William Haggard (born Croydon 11 August 1907, died Frinton-on-Sea 27 October 1993) was the pseudonym of Richard Henry Michael Clayton, the son of the Rev. Henry James Clayton and Mabel Sarah Clayton. He was an English writer of fictional spy thrillers set in the 1960s through the 1980s, or, as the writer H. R. F. Keating called them, "action novels of international power." Like

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

, he was a quintessentially

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Establishment figure who had been a civil servant in

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, and his books vigorously put forth his perhaps idiosyncratic points of view. The principle character in most of his novels is the urbane Colonel Charles Russell of the fictional Security Executive, (clearly based on the actual

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), G ...

or Security Service), who moves easily and gracefully along Snow's Corridors of Power in

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...

. During the years of the fictional spy mania initially begun by the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

stories, Haggard was considered by most critics to be at the very top of the field. Keating, however, also observes that "...the books were fore-runners in a trend that was noticeable in both British and American crime writing from the late 1960's onwards, a turning of the tide to flow to the right. After the revolution carried out in the late 1930s by

Eric Ambler Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 22 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for book ...

in the espionage field... a revolution which swung crime writing generally to the left... there had been little change. With the Haggard books the first signs of a silent swing began to show." Writing about his fiction, Haggard himself said:

My novels are chiefly novels of suspense with a background of international politics. A Colonel Charles Russell of the Security Executive, a not entirely imaginary British counter-espionage organization, while not a protagonist in the technical sense, holds the story line together in the background by his operations, while the characters in the foreground carry the action."From the back flap of the dust jacket of the Walker and Company American edition of ''The Conspirators'', New York, 1967

Life

Born in Croydon, Surrey, Haggard was educated at

Lancing College Lancing College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England. ...

and received his B.A. from Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the Indian Civil Service and eventually became a judge. He was then on the General Staff in the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

from 1939 to 1946, at least part of the time as an intelligence officer, rising to Lieutenant Colonel. He obtained a M.A. from Oxford University in 1947 and served on the Board of Trade from 1947 to 1969, from 1965 to 1969 being the Controller of Enemy Property. He married Barbara Myfanwy Sant in 1936; they had one son and one daughter. Haggard's writing career began in 1958 with the publication of his first novel, Slow Burner. He chose his ''nom de plume'' from his mother's maiden name, Haggard; she was said to be a distant relative of the well-known Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard.

Books

Colonel Charles Russell series

# '' Slow Burner'' (1958) # ''

Venetian Blind A window blind is a type of window covering. There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems. A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard mate ...

'' (1959) # '' The Arena'' (1961) # '' The Unquiet Sleep'' (1962) # '' The High Wire'' (1963) # '' The Antagonists'' (1964) # ''The Powder Barrel'' (1965) # ''The Hard Sell'' (1965) # ''The Power House'' (1966) # ''The Conspirators'' (1967) # ''A Cool Day for Killing'' (1968) # ''The Hardliners'' (1970) # ''The Bitter Harvest'' (1971) aka ''Too Many Enemies'' # ''The Old Masters'' (1973) aka ''The Notch on the Knife'' # ''The Scorpion's Tail'' (1975) # ''Yesterday's Enemy'' (1976) # ''The Poison People'' (1977) # ''Visa to Limbo'' (1978) # ''The Median Line'' (1979) # ''The Money Men'' (1981) # '' The Mischief Makers'' (1982) # ''The Heirloom'' (1983) # ''The Need To Know'' (1984) # ''The Meritocrats'' (1985) # ''The Vendettists'' (1990)

Paul Martiny series

# ''The Protectors'' (1972) # ''The Kinsmen'' (1974)

William Wilberforce Smith series

# ''The Martello Tower'' (1986) # ''The Diplomatist'' (1987)

Other novels

* ''The Telemann Touch'' (1958) * ''Closed Circuit'' (1960) * ''The Doubtful Disciple'' (1969) * ''The Expatriates'' (1989)

References

Sources

*''Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection'', Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1976, *''Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers'', edited by John M. Reilly, St. Martins Press, New York, 1980, *''Who's Who in Spy Fiction'', Donald McCormick, Sphere Books Limited, London, 1979 {{DEFAULTSORT:Haggard, William English spy fiction writers 1907 births 1993 deaths 20th-century English novelists