''Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens'' is a 1982 short story collection by the British crime and spy writer

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 writ ...

featuring his eponymous counter-intelligence agents. It was published by

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.H ...

in the UK and by

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...

in the US. The book was Gilbert's second collection of Calder and Behrens stories, following '' Game Without Rules'' (1967).

Stories

The book contains the following stories, all originally published in ''

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fic ...

'': * "The Twilight of the Gods" * "Emergency Exit" * "One-to-Ten" * "The Peaceful People" * "The Lion and the Virgin" * "The African Tree Beavers" * "Signal Tresham" * "The Mercenaries" * "Early Warning" * "The Killing of Michael Finnegan" * "The Decline and Fall of Mr. Behrens" * "The Last Reunion"

Literary criticism

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'' called the stories "a tidy assortment" for those who enjoy leisurely, literate espionage vignettes, even though few are plausible and the humour "sometimes dry to the point of invisibility".

Adaptations

A series of twenty radio plays by Gilbert under the general title ''Game without Rules'' was broadcast by

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

between October 1968 and January 1969, including the following derived from stories collected in this anthology: (link is to the first programme in the series) * "In Which Mr Calder Acquires a Dog" (adapted from "Emergency Exit") * "The Peaceful People" * "One-to-Ten" * "The African Tree Beavers" * "The Lion and the Virgin" * "Ahmed and Ego" (adapted from "The Decline and Fall of Mr. Behrens") * "The Mercenaries" * "Signal Tresham"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Calder and Mister Behrens 1982 short story collections British short story collections British spy fiction Fictional spies Hodder & Stoughton books Harper & Row books Mystery short story collections Thriller short story collections Short story collections by Michael Gilbert