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Lionel Davidson
Lionel Davidson FRSL (31 March 192221 October 2009) was an English novelist who wrote spy thrillers. Life and career Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull in Yorkshire, one of nine children of an immigrant Jewish tailor. He left school early and worked in the London offices of ''The Spectator'' magazine as an office boy. Later, he joined the Keystone Press Agency. During the Second World War, he served with the Submarine Service of the Royal Navy. When the war ended, he returned to the Keystone Agency and travelled all over Europe as a freelance reporter. It was during one of these trips that he came up with the idea for his first thriller, '' The Night of Wenceslas'' (1960). The novel is set in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, and tells the story of young Nicolas Whistler, a 24-year-old Londoner whose business trip to Prague goes horribly awry. ''The Night of Wenceslas'' was an instant success, inviting favourable comparisons with Eric Ambler. Davidson became one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingston Upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east of York, the historic county town. With a population of (), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region after Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed ''Kings-town upon Hull'' in 1299, Hull had been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis. Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. More than 95% of the city was damaged or destroyed in the blitz and suffered a perio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Writers' Association
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors’ organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its Dagger awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. The Association also promotes crime writing of fiction and non-fiction by holding annual competitions, publicising literary festivals and establishing links with libraries, booksellers and other writer organisations, both in the UK such as the Society of Authors, and overseas. The CWA enables members to network at its annual conference and through its regional chapters as well as through dedicated social media channels and private website. Members' events and general news items are published on the CWA website which also features Find An Author where CWA members are listed and information provided about themselves, their books and their awards. The CWA publishes a monthly magazine exclusively for members called ''Red Herrings'', edited by M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Dagger Award
The Gold Dagger is an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association of the United Kingdom since 1960 for the best crime novel of the year. From 1955 to 1959, the organization named their top honor as the Crossed Red Herring Award. From 1995 to 2002 the award acquired sponsorship from Macallan and was known as the Macallan Gold Dagger. In 2006, because of new sponsorship from the Duncan Lawrie Bank, the award was officially renamed as the Duncan Lawrie Dagger, and gained a prize fund of £20,000. It was the biggest crime-fiction award in the world in monetary terms. In 2008, Duncan Lawrie Bank withdrew its sponsorship of the awards. As a result, the top prize is again called the Gold Dagger without a monetary award. From 1969 to 2005, a Silver Dagger was awarded to the runner-up. When Duncan Lawrie acquired sponsorship, this award was dropped. After the sponsorship was withdrawn, this award was not reinstated. The Crime Writers' Association also awards the CWA Gold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Run For Your Life (children's Novel)
''Run For Your Life'' (known in the US as ''Soldier and Me'') is a children's adventure novel by Lionel Davidson writing as David Line, first published in 1966. An English boy, Woolcott, and his friend Szolda (whom he calls Soldier) are on the run because Szolda has overheard two men plotting a murder. Filmed as a TV series in 1974 using the US title ''Soldier and Me'' starring Gerry Sundquist as Woolcott and Richard Willis as Szolda. 9 30 minute episodes made by Granada Television.The Hill and Beyond: Children's Television Drama - An Encyclopedia 0851708781 Mark J. Docherty, Alistair D. McGown - 2003 "Gerald Sundquist (Jim Woolcott), Milos Kirek ('Boss'), Derrick O'Connor Derrick O'Connor (3 January 1941 – 29 June 2018) was an Irish theatre and character actor. O'Connor was best known for his performance as South African mercenary Pieter Vorstedt in ''Lethal Weapon 2'' and for his roles in three Terry Gilliam ... (Driver), Richard Ireson, Constantin de Goguel (henchmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's own. Many pseudonym holders use pseudonyms because they wish to remain anonymous, but anonymity is difficult to achieve and often fraught with legal issues. Scope Pseudonyms include stage names, user names, ring names, pen names, aliases, superhero or villain identities and code names, gamer identifications, and regnal names of emperors, popes, and other monarchs. In some cases, it may also include nicknames. Historically, they have sometimes taken the form of anagrams, Graecisms, and Latinisations. Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones and become the individual's full-time name. Pseudonyms are "part-time" names, used only in certain contexts – to provide a more clear-cut separation between o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartier Diamond Dagger
The Diamond Dagger is an award given by the Crime Writers' Association of the United Kingdom to authors who have made an outstanding lifetime's contribution to the genre. Winners * 1986 – Eric Ambler * 1987 – P. D. James * 1988 – John le Carré * 1989 – Dick Francis * 1990 – Julian Symons * 1991 – Ruth Rendell * 1992 – Leslie Charteris * 1993 – Ellis Peters * 1994 – Michael Gilbert * 1995 – Reginald Hill * 1996 – H. R. F. Keating * 1997 – Colin Dexter * 1998 – Ed McBain * 1999 – Margaret Yorke * 2000 – Peter Lovesey * 2001 – Lionel Davidson * 2002 – Sara Paretsky * 2003 – Robert Barnard * 2004 – Lawrence Block * 2005 – Ian Rankin * 2006 – Elmore Leonard * 2007 – John Harvey * 2008 – Sue Grafton * 2009 – Andrew Taylor * 2010 – Val McDermid * 2011 – Lindsey Davis * 2012 – Frederick Forsyth *2013 – Lee Child * 2014 – Simon Brett * 2015 – Catherine Aird * 2016 – Peter James * 2017 – Ann Cleeves * 2018 – Michael ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kolymsky Heights
