Manning ColesReseñas

4.5 stars
Not your typical WW2 spy thriller! Though there are some suspenseful moments (especially towards the end), this absorbing espionage novel (written in 1940) doesn't have gadgets or seduction scenes or even very many adventures so if that is what you are looking for, keep on searching. What it does have is a man living in Germany sending intelligence to Britain.

Some of the attitudes he espouses (particularly about Jews and blacks) may bother some readers but despite making me cringe, I think that they make him a more believable, fully rounded character. He is not a knight in shining armor but a real person with some great strengths but also some terrible flaws. This is my first Manning Coles book as I mistakenly thought it was the first in the series -- it won't be my last!

I wavered between giving this 3.5 & 4* but decided on the higher rating because I couldn't help reading this book in one great gulp.

A word about the series order (both here on GR and elsewhere) - this book is actually #7 and really should be read BEFORE "Let the Tiger Die" which involves several of the same characters and clearly takes place after the events of this book. I didn't know that and read them in the order GR has listed rendering some of the surprise twists and suspense of this book ineffective. Of course, as my rating indicates, I still managed to enjoy it immensely :)

Tommy spends his leave from the British Foreign Office Intelligence services helping the Home Secretary track down who has been engineering prison breaks. No spies but plenty of thrills and some rather nice crooks :)

Lots of action in this thriller and as a bonus for fans of the series, Forgan and Campbell are involved :)

I am finding Tommy Hambledon even more fun in the post WW2 era! I just wish I had read "With Intent to Deceive" (aka "A Brother for Hugh") first...

Finished this a while ago but forgot to update my status.

ghost of Graf returns for recognition of his bride

ghosts return to help family again

ghosts appear to help family members

tracking aircraft plans and stolen jewels in pre wall divided Berlin

This 6th book in the Hambledon series was set towards the end of WW2 and involved a Nazi network inside England. In this one, Hambledon mostly provided an opportunity for the 'fifth man' to tell his own adventure.

This 5th entry in the Tommy Hambledon series had a lot of echoes from the second book (A Toast to Tomorrow). I was glued to the book from the very start!

This 4th book in the Tommy Hambledon series, though first published in 1943, is set in 1938 before WW2 has begun. Hambledon doesn't enter into the story for a surprisingly long time, the narrative being told primarily from the perspective of Jim Warnford. Warnford & Marden are operating "without lawful authority" and each man has his own reason for not wanting to bring the police or British Intelligence in on the action.

Once the action gets going, there is plenty of it & the final scene at a well-respected lunatic asylum in the country being used by German agents was almost too 'over the top'! Such fun!

This espionage thriller, the 3rd in the Tommy Hambledon series, is set in 1939 before England declared war. It's the first book in the series which takes place entirely in England and Tommy has a new (and young) colleague James Bellair.

Bellair is keen but a bit naive and as such makes a good foil for Hambledon and Reck.

While it isn't completely necessary to have read the first 2 books, it does help to understand some of the relationships and references.

Great WW1 spy story!

Published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, this story describes the small Pyreneean principality of Sainte-Roche which is going broke, so at the suggestion of the young prince's new English valet Robert Brown) it decides to stage a fake Communist revolt to attract US financial aid. The revolt is frankly unbelievable (the prince's army of 52 is armed with flintlock muskets, a fact which supposedly does not detract from its credibility in the eyes seven visiting international journalists) but it duly convinces the US to supply generous aid, starting by rebuilding the only bridge leading to the principality (which had been blown up during World War 2 and never repaired). To finalize the agreement, the handsome young prince Andre and his valet (promoted to Foreign Secretary as the only fluent English speaker in the principality) go to Paris, where the prince falls in love with Betty, daughter and heiress of Adam K, Hopkins of the Hopkins hotel chain. Meanwhile the valet/foreign secretary is approached by crooks who had forged his references in hopes of getting at the principality's famous jewels. He tells them he has reformed and they get thrown out of France. Back in Sainte-Roche where modernization is in full swing, Betty persuades her father to visit hoping to renew her romance with the prince. Her father is more interested in buying land from the prince to build a hotel, and since the real government is uninterested, one of Brown's crooked former associates helpfully forges a contract with the prince. (spoiler warning) the crook Fishy Pike then tries to steal the princely jewels, but Brown fights him off and he is permitted to escape. Brown confesses his imposture and is told the prince (and the wise old abbe) already knew it, and they still want Brown as foreign secretary. Pike successfully palms off his fake contract on Hopkins, but is captured by the French border guards while trying to escape. Hopkins takes his contract around to the palace and finds his daughter in Andre's arms. The prince cheerfully informs him that the contract is invalid but he can grant the land to Hopkins as his father-in-law after he marries Betty. .My favorite line from this book is when one American adviser tries to explain to another how the people of Sainte-Roche feel about sudden modernization by asking "How would you feel if a Martian showed up and told you electricity was obsolete/" And the other American just replies "Better.'

spies, espionage, Germany, England, mystery,WW1 , action/adventure

The pair who were Manning Coles predated Sir Ian, Len Deighton, et al, and set the standard for dark novels of espionage in wartime. One of them actually had been an English spy in Germany during WWI, and their books are loosely based on his experiences and views.
I first read this one while still in high school many years ago and was pleased that it had been reissued so that I could read it again after so many years. I found it moving then, and even more so now. The tale, with its bursts of humor and renditions of exploits is a study of historical events and speculation, but it is the human responses of the characters that remain unchanged by time.
It tells about a young man who followed in the footsteps of an admired teacher who encouraged his facility with languages as he worked as an English agent in Germany. In its own way, the perils of espionage were as personally devastating as any military aspect of any war, and that includes those factors which distance the participants from others.
It continues to be both interesting and a valuable lesson.

