The New Black Mask (No 5)

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William Haggard is Richard Clayton, a former civil servant in India and London. In 1958 he published his first book, Slow Burner, which introduced Col. Charles Russell of the British Security Executive, who has been the centred figure in most of the twenty-eight Haggard thrillers. His novels pack sufficient action to be classified as page turners, but Haggard is primarily interested in character motivation and the use or abuse of responsibility. It has been remarked that his fiction provides a meeting ground for the spy story and the novel of manners — an offspring of Geoffrey Household and Jane Austen.

He is not yet as well known in America as in England, but a reviewer in the Chicago Daily News declared that “The most intelligent suspense novels in the English language are being written by William Haggard.” An evident quality of his work is its conservative stance, which has upset liberal British critics. Nevertheless, Haggard is not primarily a political writer; he is concerned with the redities of power and the professionalism of those who exercise it.

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