''Kolymsky Heights'' is a 1994 thriller novel by Lionel Davidson. It was his first thriller novel in 16 years, following '' The Chelsea Murders''. Plot summary A coded message is smuggled out of Russia, a plea for help from the director of a super-secret laboratory deep in the frozen wastes of Siberia. The note is addressed to Johnny Porter, a Canadian Indian of the Gitxsan tribe with a genius for languages. The CIA recruits Porter, who infiltrates Russia, first posing as a Korean sailor on a tramp freighter, then as a Chukchi driver called Khodyan. Working at a transport company, he befriends an employee who gives him sufficient spare parts to build a bobik truck, which he assembles in a cave. Porter also befriends the local doctor, Tanya Komarova, who is also working for the CIA, and they become lovers. With her help, he infiltrates the research facility by switching places with an Evenk employee. The director, Ephraim Rogachev, reveals to Porter the research they have b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armchair Thriller
''Armchair Thriller'' is a British television drama series broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980 in two seasons. Taking the form of a sequence of unconnected serials, scripts for ''Armchair Thriller'' were adaptations of published novels and stories. Although not strictly a horror series, it did sometimes include supernatural elements. ''Armchair Thriller'' was mainly produced by Thames Television, but it included two serials from Southern Television. The format was of 25-minute episodes broadcast twice-weekly, usually screened on a Tuesday or Thursday between 8 pm and 9 pm. Overview The opening titles consisted of a shadow-figure walking to an armchair and then sitting down, accompanied by music composed by Andy Mackay of pop group Roxy Music. Some trailers for the series showed the same armchair soaked in blood and a screaming, maniacal face; these received criticism from those who considered them too horrific for pre- watershed viewing. For ''Armchair Thriller'' broadcasts Tham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chelsea Murders
''The Chelsea Murders'' (known in the USA as ''Murder Games'') is a thriller by Lionel Davidson published in 1978. The book won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award. Plot summary Someone is killing residents of the hip bohemian London neighborhood of Chelsea, home to literary giants of the past like Virginia Woolf. What thread connects them in someone's mad mind? The only clue is a fragment of film, which accidentally caught images of the murderer, dressed in an outlandish costume and mask. Television adaptation An adaptation of the novel was broadcast in 1981, directed by Derek Bennett as a Television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ... and was released on DVD in March 2010. References The TV series was re- shown on Talking Pictures Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Long Way To Shiloh
''A Long Way to Shiloh'' is a thriller by Lionel Davidson, published in 1966 by Victor Gollancz Ltd and in the US (under the title ''The Menorah Men'') by Harper & Row . It was a Book Society Choice and won both the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award and the Crime Critics' Award for Best Thriller of the Year. Plot summary 30-year-old womaniser and drunkard Caspar Laing has just been made Professor of Semitic Languages at Bedfordshire University - or, as he sardonically refers to it, the University of Beds. Prior to taking up his post, he is summoned to the Israeli Embassy to confer with the visiting Professor Agrot. An ancient parchment has recently been discovered that appears to report on the hiding of the Menorah, a holy candelabrum rescued from the Jerusalem Temple before its destruction by the Romans. But the Jordanians have a better copy of the parchment, and both of these refer to the location of a third which has details of the actual hiding place of the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rose Of Tibet
''The Rose of Tibet'' is a 1962 adventure novel by Lionel Davidson. Plot summary Charles Houston (a teacher in London) makes a perilous and illegal journey from India into the forbidden land of Tibet during the unsettled time 1950/51, in the hope of rescuing his vanished brother. What he does not know is that his coming was prophesied a century earlier, and he is awaited by an impossible love, an enormous treasure, and the invading Red Chinese army. Houston travels to the Yamdring monastery, finds his way to the abbess and makes a perilous escape with her. The story is set at the time of the Chinese invasion in 1950. Critical opinion Graham Greene said of the novel: "I hadn’t realised how much I had missed the genuine adventure story until I read ''The Rose of Tibet''", while Daphne du Maurier wrote: 'It has all the excitement of ''King Solomon's Mines Author Barry Gifford considers this book the one he wishes he had written. In his collection of essays entitled ''The Cava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as ''Doctor in the House'' (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess". In a second career, he wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs, six novels, and a volume of collected journalism, mainly from articles in ''The Daily Telegraph''. During five years of active military duty during World War Two, he reached the rank of major and was awarded seven medals. His poetry has been published in war anthologies; a painting by Bogarde, also from the war, hangs in the British Museum, with many more in the Imperial War Museum. Having come to prominence in films including ''The Blue Lamp'' in the early 1950s, Bogarde starred in the successful ''Doctor'' film series (1954–1963). He twice won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
