James Atlee Phillips (1915 – May 26, 1991) was an American writer who used the pseudonym Philip Atlee for his "Contract" series of spy novels.

Life

Phillips was born in

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

and attended

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private university, private research university in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison Clark, Addison and Randolph Clark as the AddRan Male & Female College. It i ...

and the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

. In World War II he worked for China National Airlines in

Rangoon Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

and later ran the national airline in

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

(then called Burma). Phillips was the father of

Shawn Phillips Shawn Phillips (born February 3, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter and musician, primarily influential in the 1960s and 1970s. His work is rooted in folk rock but straddles other genres, including jazz fusion and funk. Phillips has reco ...

and the brother of CIA officer

David Atlee Phillips David Atlee Phillips (October 31, 1922 – July 7, 1988) was an American Central Intelligence Agency officer of 25 years and a recipient of the Career Intelligence Medal. Phillips rose to become the CIA's chief of operations for the Western He ...

Works

Phillips's "Contract" series featured former spy Joe Gall, who comes out of retirement to take on specific jobs. The novels were "yarns featuring sadism and pornography", and in each of them Gall would fall in love with a new woman who would end up being killed by the end of the novel. The twenty-nine novels were published from 1963 to 1976 by

Gold Medal Books Gold Medal Books, launched by Fawcett Publications in 1950, was an American book publisher known for introducing paperback originals, a publishing innovation at the time. Fawcett was also an independent newsstand distributor, and in 1949 the c ...

. ''The White Wolverine Contract'' was nominated for the 1972

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards hon ...

for best paperback original.

Bibliography

As James Atlee Phillips (incomplete): * ''The Case of the Shivering Chorus Girls'' (1942) * ''Suitable for Framing'' (1950) * ''Pagoda'' (1951) * ''The Deadly Mermaid'' (1954) As Philip Atlee (all published by Gold Medal): * ''The Green Wound'' (reprinted as ''The Green Wound Contract'') (1963) * ''The Silken Baroness'' (reprinted as ''The Silken Baroness Contract'') (1966) * ''The Death Bird Contract'' (1966) * ''The Paper Pistol Contract'' (1966) * ''The Irish Beauty Contract'' (1966) * ''The Star Ruby Contract'' (1967) * ''The Rockabye Contract'' (1968) * ''The Skeleton Coast Contract'' (1968) * ''The Ill Wind Contract'' (1969) * ''The Trembling Earth Contract'' (1969) * ''The Fer-de-Lance Contract'' (1971) * ''The Canadian Bomber Contract'' (1971) * ''The White Wolverine Contract'' (1971) * ''The Kiwi Contract'' (1972) * ''The Judah Lion Contract'' (1973) * ''The Spice Route Contract'' (1973) * ''The Shankill Road Contract'' (1973) * ''The Underground Cities Contract'' (1974) * ''The Kowloon Contract'' (1974) * ''The Black Venus Contract'' (1975) * ''The Makassar Strait Contract'' (1976) * ''The Last Domino Contract'' (1976)

Notes

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, James Atlee 1915 births 1991 deaths American spy fiction writers American thriller writers American male novelists 20th-century American male writers