Academe: Notable American espionage novels.

James Fenimore Cooper. NYPL

For the blog of Academe magazine (published by the American Association of University Professors), Martin Kich (Wright State University) is crafting a series of posts on "Fifty Notable American Espionage Novels" (he is up to no. 29). His choices include the following:

James Fenimore Cooper, The Spy (1821)
Richard Congdon, The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
Brian Garfield, Hopscotch (1975)
Dorothy Gilman, The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970)
James Grady, Six Days of the Condor (1975)
Bill Granger, The November Man (1979)
Nicholas M. Guild, The Summer Soldier (1978)
Noel Hynd & Christopher Creighton,  The Krushchev Objective (1987)
Aaron Latham, Orchids for Mother (1977)
Robert Littell, The Amateur (1981)

Not much mystery action at June 23rd Bloomsbury auction.

The June 23rd Bloomsbury auction that received press for the lack of interest in some of the Steinbeck items also displayed tepid attention to the mystery-related offerings:

• James Grady signed works, including books from the Condor series (Six Days of the Condor, etc.): Unsold.

• M. R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary: Unsold.

• Ross Macdonald, The Far Side of the Dollar, $300 (valued bet. $1000 and $1500); Sleeping Beauty, $150 (valued bet. $500 and $700) ; proof of The Instant Enemy, with "Boucher" written and circled in red pencil (probably critic-writer Anthony Boucher), $150; Self-Portrait, signed by Macdonald and Eudora Welty, $150.

• Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Copy owned by John Dos Passos, valued bet. $1200 and $1800: Unsold.

• Mary Roberts Rinehart, signed card: Unsold.

There was also a completely delightful inscribed copy of Christopher Morley's I Know a Secret for Dorothy Parker, in which Morley drew pixies (valued bet. $1200–1800, unsold).

Happy birthday, James Grady.

DC-area resident James Grady, probably best known for his thriller Six Days of the Condor that was adapted into the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford, turns 58 today. His latest novel is Mad Dogs, which will be out in paperback in June, and he has a story in the anthology DC Noir.

If you ever get the chance, read the Washington Post interview with Grady by Sarah Booth Conroy from September 14, 1984. I kept it for years because it was so inspirational about writing.