Spoiler Alert: In the first installment of Manning Coles's series the reader is to think Tommy Hambledon has drowned. However, on the cover of A Toast to Tomorrow it reads "The second Tommy Hambledon book" so you know he's in it somehow. No mystery there.
The real mystery begins within a radio broadcast. Someone is sending Morse coded messages hidden in a drama; a code that hasn't been used since World War I. British Intelligence knows something is amiss. But what? One of my favorite parts of Toast was the different ways key people heard the broadcast and how they reacted.
But, back to Tommy Hambledon. He washes ashore in Belgium with a nasty wound to the head and a chewed up face. He can't remember his own name but can speak German fluently. His rescuers assume he is wounded German soldier and Hambledon agrees with that identity until his memory comes back: probably the best line to sum up A Toast to Tomorrow is uttered by Hambledon: ""I am the Deputy Chief on the German Police," said the British Intelligence Agent" (p 48). The intensity of A Toast To Tomorrow comes from German officials slowly starting to question Hambledon. They can't find evidence of him being a soldier, or even German. The more they question the more Tommy Hambledon is in danger of being exposed. He needs to run but the question is when is it too late?½

Drink to Yesterday is based on the life of Cyril Henry Coles. Like his character, Michael Kingston (given name)/William Saunders (alias when he signed up in the military)/Dirk Brandt (spy name), Coles lied about his age and enlisted at 16 in the British army during World War I.
William Saunders proves to be invaluable to the Foreign Intelligence Office when his fluency in conversational German is discovered. He goes on to have some harrowing and exciting experiences with his mentor, Tommy Hambledon. As Dirk Brandt, Saunders spends so much time behind enemy lines that he develops an entirely dual life for himself. After the war is over he has a hard time separating the two. His relationship with two separate women is heartbreaking. The end of Drink to Yesterday leaves the door open for its sequel, Toast to Tomorrow.½

Tommy Hambledon is just back in England after completing his assignment in Germany. Before he can even settle in he is recruited to solve the ship bombings that keep happening in Portsmouth Harbor. He is given a junior intelligence officer, Jimmy Bellair, as an assistant.

The case is hush-hush and must be kept completely secret, so the agents plan to meet their informant at the Café D'Albertini on New Year's Eve. Just as the informant is entering the restaurant he his killed. The café is packed and everyone is interviewed but now obvious suspects are found. It is now up to Hambledon and Bellair to befriend a few of the guests and try and get a line on who would be the murderer and if it ties with the bombings.

Among the guests they befriend are Bettine Gascon, a governess and a bit of an air head, Rodney Siddall, a well known hairdresser, Elsie Roberts, who is known as the Wax Doll and Stafford Wilkins, Bettine's date. Each of these people have secrets of their own they don't want revealed.

Bellair wines and dines Bettine to get closer to her and see if he can find out some clues. He also goes out with some of the men and finds himself on the receiving end of some rough treatment, which doesn't look good to Hambleton. Hambleton has his own brushes with rough treatment, but in the end he does solve the mystery using his information and what Bellair digs up.

It moves a little choppy at times, but it is a good read at a slow pace.

Not your typical WW2 spy thriller! Though there are some suspenseful moments (especially towards the end), this absorbing espionage novel (written in 1940) doesn't have gadgets or seduction scenes or even very many adventures so if that is what you are looking for, keep on searching. What it does have is a man living in Germany sending intelligence to Britain.

Some of the attitudes he espouses (particularly about Jews and blacks) may bother some readers but despite making me cringe, I think that they make him a more believable, fully rounded character. He is not a knight in shining armor but a real person with some great strengths but also some terrible flaws. This is my first Manning Coles book as I mistakenly thought it was the first in the series -- it won't be my last!½

Manning Coles pseud. för Adelaide Francis Oke Manning and Cyril Henry Coles . Vol 2 A Drink to Yesterday.

My recollection is that I enjoyed this less than other Hambledon satories as I found it too grim. I thought I remembered this was a late story written after the death of the series co-author Adelaide Manning but looking at the original publication date (1953) I believe I was mistaken on that point.

A fairly close sequel to Drink to Yesterday --they stand together a being much more serious than many of the Hambledon stories. Hambledon (who apparently died in Drink to Yesterday) turns out to have suffered amnesia due to a head wound. He believes himself to be a German and lives through the Weimar era (very vividly described) and joins the Nazi Party, rising to be police chief --he regains his memory on seeing the Reichstag fire and resumes work as a British agent. Highly improbable as this storyline appears, it does give a sympathetic account of German conditions and helps a reader understand how many Germans could support the Nazis. The story also includes several characters who continue in the series, notably Reck the radio man and Charles Denton, a younger British agent whom Hambledon saves.

Also titled Hyde for Leather --James Hyde is a very nice but very ordinary leather factory owner who suddenly finds himself involved the adventurer Hugh Selkirk and his resourceful man Adam.