Quiller Solitaire [Paperback]

Adam Hall (Author)

Book Description

Series: Quiller | Publication Date: July 11, 2004

Never have Quiller’s survival skills been so crucial as in the eerily prophetic mission code-named “Solitaire.” When the body of the agent he was supposed to protect is discovered in the burnt wreck of a car, Quiller must unveil the truth behind rumors of a bomb threat somewhere in Europe. Posing as an international arms dealer, he infiltrates Nemesis, a group of deeply religious Euro-terrorist fanatics who follow a psychopathic and extremely intelligent leader. Quiller’s final meeting with Nemesis transpires on Pan Am Flight 905, which carries 20,000 pounds of explosives and 40 cylinders of nerve gas—and has disappeared from the radar screens. Quiller alone must stop the plane and its suicidal terrorist crew from reaching their unknown destination.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Quiller, one of the last and best of espionage fiction's secret agents to have prowled the Cold War back alleys over the past quarter century, will thrill fans again with this, his 16th adventure. When a fellow agent who has called upon him for protection is murdered before his eyes, an enraged and embarrassed Quiller pressures his superiors into giving him the dead man's assignment to investigate the murder of a British cultural attache in Berlin. The murder is apparently tied to former East German national Dieter Klaus, a madman who wants to gain attention for his terrorist splinter group. Accompanied by the attache's oddly subservient widow, Quiller goes to Berlin and soon manages to infiltrate Klaus's inner circle. There he is met with an extraordinary surprise, especially startling to the reader for the almost offhand way in which it is presented (something of a Hall trademark). Klaus's plan is not fully revealed until the end, when Quiller must take a final, almost certainly suicidal step to save the day. This is a smashing entry in an always entertaining series.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

The murder of George Maitland, a cultural attach‚ in Berlin, leads venerable British agent Quiller (Quiller Bamboo, 1991, etc.) to a terrorist plot whose bold simplicity recalls the palmy days of SPECTRE. Figuring that his hapless colleague McCane was gunned down because of his imminent meeting with Maitland's seductively innocent widow Helen--a meeting that would've put McCane on the trail of the Berlin-based terrorist cabal Nemesis--Quiller asks to fill McCane's shoes and complete the mission called Solitaire. And immediately he starts to make his masters sorry they agreed: he clashes with his rule-bound field director Thrower, demands a new director, and uses his tried-and-true cowboy techniques en route to infiltrate Nemesis by posing as an arms dealer to sexual switch-hitter Inge Stoph and maniacally focused Nemesis chief Dieter Klaus. Klaus first tortures Quiller, then accepts his offer to sell him a nuclear device while still planning to kill Quiller at the delivery point. Sounds like Goldfinger, doesn't it?--and the direct comparison Hall risks shows how much more one-dimensional the truculent Quiller is than his more spirited original, and how long in the tooth he's been getting lately. Even the story's one surprise--just what plans does Klaus have for a hijacked jet, an atom bomb, a suicide military squad, and two critical deadlines?--is no surprise at all. Quiller saves the world, of course, though his Sixties tradecraft is wearing thin. Still, this is sturdy, suspenseful entertainment for readers who can park their impatience outside. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: BenBella Books (July 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932100164
• ISBN-13: 978-1932100167
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,820,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where's Quiller when we need him?, August 12, 2004

By 

Chris Holmes "busker" (Corfu, Greece) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Quiller Solitaire (Paperback)

Elleston Trevor honored me with a rare author's proof and I have a particularly soft spot for this Q caper, not least because it demonstrates his nom-de-plume Adam Hall's absolute determination to give readers full value, starting with each story sending Q down an even more suicidal hole than the one before.

Of all the adventures, 'Solitaire' is the one that most resoundingly drives home a lesson taught by 9/11, namely that you can wire and bureaucratise your spook setup all you like, but it counts for naught unless you have the requisite 'ferrets' working the dark side and able to deliver the right intelligence for the automatons to crunch.

This is an assignment Q wants - badly. He owes a man a death and he'll get it. Mission: thwart a terrorist group, for which (as so often) Q needs to be drawn into the opposition's den.

The 9/11 connection takes the form of Quiller aboard a jetliner with only seconds to defuse a bomb.

My opinion is neither here nor there: everything this spymaster poet delivered was exquisite and brutal and this is one of his best. With book trade heros like Otto Penzler doing their thing, we'll perhaps see Hall recognized for the master he is, and a new generation of readers flock to the Quilliad.

Full marks to Amazon's editors of these reviews to permit the link to the fine homage page to Trevor's work.

Anyone who enjoys top-rate thrillers and hasn't yet discovered Quiller is in for a major treat.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More info on Quiller series at www.quiller.net fan site, July 9, 2004

By 

J. Wilkinson (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Quiller Solitaire (Paperback)

There is a lot more info on the Quiller series at www.quiller.net, a fan site.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best thrillers I have ever read, March 21, 2006

By 

Stephen M. Zielinski (Depew, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quiller Solitaire (Paperback)

This was the first "Quiller" novel I have read and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a "thinking persons" book. It read a chapter at a time only to be put down to absorb the logic and planning of Quiller. I won't give anything away, but reading Robert Littel's endorsement was chilling...if the CIA didn't read this book, perhaps some others did. This is a good read and I hope you enjoy it as I did.