The Conduct of Major Maxim (Harry Maxim #2)

Author: Gavin Lyall

First Published: 1983

File size/Pages: 1388KB / 310pp
Ebook Publisher: Bloomsbury Reader

Ebook Date: September 2011

I've been looking forward to reading a novel by Gavin Lyall for a long time. This longing was further cemented when I read about his contribution to the British boom in thriller writing during the sixties and seventies in the excellent Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang by Mike Ripley. The only problem stopping me up to this point has been that his ebook presence on Amazon UK is rather on the expensive side, with most of his books averaging in the £8 range. However, I finally tracked down a physical copy in one of my favourite used bookshops and had no hesitation in bringing it back home to read (his books are readily available on popular second-hand websites, but I was holding out in the hope that the ebooks would reduce in price at some point - that clearly didn't happen). So I ended up with the book I'm reviewing today, The Conduct of Major Maxim, published in 1983, and the second part in Lyall's Hary Maxim series of four espionage novels.

Gavin Lyall was born in 1932, in Birmingham, England. After completing National Service and time in the Royal Air Force, he began a career as a journalist for such newspapers as the Birmingham Gazette, Picture Post and Sunday Graphic before having a career as a film director (directing BBC's current affairs program Tonight). He married the author Katharine Whitehorn in the late fifties, and begun writing novels a few years later. He received the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in 1964 and 1965, and later became the Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. Lyall was not a prolific writer, and spent many hours researching technical elements of his stories to ensure they were factually accurate - one famous story is that he tried to see if he could cast bullets from molten lead in his kitchen.


The books of Gavin Lyall fall into three distinct periods. During his early writing career he concentrated on writing novels of the action adventure genre, with stories that tended to include major plot lines centred around flight and pilots. Books such as The Wrong Side of the Sky (1961) and The Most Dangerous Game (1963) feature pilots as their central characters. Following this period he moved into the Euro centric thriller with books such as Blame the Dead (1973) and Judas Country (1975). Finally, with the publication of The Secret Servant (1980) he begun to write espionage stories featuring the recurring character of Harry Maxim and the British Secret Service.

By the start of this second novel, Major Harry Maxim is working for the Prime Minister in No.10 Downing Street. Following the death of his wife in the previous novel, the details of which are not expanded upon, he is there to provide a level of information and security assurance to the current leader. However, the PM is not well and suffering from a bad cold that might develop into something worse. At the same time there has been an incident in West Germany - a shooting has occurred resulting in the death of a local registrar and a female agent acting on behalf of the Secret Service. She was accompanied by a serving member of the Armed Forces with SAS experience. The serviceman decides things are getting a bit too hot and with his trust in senior staff dented, he goes AWOL and ends up at an old Army chum of Major Maxim's. Maxim is asked to come and speak to the potential deserter and help smooth things over with the Secret Service and the Army senior staff.

ebook cover

As with most good stories along these lines, there is much much more to the tale than a simple misunderstanding in a nondescript German town. Harry Maxim goes out on a limb for his chum and the deserter, digging into the background of the event, using his No.10 contacts and his skill in uncovering things that are being kept most secret. He has to dance between the competing forces of both the home-based and foreign British Secret Service departments, as well as the East German government to uncover a plot involving high-ranking German politicians, dubious double-agents and a mysterious second world war plane crash.

The Conduct of Major Maxim is a great read. Lyall skips lightly along with a style somewhere between a really good early Jack Higgins thriller and a Len Deighton spy story. His prose is spot on, and he never spends too much time setting the scene or atmosphere - there is just enough to help the reader, but it never slows the pace of the action or the intricacies of double-talking clandestine meetings between the competing movers and shakers in the spy world of the time.

The book is very well paced, I never lost interest in the plot, as Lyall reveals snippets of information at regular intervals. The supporting characters are superb, especially the MI5 spook Agnes Algar and AWOL soldier Corporal Blagg. It's a pity I didn't get to meet Harry Maxim for the first time in his opening story, but I'm very glad I finally got to read my first Gavin Lyall book because it certainly won't be my last.

Highly Recommended.