James Grady (1) (1949–)

Mad Dogs was one of the best thrillers I read last year, and Three Days of the Condor is a favourite film of mine, so it’s great to see Six Days back in print and finally get the chance to read it. First, though, there’s a bonus novella, condor.net, a sequel explicitly updating and re-imagining Six Days. In its relentlessly paced 44 pages Grady crams an epic, insanely complex, action packed tale of mass murder, betrayal and intrigue in the post-9-11 espionage world into a ridiculously show more small package, and makes it look easy. Awesome, jaw-dropping stuff. Six Days follows, stately and slightly old-fashioned by comparison but still packing a punch. Though unfairly overshadowed by the iconic brilliance of the film, this grandaddy of paranoid conspiracy thrillers still manages to show the others how it’s done. Worth picking up for condor.net alone, and for heaven’s sake look out for Mad Dogs, about a gang of insane CIA agents on the run, framed for the murder of their group therapist. It’s pure genius. show less

Okay, a slightly mixed review. Initially what I liked most was the preface where the writer explained the book and what it inadvertently causes (the book was made into a movie, the Soviet Union thought the clandestine office within the CIA was real and made one of their own), but then as I started reading (spy thriller is really not my thing) I got hooked and couldn't put it down. Now I am considering all things Grady, especially in the Condor realm.

Day ninety billion of this appalling heatwave and I should have written these reviews ages ago but my brain is full of boiling meat-juices now so this is the best I can do. Old spy new licks hah still got it. Condor, haunted and possibly driven mad by having Robert Redford play him in the film of his first book is living with a bunch of medication being monitored by spies but one of the spies is murdered and he goes on the run and so does the other spy and as tradition demands they break show more into a woman home and use her house as a shelter and she comes round to seeing how sexy this is eventually. There are shootouts and stuff. Good. I like it fine. show less

A bunch of characters board a train - they're a mix of people from different strata of soceity, they're a small cross-section of America, they're planning murder, suicide and heists, and it's all told in a strange syncopated style of blank-verse prose, like one long jazz improv. If it was Cormac Mcarthy or James Ellroy it'd be eaten up, but Grady remains bordelrine cult obscure despite creating one of the most iconic espionage characerts of the seventies. Who may or may not also be on this show more train. show less