Haggard, William

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

Pseudonym of Richard Clayton (1907-1993), UK civil servant whose political thrillers – usually featuring Colonel Russell, Head of the Security Executive, retired after a decade but magisterially present throughout the end of the series – sometimes extrapolate on current political trends, after the fashion of their genre, from a right-wing position common to work of the 1960s; his work has been likened to that of John Buchan, though Haggard's boffin- and mandarin-heavy narratives, combined with a tendency to overegg threats to our island way of life, are perhaps more similar to the exactly contemporary General Kirk tales by John Blackburn. Slow Burner (1958) has some sf content relating to the eponymous Power Source, based very vaguely on something like nuclear fusion. The skulduggery in Venetian Blind (1959) concerns Negative Gravity, "a prize beyond price. The conquest of space, the ultimate weapon"; but it proves chimerical. The Unquiet Sleep (1962) presciently addresses an unholy compact between Big Pharma and government over the release of a deadly Drug called Mecron. The Bitter Harvest (1971) deals with germ warfare, imported; the last volume of the sequence, The Vendettists (1990), focuses on potential Disaster through a dumping of nuclear waste, also imported.

In the non-series The Doubtful Disciple (1969), another Drug threatens biological warfare against selected ethnic groups. [JC]

Richard Henry Michael Clayton

born Croydon, Surrey [ie London]: 11 August 1907

died Clacton, Essex: 27 October 1993

works

Colonel Charles Russell

• Slow Burner (London: Cassell and Company, 1958) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/uncredited]
• Venetian Blind (London: Cassell and Company, 1959) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
  • The Haggard Omnibus: Three Complete Novels: Slow Burner; Venetian Blind; Closed Circuit (London: Cassell, 1967) [omni of the above two plus Closed Circuit (not in series) below: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Arena (London: Cassell, 1961) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/Peter Pitt Photographers]
• The Unquiet Sleep (London: Cassell, 1962) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/uncredited]
• The High Wire (London: Cassell, 1963) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/uncredited]
• The Antagonists (London: Cassell, 1964) [first appeared December 1963-February 1964 Argosy: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/Edward Ripley]
• The Hard Sell (London: Cassell, 1965) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Powder Barrel (London: Cassell, 1965) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Power House (London: Cassell, 1966) [first appeared September-October 1968 Argosy: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Conspirators (London: Cassell, 1966) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• A Cool Day for Killing (London: Cassell, 1968) [first appeared August-September 1966 Argosy: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Hardliners (London: Cassell, 1970) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Bitter Harvest (London: Cassell, 1971) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
  • Too Many Enemies (New York: Walker Books, 1971) [vt of the above: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Old Masters (London: Cassell, 1973) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
  • The Notch on the Knife (New York: Walker Books, 1973) [vt of the above: Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Scorpion's Tale (London: Cassell, 1975) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• Yesterday's Enemy (London: Cassell, 1976) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Poison People (London: Cassell, 1977) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• Visa to Limbo (London: Cassell, 1978) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Median Line (London: Cassell, 1979) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Money Men (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Mischief Makers (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Heirloom (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Need to Know (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Meritocrats (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]
• The Vendettists (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990) [Colonel Charles Russell: hb/]

individual titles (selected)

• The Telemann Touch (London: Cassell and Company, 1958) [hb/]
• Closed Circuit (London: Cassell and Company, 1958) [hb/uncredited]
• The Doubtful Disciple (London: Cassell, 1969) [hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

previous versions of this entry

• Internet Archive