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The Quiller Memorandum (Otto Penzler Presents...)

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When it was first published as The Berlin Memorandum in 1966, this novel won Elleston Trevor the Edgar Award for mystery fiction. Trevor, whose other literary credits include The Flight of the Phoenix and Bury Him Among Kings, was spurred by his success to write a nineteen-book series about Quiller's further missions under the pseudonym of Adam Hall. Although the books have had a loyal following, especially in Britain, none has received the acclaim which greeted this first novel in the series. A bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, it was eventually filmed as The Quiller Memorandum with George Segal and Alec Guiness. Quiller is a "shadow executive" for an officially unavowed British intelligence agency known only as "the Bureau". The novel opens in post-war Berlin where he has been working with the Z police, a German agency devoted to the prosecution of war criminals. War-weary from an undercover assignment at a concentration camp during WW II, Quiller is due to return home. The Bureau convinces him to stay, however, by revealing to him that a forming neo-Nazi movement in Berlin may be headed by Zossen, the commandant of the concentration camp from which Quiller had helped Jews escape. Working alone in a faceless city which presents hidden threats at every turn, Quiller accepts the assigment that has already left one agent dead -- stepping into, as his field director puts it, a gap between two mobilizing armies which cannot see one another in the fog. Hall's writing is consistently terse and compelling. He is at his best in evoking the tension of working for a manipulative secret beaurocracy whose motivations remain obscure, but whose local culture seems vitally real and believable. Quiller is a soldier at work for an army that he knows only from the ranks, whose generals are shrouded in shadow. It is in evoking this culture that Hall's writing transcends the genre, exploring complex themes of loyalty and disillusionment, and the specifically 20th century Kafka-esque relationship of an individual to the beaurocracies that determine his fate. But the real strength of the novel lies in its pure ability to entertain. Hall manages to maintain a level of tension and suspense worthy of comparison to any of espionage fiction's masterpieces, from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to The Ipcress File. If some of the writing now seems cliche, that is because to a large extent THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM created the cliches. It has had hundreds of imitators both in print an on the screen since its publication, but anyone going back to the original (even thirty years later) will likely agree with the New York Times Book Review that "no one writes better espionage than Adam Hall."

Whether of not you've seen and enjoyed the movie version of "The Quiller Memorandum," you are in for a rare treat. The novel is different, but in many ways even better than the film. Adam Hall's Quiller is a cold-eyed realist (colder, more introverted and more introspective than that played by George Segal) working for an unnamed and unacknowledged British agency in Cold War-era Berlin. Ordered to infiltrate and expose a ring of old and neo-Nazis, Quiller attempts methodically to probe the depths of a secret organization that is bent on resuscitating the Third Reich. This work is dangerous, and is made more so by the uncertain allegiances of some of the characters. Although the novel takes place twenty years after the end of World War II, it was still unclear where certain characters, even those in high government positions, stood.

The detailed descriptions of Quiller's reasoning and analyses demonstrate the workings of the mind of a master spy. What makes Quiller so compelling is that while he is brilliant, he is flawed. Quiller makes mistakes, sometimes tragic ones, sometimes avoidable ones. I disagree with the view that the characters lack depth and are one-dimensional. Inga, for example, is as complicated a character as one is likely to see, for biographical and psychological reasons that are well-explained. Rothstein is not quite what he appears to be on the surface, either.

But the true joy of this novel is its detailed descriptions of the "how" of spycraft -- how messages are transmitted; how they are received; how the emergency backup works; how one loses a tail; how one endures interrogation under pressure. The psychological reasons why certain characters behave as they do are also intriguing. Yes, the references to the "id" and the "ego" are a bit dated, but the kindergarten-level Freud-speak does not detract from the real mind games that the characters are playing here. Overall, "The Quiller Memorandum" is an outstanding spy novel that is one of the best of its genre.

As a reader, I've always been fond of thriller, police and crime stories. They are often - undeservedly - considered a lesser genre, none the less they present an extraordinary opportunity to test logic skills, appraise different possibilities and sometimes also exercise in virtual history.

The Quiller Memorandum is no exception.
It has even a pedigree, as winner of the Edgar Allan Poe for Best Novel in 1966.

Basically it is the story of a secret agent employed by the British intelligence in the '50s to track down former Nazi criminals hiding under respectable new identities, who comes to confront a dangerous German neo-Nazi secret association, the Phoenix, trying to regain power.

Many of the situations described bring to mind "The Odessa File" by Forsythe and "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, and I guess that this novel has been an important inspiration - if not source - to both of them.
None the less both "Fatherland" and "The Odessa File" are far more consistent and superior.

I believe the book is a bit out of date to the modern reader and shows the marks of time: under some aspects it is a typical product of the late '60s, with its faltering hopes and gloomy expectations.

The hero is James-Bondlike but not so successful and formidable, and neither so optimistic: unlike Bond he doesn't seem able to be able to control the outside world, while is an expert in self-control, that is psychoanalysis (there are some dull remarks about Es and Ego), mnemotechnics and psychology.
There's pervasive pessimism in the usefulness of reason and logics and a suicide-like attitude in many of his actions (the mythological image used is the Greek tauromachia, the man who fight the bull with his bare hands) that is kind of self-destructive mysticism.
His adversaries appear to be all-pervasive: they are ghostlike and always in advantage, but they too finish to act irrationally.

