Manning Coles was the pseudonym of two British writers, Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891–1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899–1965),
/ref> who wrote many spy thrillers from the early 1940s through the early 1960s. The fictional protagonist in 26 of their books was

Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon (Tommy Hambledon) is the fictional protagonist of many spy novels written by the British author "Manning Coles" (actually the two-person writing team of Adelaide Frances Oke Manning and Cyril Henry Coles) from 1940 thro ...

, who works for a department of the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

, usually referred to in the novels as "

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

". Panek, Leroy L. ''The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890-1980'' (1981), pp. 185-200

Biography

Manning and Coles were neighbours in

East Meon East Meon is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is west of Petersfield. The village is located in the Meon Valley approximately north of Portsmouth and southwest of London, on the headwaters ...

, Hampshire. Coles worked for

British Intelligence The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...

in both the World Wars. Manning worked for the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

during World War I. Their first books were fairly realistic and with a touch of grimness; their postwar books perhaps suffered from an excess of lightheartedness and whimsy. They also wrote a number of humorous novels about modern-day

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

s, some of them involving ghostly cousins named Charles and James Latimer. These novels were published in England under the pseudonym of Francis Gaite but released in the United States under the Manning Coles byline. Many of the original exploits were based on the real-life experiences of Coles, who lied about his age and enlisted under an assumed name in a Hampshire regiment during World War I while still a teenager. He eventually became the youngest officer in British intelligence, often working behind German lines, due to his extraordinary ability to master languages.

Tommy Hambledon

works for a department of the

, usually referred to in the novels as "

" (

counter-intelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...

), although in the earliest books he is clearly working for the active overseas department

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

. The character is thought to have been based by Coles on a former teacher of his.

Tommy Hambledon novels

*''Drink to Yesterday'', 1940 Toast To Tomorrow (1940) *''Pray Silence'', 1940 (American title: ''A Toast to Tomorrow'') *''They Tell No Tales'', 1941 *''Without Lawful Authority'', 1943 *''Green Hazard'', 1945 *''The Fifth Man'', 1946 *''Let the Tiger Die'', 1947 *''A Brother for Hugh'', 1947 (American title: ''With Intent to Deceive'') *''Among Those Absent'', 1948 *''Diamonds to Amsterdam'', 1949 *''Not Negotiable'', 1949 *''Dangerous by Nature'', 1950 *''Now or Never'', 1951 *''Alias Uncle Hugo'', 1952 (British title: ''Operation Manhunt'', 1953) *''Night Train to Paris'', 1952 *''A Knife for the Juggler'', 1953 (revised American edition, 1964; also published as ''The Vengeance Man'', 1967) *''Not for Export'', 1954 (American title: ''All That Glitters''; also published as ''The Mystery of the Stolen Plans'', 1960) *''The Man in the Green Hat'', 1955 *''The Basle Express'', 1956 *''Birdwatcher's Quarry'', 1956 (British title: ''The Three Beans'', 1957) *''Death of an Ambassador'', 1957 *''No Entry'', 1958 *''Crime in Concrete'', 1960 (American title: ''Concrete Crime'') *''Search for a Sultan'', 1961 (by Coles and Tom Hammerton) *''

The House at Pluck's Gutter ''The House at Pluck's Gutter'' is a novel by Manning Coles, published in 1963, featuring the protagonist Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon. The book was named after the old Ferry Cottage at Plucks Gutter Plucks Gutter is a hamlet in the civil pa ...

'', 1963 (by Coles and Tom Hammerton)

Tommy Hambledon short story collection

*''Nothing to Declare'', 1960

Novels without Tommy Hambledon

*''Half-Valdez'', 1939 (by Manning alone) *''This Fortress'', 1942

Ghost novels under the Francis Gaite byline

*''Great Caesar's Ghost'' (juvenile), 1943 (British title: ''The Emperor's Bracelet'', 1947)(non-ghost; a "lost city" story) *''Brief Candles'' (The Latimers), 1954 *''Happy Returns'' (The Latimers), 1955 (British title: ''A Family Matter'', 1956) *''The Far Traveler'', 1956 *''Come and Go'' (The Latimers), 1958 *''Duty Free'', 1959 (non-ghost novel)

Uncollected short historical essay

"Death Keeps a Secret" (''John Creasey Mystery Magazine'', March 1958; reprinted in ''The Mystery Bedside Book'' (1960), edited by

John Creasey John Creasey (17 September 1908 – 9 June 1973) was an English crime writer, also writing science fiction, romance and western novels, who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms. He created several charac ...

} is a brief account of the capture and death of Colonel

Alfred Redl Alfred Redl (14 March 1864 – 25 May 1913) was an Austrian military officer who rose to head the '' Evidenzbureau'', the counterintelligence wing of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Redl was one of the leading figures of pre-Wor ...

, an Austrian spymaster and traitor in the First World War: was he shot by his captors, or did he commit suicide?

References

External links

* *
Rue Morgue Press
Manning Coles, by Tom & Enid Schantz {{DEFAULTSORT:Coles, Manning British spy fiction writers British thriller writers 20th-century British novelists 20th-century pseudonymous writers