Cover art by Pedro Marques
BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1960241573 List Price: $17.99 U.S. Pages: 144 Published: 2025 |
Colonel Bogus (1964)
John Blackburn Book Description
A phony Russian princess murdered and stuffed in a trunk. A mysterious message—"M.K. will die." A bogus colonel with inscrutable aims. Ruthless killers on the hunt for lost letters from one of the great figures of the 19th century. General Kirk of British Intelligence believes it all adds up to an assassination plot that will throw the world into turmoil. With the help of his new secretary and her rare book dealer boyfriend, Kirk is determined to unravel the riddle and avert tragedy—but will he be too late?
"There are plot and counterplot, torture and treachery in the best cloak-and-dagger style." - The Sydney Morning Herald "A most restrained, intelligent spy thriller ... John Blackburn graduates in this one from a sort of science fiction to the most chilling of pure thrillers with a wind-up guaranteed to stir your imagination to the full." - Daily Post "A tense and exciting spy story." - The Guardian Journal "Top grade thriller. Very neat, very twisty." - Montreal Star |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. He started attending Haileybury College near London in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.