The Berlin Memorandum (1965)

Adam Hall

Prose (fiction)

English

The Berlin Memorandum (UK title, published by Collins; published as The Quiller Memorandum in the US by Simon & Schuster), is a 1965 spy novel written by Adam Hall (the pseudonym of Elleston Trevor). It is the debut novel of the character Quiller, who was ultimately featured in a series of 19 thrillers, until Trevor's death in 1995, having been Trevor's most popular character.

The original dust jacket's cover describes the novel as follows:

The Berlin Memorandum is the record of a mission undertaken at the risk of almost inevitable death by one man working alone against Phönix, a resurgent Nazi organisation with its secret headquarters in Berlin. Quiller's main objective is the elimination of Heinrich Zossen, the grey eminence whom he last met twenty years ago at the edge of an execution pit.
Quiller is an enigma. His dossier, read to him by Oktober, the arch-interrogator, leaves much unsaid:
'You are a known authority on memory, sleep-mechanism, the personality patterns of suicide, fast-driving techniques and ballistics. In the war you attempted to sabotage the Final Solution, "rescuing" Jews. You failed. Refusing awards offered by certain governments after the war, you admitted your failure. We know about you....'
This is an espionage novel of a new kind. Adam Hall is a master of chilling psychology, and brings authority to his clinical portrayal of move and counter-move, of flight and murder in the Berlin streets, and of the secret war waged in loneliness between les espions.

Date of Composition: 1965