Bøker av Lionel Davidson

The Rose of Tibet(1962) was Lionel Davidson's second novel, an extraordinary and thrilling tale of a haunted land which prompted Graham Greene to remark: 'I hadn't realised how much I had missed the genuine adventure story until I readThe Rose of Tibet.' Its combination of adventure and travelogue serves further proof of Davidson's great variety as a writer. Daphne du Maurier thought it offered 'all the excitement ofKing Solomon's Mines.'Hugh Whittington has gone missing - reported dead while filming near Mount Everest. Determined to find him, his brother Charles embarks on a perilous and illegal journey from India into the forbidden land of Tibet, all the way to the monastery of Yamdring. There awaits a woman with a deadly and ghostly secret, an emerald treasure to guard and the invading Chinese Red Army.

Casper Laing, the young, fiery and brilliant Professor of Semitic Languages, is asked to decipher an ancient parchment found in Israel. Piecing together its mysterious fragments, his translation soon reveals directions to a shrouded location. Believed to be the secret hiding place of the True Menorah, an ancient and priceless Jewish candelabrum, the Jordanians and Israelis begin a frantic race to claim the prize. Surrounded by violent and treacherous rivals, Casper is enjoined on a deadly adventure deep into the burning Negev desert.A Long Way to Shiloh (1966), Lionel Davidson's third novel, was a Book Society Choice and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award as well as the Crime Critics' Award for Best Thriller of the Year. Published in the USA as The Menorah Men, it was a no. 1 bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. It further cemented his reputation as one of the pre-eminent genre writers of his generation, and was described by the Guardian as 'first-rate' and by the New York Times as 'a supple delight in which learning, wit and style are beautifully integrated.'

'The best thriller I've ever read.' Philip PullmanKolymsky Heights. A Siberian permafrost hell lost in endless night, the perfect setting for an underground Russian research station. It's a place so secret it doesn't officially exist; once there, the scientists are forbidden to leave. But one scientist is desperate to get a message to the outside world. So desperate, he sends a plea across the wildness to the West in order to summon the one man alive capable of achieving the impossible... 'Excellent... Kolymsky Heights is up there with The Silence of the Lambs, Casino Royale and Smiley's People.' Toby Young, Spectator'A breathless story of fear and courage.' Daily Telegraph

The Chelsea Murders (1978) was Lionel Davidson's seventh novel, earning him the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger Award and prompting the Daily Telegraph to declare, 'Lionel Davidson is one of the best and most versatile thriller writers we have.' A terrifying, grotesque figure bursts into a young art student's room. Head covered with a clown's wig, face concealed by a smiling mask, it wears the rubber gloves of a surgeon. The girl is seized, chloroformed, suffocated and - horrifyingly - beheaded. This is only the beginning of a series of murders terrorising London's fashionable bohemia. The police target three avant-garde filmmakers. One of them is mocking the other two, and openly taunting the police as well. But which of them is behind these appalling crimes? Fast paced, terrifying and gripping, this is a page-turning thriller from a master.

'Beyond question the book of the year.' SpectatorChaim Weizmann was a great man, one of the founders of modern Israel. He was also a chemist of international repute. His work in the thirties led him to a cheap way of synthesising oil. But politics took over and it seemed Weizmann had died without passing on his revolutionary knowledge. In the oil-starved seventies, it falls to Igor Druyanov to reconstruct that magic formula. And the chase is on, for the news will overturn the Middle East . . .Tense, intelligent and stylish, The Sun Chemist is gripping spy thriller from a true master of the genre.

'Beautiful, lyrical, sensitive and meaningful . . . It deserves to be read and re-read.' Los Angeles Times Two deadly enemies - a young Arab rebel and a Jewish runaway - meet in a remote valley to begin a quest. Both have been taught since infancy to hate; to attack for self-defence. But something incredible is happening to them, something that not even the fierce shelling of the Six-Day War can intrude upon. For they are on a fantastic mission, a mission both believe has been set for them by God . . . Gripping, exciting and incredibly poignant, Smith's Gazelle is an intriguing thriller from a master of the genre.

Making Good Again, first published in 1968, was Lionel Davidson's fourth novel. The Sunday Times called it 'a classical thriller told with much subtlety' and the Evening Standard 'part thriller, part morality - and doubly successful'.