Sam Durell — by Edward S. Aarons

• 1955
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Sam Durell heard it first at K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency: Calvin Padgett had disappeared. He had vanished from his guarded quarters, slipped past the MPs, got beyond the barbed wire, eluded the radar screen, escaped the 'copter patro...

• 1956
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Sam Durell had come a long way in a hurry--from Washington to Paris and then to an obscure airfield in West Germany. The tough, broad-shouldered agent looked down glumly at the cheap topcoat he was wearing, his stiffly cut Russian-style suit, and his...

• 1956
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SOMEWHERE IN EUROPE a shot would be squeezed off, and a high official would fall to an assassin's bullet. Out of the ensuing charges of treachery and deceit would evolve an equation that spelled atomic war... The man who would order that shot fire...

• 1957
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My name's Sam Durell. I'm troubleshooter for an agency so secret that even the government doesn't know about it. My assignment: track down the traitors, the saboteurs, the secret official killers. And find Llona before the dread secret polic...

• 1957
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MOST BLONDES ARE DANGEROUS--BUT STELLA MARNI WAS MURDER ON HEELS... Locked inside that beautiful head was the key Sam Durell had to find--the identity of the leader who trafficked in souls between New York and Budapest. Hungarian refugees were ...

• 1958
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IN ARIZONA a man named Tom Everett who operated a filling station had been brutally beaten before his throat was cut. IN INDIANA a man named John Miller who ran a contracting company had been killed in exactly the same way. IN NEW YORK a man na...

• 1958
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• 1959
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Sam Durell's work for the C.I.A. was lonely, dangerous, mean and dirty. The risks went unheralded by medals and Sunday supplement stories. Death walked with the man who yielded to a moment's carelessness, or who was unlucky, and death came in ugly, s...

• 1959
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A WORLD OF MENACING SHADOWS, OF WHISPERED LIES Durell knew he was in danger. But danger, in his business, was something you accepted daily, like the sunrise. Durell was the sort of man who never turned a corner or opened a door thoughtlessly. He h...

• 1959
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Sam Durell was flying to Rome to take the place of a dead man. Another agent for the C.I.A. had been cut down by the enemy. He had been found in a back alley, his blind eyes staring up at the brilliant Italian sun. Well, Durell thought, it was sim...

• 1960
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Standing beside Lissa, the girl who had breathed life into his pain-racked body, Adam stared at the tragic, twisted remains of the once-shiny space vehicle which had taken him to the stars. Its streaked, heat-rusted metal, cracked and cratered, made ...

• 1960
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"The Prince is somewhere in Europe, gambling, wrenching, drugging himself to death. He must be found at once and brought here. And the woman Zoraya must not be allowed to interfere." The other man grinned. "Can she make a corpse walk ...

• 1961
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Their plane had been purposely lured off course, deliberately shot down. That meant the Russians knew where they were and would send a ship. How long would it be before they came and found the tape Durell was guarding? How long before they discovered...

• 1961
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When the first note arrived, it was thrown away as the work of a crank. When the next note came--with duplicates to the U.S. State Department and the CIA-- , routine search was made. Nothing. So file it and forget it. It's only a rumor. The ...

• 1961
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THE THIRD MAN The First Man had been given up for dead long ago and in another country. Now, twenty years later, there came a single bright shred of evidence that he was still alive. They sent the Second Man to find him. He got himself taken by...

• 1962
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BUSTLING BAZAARS EXOTIC SHOPS ... these were the gay facades masking the sinister filth that went on in the tortuous streets, diverting tourists from dim harems where flesh and dope are bought and sold like cigarettes, from dark alleys where a man...

• 1962
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A C.I.A. man meets all kinds working the international racket. Durell had known heroes and he had known killers -- but there was never anyone quite like Jack Talbott. Granted, there was nothing really special about an agent's turning sour and sell...

• 1963
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• 1964
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It was better not to think about what Holcomb had gone through before he died. First torture -- slow, deliberate, beyond all human endurance. Then the terrible, agonizing escape to this empty island in the Tarakutas off the coast of Borneo, somewhere...

