Monday, October 30, 2017

Book Review: The Ninth Directive

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment