THE SPY IN THE BOX by Ralph Dennis

The Spy in the Box was written by Ralph Dennis in the early 1980s, but this Brash Books edition, released nearly 40 years after it was written, is its first publication. Brash has been releasing Dennis’ work, both previously published and unpublished alike, over the past few years and the quality of Dennis’ writing—the style and the plotting—has been consistently good. It’s been good enough that I wonder why it wasn’t published when it was written rather than moldering away in a filing cabinet drawer awaiting discovery by a new generation of publishers and readers.

Will Hall is a CIA agent stationed in Costa Verde, a South American hotspot, trying to navigate a regime change. His choice to take Costa Verde’s presidency is the moderate Paul Marcos, but when he witnesses Marcos’ assassination and the United States’ pallid response, he quits the agency and goes home. But some things are easier to quit than others, and when he’s framed as a whistleblower—an article with his name and detailing the CIA’s work in Cost Verde is set to appear in a liberal New York newspaper—his leisurely retirement is interrupted by assassins.

The Spy in the Box is a smooth thriller with an abundance of Cold War coolness and double-crosses. Dennis’ prose is straight and sparse. The characters are drawn with depth and include a honey pot with more on her mind than seduction, and a CIA king with a flicker of a conscience. The settings are old-school spy thriller stuff: safe houses, decaying agency-owned motels. The plot is linear and fun. Its only fault is a lack of surprises, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exciting. There are some nice action sequences and a nostalgic sense of 1970s television to it. It’s not as good as Dennis’ Hardman novels, but The Spy in the Box’s unexpected characterization gives it a nice little push.

A TALENT FOR KILLING by Ralph Dennis (Coming Soon)

This is good news. Brash Books is bringing out a brand new Ralph Dennis novel with an intriguing history. A Talent for Killing is two novels combined into a single narrative. The first novel, Deadman’s Game, features Kane, a retired and memory impaired Agency assassin:

But the expert killer in Kane rose up again, and now he was working the private side of the street—killer for hire.

Deadman’s Game was published as a standalone novel by Berkley Medallion in 1976, but it was intended as a series by Ralph Dennis and his editor at Berkley. As explained in A Talent for Killing, “the editor who championed the book left [Berkley], leaving Deadman’s Game without a champion in-house and without the editorial support for a robust marketing campaign.” And Berkley’s new editor rejected Dennis’ second Kane novel outright.

Brash Books’ release of A Talent for Killing combines Deadman’s Game with Dennis’ never before published sequel, Kane #2, into a single, wonderful thriller. This new book, along with Brash’s recent releases of Dennis’ Hardman novels and The War Heist (originally published as MacTaggart’s War), is a welcome addition to Ralph Dennis’ canon, and—far too late—corrects the error of New York publishing’s shutout of Dennis in the late-1970s.

The only bad thing? The value of my copy of Deadman’s Game is going to plummet. And, A Talent for Killing, isn’t scheduled for release until September. Although, you can pre-order it now.