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Flash Point (novel)
Flash Point is a 1974 novel by the British author Michael Gilbert published in England by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States by Harper & Row. It was Gilbert's 17th novel and undoubtedly written during the last days of the American Watergate scandal. Although none of the events in the book directly parallel those of Watergate, it begins with a banal legal matter and then escalates into a government cover-up and national scandal. The American edition has an apparent subtitle shown only on its copyright page: "A Harper Novel of Law and Lawlessness". Like a number of other works by Gilbert and his near contemporaries Victor Canning and Ross Thomas, it is less a standard novel of suspense than a political thriller about the amorality and subsequent lethal reactions of those in the highest government positions when confronted by seemingly trivial events that blossom uncontrollably into perceived challenges to their positions. Plot Written with Gilbert's usual urbane and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Gilbert
Michael Francis Gilbert (17 July 1912 – 8 February 2006) was an English solicitor and author of crime fiction. Early life and education Gilbert was born on 17 July 1912 in Billinghay, Lincolnshire, England to Bernard Samuel Gilbert, a writer, and Berwyn Minna Cuthbert. From 1920–1926, he attended St. Peters school in Seaford, East Sussex and, from 1926–1931, he attended Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon. He began to study law at London University but was unable to finish due to financial concerns. After becoming a schoolmaster at Salisbury Cathedral School, Gilbert returned to studying law, receiving his degree in 1937 and graduating with honours. It was at this time that he began to work on his first mystery novel, '' Close Quarters''. Military service During World War II, Gilbert served in North Africa and Italy with the Honourable Artillery Company. In 1943, he was captured and taken as a prisoner of war in northern Italy near Parma. Along with Eric Newby and Tom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hodder And Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher for the Congregational Union. In 1861 the firm became Jackson, Walford and Hodder; but in 1868 Jackson and Walford retired, and Thomas Wilberforce Stoughton joined the firm, creating Hodder & Stoughton. Hodder & Stoughton published both religious and secular works, and its religious list contained some progressive titles. These included George Adam Smith's ''Isaiah'' for its ''Expositor’s Bible'' series, which was one of the earliest texts to identify multiple authorship in the Book of Isaiah. There was also a sympathetic ''Life of St Francis'' by Paul Sabatier, a French Protestant pastor. Matthew Hodder made frequent visits to North America, meeting with the Moody Press and making links with Scribners and Fleming H. Revell. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in New York City in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley and Fletcher, joined them in the mid-1820s. Harper & Brothers (1833–1962) The company changed its name to "Harper & Brothers" in 1833. The headquarters of the publishing house were located at 331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square in Lower Manhattan (about where the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge lies today). Harper & Brothers began publishing '' Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' in New York City in 1850. The brothers also published ''Harper's Weekly'' (starting in New York City in June 1857), '' Harper's Bazar'' (starting in New York City in November 2, 1867), and '' Harper's Young People'' (starting in New York City in 1879). George B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building. After the five perpetrators were arrested, the press and the Justice Department connected the cash found on them at the time to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. Further investigations, along with revelations during subsequent trials of the burglars, led the House of Representatives to grant the U.S. House Judiciary Committee additional investigative authority—to probe into "certain matters within its jurisdiction", and led the Senate to create the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee, which held hearings. Witnesses testified that Nixon had approved plans t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Canning
Victor Canning (16 June 1911 – 21 February 1986) was a prolific British writer of novels and thrillers who flourished in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was personally reticent, writing no memoirs and giving relatively few newspaper interviews. Life Canning was born in Plymouth, Devon, the eldest child of a coach builder, Fred Canning, and his wife May, née Goold. During World War I his father served as an ambulance driver in France and Flanders, while he with his two sisters went to live in the village of Calstock ten miles north of Plymouth, where his uncle Cecil Goold worked for the railways and later became station master. After the war the family returned to Plymouth. In the mid-1920s they moved to Oxford where his father had found work, and Victor attended the Oxford Central School. Here he was encouraged to stay on at school and go to university by a classical scholar, Dr. Henderson, but the family could not afford it and instead Victor went to work as a clerk in the ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ross Thomas (author)
Ross Thomas (February 19, 1926, in Oklahoma City – December 18, 1995, in Santa Monica, California) was an American writer of crime fiction. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. He also wrote five novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St. Ives. Early life Thomas served with the infantry in the Philippines during World War II. Sara Paretsky (preface) in He worked as a public relations specialist, correspondent with the Armed Forces Network, union spokesman, and political strategist in the USA, Bonn (Germany), and Nigeria before becoming a writer. Career Thomas's debut novel, ''The Cold War Swap'', introducing McCorkle and Padillo, was written in only six weeks and won a 1967 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. ''Briarpatch'' earned the 1985 Edgar for Best Novel. In 2002 he was honored with the inaugural Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award, one of only two authors to earn the award p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Establishment
''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institutions. One can refer to any relatively small class or group of people who can exercise control as ''The Establishment''. Conversely, in the jargon of sociology, anyone who does not belong to ''The Establishment'' may be labelled an outsider (as opposed to an "insider"). Anti-authoritarian anti-establishment ideologies question the legitimacy of establishments, seeing their influence on society as undemocratic. The term in its modern sense was popularized by the British journalist Henry Fairlie, who in September 1955 in the London magazine ''The Spectator'' defined the network of prominent, well-connected people as "the Establishment". He wrote: Following that, the term ''the Establishment'' was quickly picked up in newspapers and magazines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Dundonald, Hillside, Trinity, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park. It is home to the Wimbledon Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas of common land in London. The residential and retail area is split into two sections known as the "village" and the "town", with the High Street being the rebuilding of the original medieval village, and the "town" having first developed gradually after the building of the railway station in 1838. Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common is thought to have been constructed. In 1086 when the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard-boiled Writer
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op. Genre pioneers The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by James M. Cain and by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. Its heyday was in 1930s–50s America. Pulp fiction From its earliest days, hardboiled fiction was pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newgate Callendar
Harold Charles Schonberg (29 November 1915 – 26 July 2003) was an American music critic and author. He is best known for his contributions in ''The New York Times'', where he was List of chief music critics, chief music critic from 1960 to 1980. In 1971, he became the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. An influential critic, he is particularly well known for his encouragement of Romantic music, Romantic piano music and criticism of conductor Leonard Bernstein. He also wrote a number of books on music, and one on chess. Life and career Early life Harold Charles Schonberg was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan in New York City, New York on 29 November 1915. His parents were David and Minnie (Kirsch) Schonberg, and he had a brother (Stanley) and a sister (Edith). His aunt, Alice Frisca was an early influence and his first music teacher; she was a former concert pianist, and had studied with Leopold Godowsky. He started piano lessons with Frisca at four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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