John Gardner — The Airline Pirates

London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1970. First edition. Cloth. A first edition of this 'Boysie Oakes' novel by John Gardner. John Edmund Gardner (20 November 1926 – 3 August 2007) was an English spy and thriller novelist, best known for his James Bond continuation novels, but also for his series of Boysie Oakes books and three continuation novels containing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional villain, Professor Moriarty. In 1964, Gardner began his novelist career with 'The Liquidator', in which he created the character Boysie Oakes who inadvertently is mistaken to be a tough, pitiless man of action and is thereupon recruited into a British spy agency. In fact, Oakes was a devout coward who was terrified of violence, suffered from airsickness and was afraid of heights. In a black cloth binding with original unclipped dustwrapper. Externally, smart. Some light shelfwear to the boards. Dustwrapper is chipped in a couple of places. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are bright and clean. Near Fine . Ill.: None. Near Fine/Very Good Indeed.