In Hong Kong, a company has developed a fuel additive that increases mileage markedly. All the world powers want it. But when the formula is stolen from the company safe, only Hugh North can find it—if he lives long enough!

"Third machine gun gangster dies!" came the newsboy's cry through the window of Judge Mackaye's stately residence in Deptford. A group of men were gathered there -- powers in the life of the city, and before sundown two of them lay dead on the broad lawns of Deptford Manor, another was on the point of death, and Captain Hugh North of Army Intelligence was to take control. Murder stalked the quiet New England city -- murder whose roots lay in a strange, bizarre tangle. Murder dogged Judge Mackaye's footsteps, hounded his lovely daughter. And murder uncovered another, more terrible tragedy before it was finally checked!

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 An American army port superseded the old ruin now, but when the Spanish controlled the Philippines, it had been an ill-fated and much-used fort.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!

In the bay of Cienfuegos, a little Cuban town, the naked body of a D.C.I. officer was found floating one night. And the next, Captain North of the Army Intelligence was on his way there -- with orders to find the facts. The wolves of the naval powers were already gathering at Cienfuegos around a cashiered American naval officer who had developed a new and mysterious invention. And beside the agents were the great international criminals always drawn by such an affair. The first intimation of the sinister undercurrents North was facing came on the night train in Cuba -- when a drab-looking German was murdered almost before his eyes, with a glass dagger thrust into the heart. At Cienfuegos the real battle began, with danger lurking in the surrounding jungle, and within the house death striking with silent arrows -- so much quieter than automatics, so much easier to use from a distance than knives...

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.

The Mystery Fancier, Volume 4 Number 6, November/December 1980, contains: "Spy Series Characters in Hardback, Part V," by Barry Van Tilburg, "Favorite Magazine Issues: Manhunt (3:6)," by Jeff Banks, "Old Time Radio Lives," by Carl Larsen, "Pow-Wo on the Potomac (Bouchercon)," by John Nieminski, and "Bouchercon Scrapbook," commentary by Guy M. Townsend.

Someone is plotting the start of World War III. Colonel North sets out to find the mastermind, but United States Intelligence calls him off the case. In spite of the five men mysteriously murdered, the government says there is no proof of the conspiracy. But North knows it is true. And he chooses to pit himself singlehandedly against a vicious ring of spies to prove it! "A Bermuda houseparty loses its gaiety after the ocean races when Col. North is recalled to duty because there seems to be an obtrusion of international throat-cutting (a transfer of submarines), a shifting of gold bars to be delivered, and a to-do in drugs. Dead bodies -- and live and seductive ones too -- are a starter for a race against time which leads to China where major moves by the intrepid Colonel foil a Soviet-Red China combine. At the price a lot for your money with North still in the lead." -- Kirkus Reviews

The Reds would give a spire off the Kremlin to lay hands on Dr. Hans Bracht, America's foremost missile genius. And here he was on a Bangkok-bound plane with only G-2's Colonel North to guard him. The plane's passenger list made North sweat: MARY HOLLBERG, a shapely Fraulein who said she was a concert pianist but obviously wasn’t; CHU HOONG, multimillionaire manufacturer of Dragon's Tooth Elixir; LITA NALINE, an exotic, sloe-eyed film star who developed a sudden affection for Colonel North; BORIS SALENKOV, who resembled Stalin in more ways than his mustache; LEX ROSE, a Hollywood executive and once a card-carrying Commie. Looking at them, Colonel North knew that murder would be the least of his troubles...