DIECAST

Author: John Michael Brett (aka Miles Barton Tripp)
Publisher: Pan Books

Date: 1964

Pages: 155

Not currently available in eBook format

Have you ever had a love/hate relationship with a book? I didn't think I would, but Diecast by (John) Michael Brett is certainly a title that I lurched from loving to absolutely hating on a regular basis while I read it.

Diecast is the first book in a short-lived spy series by Brett (real name Miles Tripp), that stars his protagonist Hugo Baron, man about danger. This is not the series of books that lead to the TV Series "The Baron", which originated from books by John Creasey. Brett's run of titles only lasted for three books over consecutive years; Diecast (1964), A Plague Of Dragons (1965) and A Cargo Of Spent Evil (1966).

Better known as Miles Tripp (1923 - 2000), an English author of Crime and Thriller novels from Hertfordshire, England. He is probably best known for his alomost yearly run of books starring the private detective John Samson throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties (all of which are currently available as eBooks, and are worth trying out if you have Kindle Unlimited). After serving in RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War, he studied Law and trained as a solicitor before becoming a writer.

Tripp uses his experience in the law industry for this book. And there are more similarities between the hero of the story and its author. For a start Hugo's surname is but a single letter away from being the writers' middle name (Barton). Baron is an unmarried 37-year old solicitor who is bored of the humdrum lifestyle he has developed and is eager to become a writer/journalist. He has already been submitting stories to a national paper run by maverick multi-millionaire Paul Lorenz, who has a fascination with Julius Cesear and is referred to as "J.C." by his employees.

The Plague of Silence (Dr Palfrey #20)

1966 Edition

Author: John Creasey

First Published: 1958

File size/Pages: 776KB (Omnibus) / 190pp
Ebook Publisher: House of Stratus
Ebook Date: October 2013

The usual disclaimer: Although many Creasey books are readily available in eBook format, I saved some pennies and picked mine up (the one pictured) at a local used bookshop for just £2.
---

I think you can safely call John Creasey a 'prolific' writer.

He penned a staggering amount of novels, over six hundred. He was born to a family of limited means in 1908 in Surrey, England, and died in 1973. An author of ostensibly crime and science fiction thrillers, who had his first book published in 1930 - there was no holding him back from that moment to produce some of the most famous and long-lasting series of books starring some memorable characters who are still lovingly collected by bibliophiles across the world today.

No stranger to the pseudonym, Creasey used twenty-nine of them. Among his most notable pen-names are; J. J. Marric, Gordon Ashe, Michael Halliday, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Due to polio as a young man he was unable to take part in the War, so he determined to write as many books as he could to support the soldiers and their families during those hard times.

In order to have written and published quite so many books, Creasey had to have been successful right? Well, yes indeed. His most popular books were those that had recurring roles for his creations such as The Toff (an amazing 59 novels over the course of forty years), Chief Inspector Roger West (43 novels), Commander George Gideon (21), Dr Stanislaus Alexander "Sap" Palfrey (34 science fiction novels), The Baron (47 books and an adaptation into a TV Series by ITC) and the Patrick Pawlish series (50).