Dennis Wheatley

[timebug]

I have posted elsewhere on this board,about the 'Roger Brook' series of

historical adventures by Dennis Wheatley. He was a very right wing writer,

and his books reflected this. So to modern readers, many of his characters

come across as politically incorrect dinosaurs.

All well and good.But behind that stuff, if you can ignore it, lie some very well

crafted novels.I also enjoyed the 'Gregory Sallust' series, set during WW2 as

Sallust manages to insert himself into virtually every major event of that conflict

as Churchill's 'top agent'!

I have just re-reread a favourite of his, 'They Found Atlantis'. A group of idle

rich playboys and girls, find themselves backing a marine trip to find the lost

continent of Atlantis. Bad people plot to steal a fortune from the group, by

devious underhand plotting, and all is set well for that as being the 'main'

plot of the novel.But no, following all that, the group actually find Atlantis

after being stranded on the sea bed at a depth of over a mile! The Atlaneans

are basically a group of sixties hippies,advocating peace and love, but there

lies a steely determination behind the hippy-dippy facade, to keep their race

and land 'clean'. Not very fascist that, then? But there IS a resolution to the

various entanglements,and the people you care about most, survive the

book intact!

Always liked it when I was a teen, and still do as I approach seventy!

Unfortunately, I followed this with one I had never read before, another sea

going yarn called 'Uncharted Seas'. And for the first time ever, I got to almost

halfway through, before abandoning it completely. Utter drivel. A very weak

plot, peopled with way over the top characters,that after a few chapters, you

find you could not care less about, or indeed,the circumstances they find that

they are in. I rarely give up on a book, probably only done this about a dozen

times (in a life of reading well over ten thousand books) so this one (I.M.O)

has to be a REAL stinker. I still advise checking out Wheatley, if you have

never done so, as a writer of (mainly) good tales. But avoid that one at all

costs!

Edited March 13, 2016 by timebug

[vodkafan]

Hi timebug, I read one Dennis Wheatley a very long time ago, it was one of his "devils" novels, I can't remember which one. I can't have been that impressed as I never read anything else of his since. I had no idea he had written some different series. I might look for some, but I have never seen any of his in charity shops. 

[timebug]

His series include the 'Gregory Sallust set,as I mentioned,which cover the main events of

World War 2,and the 'Roger Brook' series,which are excellent,and Brook is a 'secret agent'

working for Prime Minister Pitt, against the Revolutionary French, and later, Napoleon .

The 'Duc De Richleau' books cover spy/thriller stuff,and include three of the black magic

series.As I wrote, his views are right wing and he was definitely a 'man of his class,and age'

which means he comes over as sexist,misoginistic,arrogant and almost a fascist in many of

his views.But as I also said, IF you can get past all that rubbish, he also crafts a well put

together yarn, most of the time! Worth checking out for his stories,but not a nice chap by

any standards that we would use now!

Edited March 13, 2016 by timebug