his" stuff?
>
> Marianne
>
>
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