The Labyrinth Makers (Dr. David Audley & Colonel Jack Butler, Book 1)
Anthony Price
Language: English
Pages: 144
ISBN: 0753828278
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Anthony Price – full name Alan Anthony Price – wrote twenty books from 1970 to 1990. Nineteen of those were spy novels (the twentieth, The Eyes of the Fleet: A Popular History of Frigates and Frigate Captains, a non-fiction title published in 1990, was his final work – at least, to date; Price is still with us), which, together, form one of the best espionage series ever penned by a single author, a brilliantly sustained, wonderfully interconnected, richly historical fictional – yet entirely plausible – universe starring operatives of a branch of Britain's Intelligence Services (later identified as the Research and Development Section).
Though written in the third person, each story is told from the perspective of one of a rotating cast of intelligence types. The series begins with 1970's The Labyrinth Makers and Dr. David Audley, a socially awkward, prematurely middle-aged Middle East expert with a fascination for archaeology and history – subjects that remain abiding concerns throughout the subsequent eighteen novels. We also meet Audley's fellow operatives, sensitive, dedicated Squadron Leader Hugh Roskill and hard-headed, carrot-topped military man Major – soon to become Colonel – Jack Butler, each of whom will take their turn in the limelight in later books.
Price's closest contemporary is probably John le Carré, but Price was well into his series by the time Le Carré's masterwork, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, arrived in 1974. And while there are similarities between the two writers in the way they have their characters examine evidence in order to arrive at conclusions, Price has little time for Le Carré's methodical digging through of old files; much of that sort of thing takes place off-page, leaving more room for the subsequent ruminations and discussions. The late H. R. F. Keating put it most appositely (and pithily) in a blurb reproduced on the back covers of some of the later editions of Price's books: "If think's your thing, here's richness in plot, dialogue, implications."
A Crime Writers' Association Silver and Gold Dagger Award winner, Price is rather overlooked these days, which is remarkable when you consider how terrific his stories are. There's scant information about him online; he has a Wikipedia entry – although the dates in the bibliography are inaccurate, possibly because they take the American publication dates rather than the original British ones; see below for a more accurate bibliography – and there are one or two good articles on the themes and chronology of his spy series (which ranges from 1944 to 1988); this one by Jo Walton and this one by David Dyer-Bennet (with its attendant booknotes) are the best of the bunch. But the odd individual review aside, that's about it.
David Audley - 1
1970 CWA Silver Dagger
The Book You Have to Read: “The Labyrinth Makers,” by Anthony Price
"...Some critics have faulted Price for not producing more excitement in his novels. Their criticism seems to me to miss the mark: like Le Carré, this author’s aim is to produce exquisitely layered puzzles, in which the characterization is subtle, and the reader is challenged to match wits with the writer. A book such as Smiley's People can hardly be called exciting in terms of action; but it is nonetheless spellbinding on account of its layered and understated characters, and its subtle clues. The same may be said of The Labyrinth Makers: chock-full of ambiguous characters and replete with tantalizing red herrings and plausible theories, it more than holds its own with the best of spy fiction and deservedly earned for its author the Crime Writers’ Association’s 1971 Silver Dagger Award, presaging the Gold Dagger he was to win in 1974 for Other Paths to Glory. Indeed, Other Paths was subsequently shortlisted for the 2005 Dagger of Daggers Award."
Anthony Price Bibliography
The Labyrinth Makers (1970) (CWA Silver Dagger)
The Alamut Ambush (1971)
Colonel Butler's Wolf (1972)
October Men (1973)
Other Paths to Glory (1974) (CWA Gold Dagger)
Our Man in Camelot (1975)
War Game (1976)
The '44 Vintage (1978)
Tomorrow's Ghost (1979)
The Hour of the Donkey (1980)
Soldier No More (1981)
The Old Vengeful (1982)
Gunner Kelly (1983)
Sion Crossing (1984)
Here Be Monsters (1985)
For the Good of the State (1986)
A New Kind of War (1987)
A Prospect of Vengeance (1988)
The Memory Trap (1989)
Germany.' Theodore had quite unaccountably settled in Britain, in an uncomfortable flat near the British Museum, during a historical conference in 1956. And although he was always revisiting Germany and talking of returning to the Rhineland he had showed no sign of actually doing so. Audley had wondered idly whether he was producing some terrible successor to Das Kapital, to set the next age of the world by the ears. 'One day, David, one day. But until that day I shall make my personal war
Audley composed his face. 'Here and there,' he said guardedly. 'It's rather early days yet for anything concrete -if there is anything.' Stocker gave him a thin, satisfied smile. 'Well, I can give you something nice and hard: Nikolai Panin's coming to see you.' Audley carefully set his brief-case alongside the desk, undipped it and drew out the Steerforth file. It never did to let anyone throw you. Or to show it when they did. Friend or enemy, the same rule applied. But if Panin was coming to
He wouldn't have anything to do with it.' Maclean was the odd man out in the crew, the honest one. Morrison was probably basically honest too, but willing and scared–too scared to admit that he had even handled the cargo years afterwards. 'It was a two-man job?' 'It was a two-man job to lower the boxes out of the Dak–some of those boxes were bloody heavy. But Ellis'd got a little trolley from somewhere.' Audley warmed to the memory of John Steerforth. The minor smuggling was nothing, the
climb on which the drunken wing commander had broken a leg in the winter of '44, but a gentle, generous stairway which neither sagged nor creaked–and along the soft-carpeted, well-lit passage. Was there anything else the Doctor required? The Doctor had already had more than enough. Except for one thing: 'Which way from here to the airfield?' Audley inquired. The man looked at him, mystified. Then he grinned like a small boy who has come up with the answer to an unfair adult question.
He said he's been on an air-sea rescue station where the Warwicks ran a regular service from Iceland with the lifeboats under their bellies full of nylons and whisky and ham. That'd stopped when they had to drop a boat to a ditched crew, and the chaps were picked up roaring drunk, but if Steerforth had put one over on us, so much the better. He was a splendid old boy!' So there was no help there. Panin was waiting and his bluff was in danger of being called. When Roskill had gone he stood