Martin James Russell
Personal Information
Description
Martin Russell was one of the British crime authors in the latter part of the twentieth century. Russell's books were published by Collins Crime Club, from his debut No Through Road in 1965 to Leisure Pursuit in 1993. He published one book under the name Mark Lester and another as by James Arney, both of which were published by Robert Hale. Russell was born in Kent in 1934 and spent much of his life in and around Bromley. He worked there as a journalist and subsequently joined the Croydon Advertiser group, later retiring to write full-time. This shows how successful he was as a novelist in financial terms- his books were published in such diverse countries as Germany, Italy, Finland, Spain, and Japan. He'd turned to crime after failing to find a publisher for some comic novels that he wrote. He never married, but enjoyed playing squash and tennis as well as jogging. He was also a crossword fanatic.
Books
Backlash
[aka The Second Victory] The war was over .... But it was a time of armistice, not peace. In the winter of 1945, Austria was in a land without leaders and withoug hope. To men like Major Mark Hanlon, Occupation Commander in the snowbound Alps, fell the task of destroying the stink of tyranny and death that the Nazis had left behind. Major Hanlon had sought the appointment because he wanted to help. On all sides he found despair and resistance. He wanted to rule by law, not force. But his word was law and backed up by guns. And it was his job -- and his duty -- to rule. In Backlash, as in his tremendous best sellers 'The Devil's Advocate' and 'The Shoes of the Fisherman', Morris West tells a vivid and exciting story which sweeps the reader into a dramatic involvement with the characters. And as in those two books he poses moral problems which give his novels an added measure of depth and impact.
Deadline
When a CDC researcher, after faking her own death, arrives on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun Mason, the head of a news organization, is plunged into the biggest story of his life