Unlike classic thrillers, this is mostly the description of a nightmare. The scene is reduced at minimum (we know it happens in Berlin), the individuals are reduced to primeval pulsions (pure masochism in Inga, sadism in Oktober, multiple personalities in Zossen, revenge in Rothstein and so on), time can contract or expand according to the needs and logic may be faultless but of no use to forecast what will happen.

With these cautions, the novel is still readable and can offer a few hours of interesting time off

I hope my impressions may have been of help to you.
You are truly welcome if you can suggest other readings or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.

Quiller, the shadow executive for a British undercover agency is sent on a mission to Berlin that requires him to uncover the plans of Phoenix, a Nazi group. Quiller is beaten and battered but finally uncovers several planned exercises in terror. The novel is a synthesis of a James Bond novel with the best of Len Deighton. There is plenty of action for the Bond fan, but taut believable plots for the more serious spy aficionado. No supervillains, but a shadowy ominous realistic group of villains. Quiller Memorandum gives you the best of both worlds.

Bravo Forge for reprinting this classic; I pray they have the rest of the Quilliad in their sights and mean to rectify the disgraceful lack of availability of this brilliant writer.

What can one add about Quiller that isn't said in the rest of the reviews? Except that Amazon can now remove those gloomy references to 'Memo' being out of print.

Let's hope this signals a revived interest, not just in the pseudonymous Hall canon but in the whole of Elleston Trevor's superb writing. A likely start will be the remake of 'Flight of the Phoenix', rumored to be gracing our screens this very autumn.

You will be hard put to find any writer who can jack up your heart rate the way Adam Hall manages to in these relatively few pages. His story is a marvel of relentless pacing. With sentences that read something like Hemingway under the influence of bad speed - a steady drumbeat of monosyllables, phrase after short phrase linked by "and," an economy of language - and a first-person voice that Hall maintains pitch-perfectly from start to finish, this book is one of the best-written thrillers ever. It doesn't resort to bloated descriptions of technical gadgets or exotic locales; nor is its protagonist a super-hero. (He is smarter than the average bear, and physically tougher, too, but believably so.) It does use the Nazi-comeback formula - imagine how many millions of paperbacks in how many hundreds of airports the ancient swastika image has helped to sell all these years! - but I imagine that in the early 1960s, it was actually one of the first books to explore this now-overused plotline.
Hall's description of Quiller's foe-induced, near-psychotic drug experience is particularly gripping - I've looked repeatedly, and I still don't understand how he made this description so convincing that it would likely persuade any reader to just say no.
I look forward to reading more in the Quiller series.

I liked "The Odessa File," "Marathon Man," and "Boys from Brazil," but this beats them all. Quiller is a ruthless loner in the mold of the protagonist in "Eye of the Needle." Unusually, in a book written before the age of political correctness, he refuses to carry a gun. His story is basically that of a man who finds himself in a dark tunnel, unarmed, knowing there are predators but not knowing who or where they are. The book has plenty of action but is basically an extended intellectual puzzle in which you must not only figure out the moves but who the actors are and whether they can be trusted. Since Quiller seems constitutionally inclined to trust no one, this unending procession of double- and triple-crosses suits him well, but even he is surprised by revelations about one of his friends.

The book is dated, of course, and someone like Quiller could not win today by exactly the same methods as those in the book because of the development of technology, but the portrait of a man alone, who accepts his essential aloneness and is prepared to live or die by his wits is well drawn and a story to keep and hold the attention of the reader. It is very dark, and if Daniel Craig were not already playing Bond, I would suggest him for Quiller.

Speaking of that, if you enjoy the book, do not make the mistake of watching the movie, whose producers seem to have misunderstood the book completely. George Segal was cast to play Quiller in the movie as a smirking, simpering pretty boy who resorted to flip comebacks and petulant retorts to make his way; his character had nothing to do with this book.

Read the book instead and savor the story. It sets up a universe that is very bleak and stays with you a long time after you finish it.

I came to "The Quiller Memorandum" straight from John Le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold," and that is more or less my only reference point since I'm generally new to the genre. "The Quiller Memorandum," set in 1960's Berlin, puts the reader on a chase for ex- and neo-Nazis who have evaded justice and remained hidden in everyday German life. Hall lets Quiller take over most of the storytelling, and he frequently goes into detail when explaining to the reader how the tricks of the trade are implemented. This makes the reader feel like they're sitting at the dinner table with Quiller over after-dinner drinks while the former spy recounts tales of his time in the field, and the effect is satisfying.

If Le Carre excels at setting a scene and drawing the reader right into the setting, Hall responds by creating colorful characters that you can imagine sitting right next to you as you read. More importantly, he allows the reader to "feel" the characters, allowing the reader to feel the same emotions and suspicions as Quiller when interacting with the novel's cast.

A quick, entertaining read that is perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

...this author did to the spy thriller--don't be put off by the number of pages, each is fast-paced and the writing style is both accessible as well as being completely original--with all the hoopla over Brosnan quitting the Bond series, Broccoli and co. could do no wrong using this character and series as a template--HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Brainy and impassive Quiller in the strasses of suspicious Berlin. Must get close to the nest but not too close. Don't let Oktober and his werewolves know the location of your own base.