The Eliminator (Jonas Wilde #1)

Author: Andrew York (aka Christopher Nicole)

First Published: 1966

Pages: 196

In my last blog I reviewed the first Jonathan Anders novel Operation Destruct by Christoper Nicole. This book was aimed at the young adult market in the early seventies. It sparked my interest in Nicole's other work and pretty quickly I landed upon a series of espionage novels he wrote under the pen name of Andrew York (one of Nicole's many many pseudonyms) that involve the character of British spy Jonas Wilde.

There are nine books in the series, all of the with very similar titles ending in "..ator", such as The Dominator, The Predator, The Deviator etc. Published regularly between the years of 1966 and 1975, ending with final book, The Facinator. They were published in the U.S. by Berkley Medallion Books with some great artwork covers. I could not find any U.S. Berkley version of the The Eliminator other than the film tie-in pictured below. If anyone has a copy, I'd love to see it?

Operation Destruct (Jonathan Anders #1)

Author: Christopher Nicole

First Published: 1969

Pages: 209

There is an old saying, "never judge a book by its cover". George Eliot used the phrase in The Mill on the Floss in 1860. It was further popularised in a 1946 murder mystery novel by Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller, Murder in the Glass Room, when they had a character utter "You can never tell a book by its cover." It feels most appropriate for Operation Destruct by Christopher Nicole.

I was drawn to this novel by the rather attractive cover with its title design vaguely reminiscent of Doc Savage paperbacks by publisher Bantam Books. A seated man that looks to me like actor Lee Majors with a pistol in his hand, an attractive young woman behind him, and a burning boating slowly sinking. Looks like it might be up my street I thought. A little investigation turned up information; there are three Jonathan Anders books in the series by Dell. This being the first, the second being Operation Manhunt and third Operation Neptune. All three were produced with the same composition (see foot of this blog entry). I think you'd agree they are quite attractive.