Title: The 9th Directive
Author: Adam Hall
Date: 1966
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: none
Length: 256 pages
Quote: “Certain information came in and it was decided that
action was indicated. No fewer than eight directives were planned and examined
before the decision was formalized. This is the ninth, and it has now become a
definite mission.”
Fair disclosure: I don't consider myself competent to
evaluate spy stories. This is a spy story.
An Englishman, Quiller, the protagonist in a series of spy stories of which this is #2, is assigned to protect an
unidentified but very important “Person” from assassins in Bangkok. A specific
assassin is suspected. Quiller doesn't like or trust the spy relaying his
instructions and feels bad about being ordered to kill a stranger who, though
Quiller believes he's on the enemy side, may not actually be the one planning
to kill “the Person”...and sure enough, the violence when “the Person” arrives
is a bombing not a shooting. Quiller has to give up merely following orders and
find out what's going on.
Although it's not a nice story about nice people, The
9th Directive is free from obscenity. Violent deaths and mayhem
are described in as detached and off-scene a way as possible. Quiller's mind is
on work not sex, although there is of course an attractive female spy and part
of their investigation of each other takes place (offstage) in a hotel room.
When the people Quiller knows “swear” they use “good, clean” profanity; what
they say may be vile but the individual words would be properly used in
church, not that any of the characters noticeably attends one.
I didn't like it, but people who enjoy spy stories evidently do. To buy The 9th Directive here, send $5 per book + $5 per package + $1 per online payment to the appropriate address at the bottom of the screen. Several editions exist, some bulkier than others, but you could probably get at least three more books into the same package with whichever edition of this book you've ordered.
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