Captain Hugh North, D.C.I., arrived at Fort Espato (in English, "Fort Terror") with no thought of treasure or tragedy -- but both awaited him there. An American army port superseded the old ruin now, but when the Spanish controlled the Philippines, it had been an ill-fated and much-used fort. Some legendary menace hung over its somber vaults and passages, but when two men vanished into its depths one evening and did not reappear, North saw only a living hand where others saw inexplicable terror. To track the killer who not only murdered but caused his victims to disappear completely baffled even Captain North, until he found the beads with the markings that did not match, and a bit of paper in a dead man's hand!

When Mr. Wallace was found neatly suspended from a hook in the bathroom ceiling, with a slender chain around his neck and the wastebasket on which he had stood carefully kicked away, there seemed little doubt of it. Especially as there was a note in the dead man's handwriting saying, "I am worried, tired, and sick of heart. Why go on with this senseless struggle? Disgrace faces me." But -- why was the sheet on which the note was written shorter than all the other sheets on the desk? Where had the three seeds that come from that were found near the body, and why should Wallace, partner in a brokerage house, have chosen the beginning of a merry Long Island house party to have committed suicide? Captain North, late of the American Intelligence Service, saw these things, and they puzzled him. Before that dreadful night was over, death struck again, and the terrified house guests knew that in their midst was a killer -- cold blooded, ruthless, efficent -- and always the three white seeds followed in his wake ... a symbol of death!

This is a critical history of spy fiction, film and television in the United States, with a particular focus on the American fictional spies that rivaled (and were often influenced by) Ian Fleming's James Bond. James Fenimore Cooper's Harvey Birch, based on a real-life counterpart, appeared in his novel The Spy in 1821. While Harvey Birch's British rivals dominated spy fiction from the late 1800s until the mid-1930s, American spy fiction came of age shortly thereafter. The spy boom in novels and films during the 1960s, spearheaded by Bond, heavily influenced the espionage genre in the United States for years to come, including series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Matt Helm. The author demonstrates that, while American authors currently dominate the international spy fiction market, James Bond has cast a very long shadow, for a very long time.

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

A reference book for librarians and users of public libraries which provides easy access to information on good recreational reading. This revised edition features expanded coverage of mystery and science fiction. New indexes allow access by subject, genre and main characters.

This work is the only comprehensive guide to sequels in English, with over 84,000 works by 12,500 authors in 17,000 sequences.

A new edition of the definitive bibliography of the modern spy-adventure-intrigue novel. First published in 1976, this edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. After a discussion of early spy fiction, Smith and White provide a detailed listing of novels from 1940 onward.