Dark (Cheyney)

Kane looked at her appreciatively. 'I don't know whether anybody's ever told you, but you've got the swellest pair of legs I've ever seen,' he said. Valetta looked at him sideways along her dark eyelashes. He thought she was very beautiful; her mouth delicate, sensitive, almost tremulous. He could look at it for hours on end. It was that sort of mouth . . . 'The British, once they take the gloves off - once they forget to play cricket, to be English gentlemen - they are the toughest things on earth,' says one German espionage agent to another in Dark Duet. And the trouble with Michael Kane, hero of this spy thriller, is that he never plays cricket with Nazi spies . . . Dark Duet was originally published in 1942.

"Isn't life wonderful! Everybody else gets the fun and I carry the spades and quicklime." Quayle is the master of a British spy ring in World War II. He is unprepared to deal with tough guy Foden, a man newly arrived in London from Morocco armed with information about German troop movements. This intelligence could change the course of the war - but is Foden the patriot he seems, or something else entirely? Quayle leads his agents through the twists and turns of the murky 'need-to-know' espionage world, one recognizable to readers of John Le Carré and Len Deighton. It is a world populated by those prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause of war.

Quayle lived, mentally, as far ahead as possible, mainly because the people who were dependent upon him lived from moment to moment, sometimes dying even more suddenly than that. The sinister business of counter-espionage is played out by an array of magnificent characters. Quayle, spy master, is a blend of wisdom and administrative genius. He seemingly has the ability to live without sleep, wine or women, Shaun O'Mara, who loves all those things, looks like an actor and is an aristocrat, and works with subtlety, artistry and distinction, and there is Ricky Kerr, a cleverly drawn portrait of a man not quite able to stand the pace. The women, of course, dress superbly, move like angels, are as beautiful as diamonds and, with one notable exception, behave abominably. The Dark Street was originally published in 1944.

"Don't worry... we're here. We're the British." Tough and hard as the Ozarks that bred him, Rene Berg fought his way up through the gangs of Chicago during the days of prohibition. Then, at the peak of his power and success, he was framed by a beautiful woman and forced to flee for his life. How this dashing, steel-nerved gunman turns up years later as the 'dark hero' of the Norwegian Underground makes a story that will hold you spellbound. Thrill piles upon thrill as Berg pits his skill and courage, learned in the school of Chicago gangdom, against the vicious efficiency of the German Gestapo. And then, once again, he runs afoul of the lovely woman who betrayed him. Dark Hero was originally published in 1946.

For five years he had tortured, mutilated and put to death British secret agents. Now the war was over, only one execution remained - his. Shaun Aloysius O'Mara, intelligence agent for the British 'second bureau', has been ordered by his superiors to go to Paris to obtain information that will lead to the capture of the lone survivor of the Nazi espionage system. So when Shaun arrives in Paris he becomes a crude and shiftless drunkard and entangles himself with a clever and ruthless spy, Tanga de Sarieux, who is as brave as the men that surround her... Dark Interlude was originally published in 1947.

A Secret Service thriller of double-cross and double double-cross! As exciting as only Cheyney can make it. The Second World War has just ended and the Secret Service discover that two lists of German war criminals have vanished. Peter Quayle is the head of the responsible department, and he is now tasked with the recovery of the lists. Instead of sharing the job with his usual agents he calls in a special group of people who operated behind enemy lines during the war. Quayle's second in command, Michael Frewin, appears too dapper to be an effective agent - but he is a cold blooded killer. Then there is Antoinette Brown, the 'Practical Virgin' - elegant, sexy, immune to men and a first-class brain. She recruits Aurora Francis and then the suave, debonair Anthony Keirnan - a former agent with hidden depths. Once the team is complete, the novel follows twist with turn, rocketing ever faster towards a final, shocking conclusion.