• 1964
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Durell could recognize that special knife thrust as the favorite technique of Helmuth Dinov, commander of Moscow's deadly Blue Squad Four, elite professional assassins who could kill a man in any of a hundred brutal ways. Could Lisette Pollini tel...

• 1965
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Durell got his orders from McFee, Chief of K Section of the CIA. "This time," McFee told Durell, "it's really hot, Sam. All signals are red -- everywhere." "And it up to me -- " "It's up to you. Find that underground railway or whatever it is th...

• 1966
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They called themselves the Brothers of the Night, and Sam Durell knew that for years they had specialized in organized crime -- women, numbers, horse parlors -- the usual rackets that were out of the CIA's domain. Why suddenly had their operations...

• 1966
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Right from the beginning, Durell wanted to say no. It was the kind of assignment that turned the guts of a man who'd spent a lifetime protecting the security of his country. It made Durell look at the livid scars on his body and wonder who the hell ...

• 1966
• 

They yelled "treason" and then they fired him. After years of death-dealing, near-suicidal service, Sam Durell was tossed out on his ear by the CIA. Get out of Europe, they told him, get out and don't ever come back. Durell refused. But nobo...

• 1967
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Something damned strange was happening to the weather. Not just freakish blizzards in the Sahara, but unseasonable monsoons and typhoons in the East, savage hurricanes and tornadoes in the U.S., and in Europe, disastrous floods and snow, snow, snow. ...

• 1967
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THE GIRL FROM THE MOON The Russians claimed her because she was half-Russian. The Chinese claimed her because she was half-Chinese. The Iranians claimed her because she was in their country. The British said she didn't exist...and if she did sh...

• 1968
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For Sam Durell the action starts with a walk in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.,... and ends in an international race for a trillion-dollar formula. Along the way he picks up a bevy of beautiful hippies. Together they travel from the lush keys o...

• 1969
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"Durell? Sam Durell?" Sam stood silent and motionless. "Sam, please answer me. It is quite all right. You can answer." Sam heard a scratching sound, a faint click of metal on metal. There was quiet, sustained breathing. The voice called again. ...

• 1970
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STAR STRUCK Someone was hijacking satellite secrets from the Big Three. Even the Russians and the Chinese were willing to deal with Sam Durell to get them back. But Sam didn't like the way they played. They always cheated. So there was Sam with...

• 1970
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Sam could hear the planes overhead. U.S. Navy planes. They had no business here. They were violating neutral territory. Somebody in Southeast Asia was hijacking American fighter planes. Not one at a time. In bunches. If Sam could get to a certa...

• 1971
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A small, innocent-looking container had been washed ashore in the little Japanese fishing village of Hatashima. Except it was not so innocent. It contained the hideous results of successful scientific research -- a bit of biological warfare gone astr...

• 1972
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SAM DURELL once said his job was troubleshooting for a government agency so secret that even the government didn't know about it. This time everybody seemed to know more about his job than he did. This time he was practically dead before he sta...

• 1972
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She called herself Sally. He called himself Prince Mujilikaka. She had only recently met Durell. He had known Durell years ago. She was someone Durell liked immensely. He was someone Durell regretted knowing. Both were legal claimants to the Elephant...

• 1972
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Twice before Sam had crossed the infamous Madame Hung. Each time he had endured agony, escaping at the final moment. Last time he had finished her off - he thought. But apparently she was like the cat with nine lives - and now she had kidnapped his b...

• 1973
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"Hello, Cajun. "I've come to kill you," said the man in the mask. "Why?" asked Sam. "It's my job," said the man. "To kill me?" Sam asked. "Orders," said the man. "I've been sent by K Section -- by your former boss General McFee." "Former? I don'...

• Jun-1973
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"MYJOB IS TO STAYALIVE--FIRST, LAST, AND ALWAYS." --Sam Durell Sam Durell had survived in this business by taking no one for granted. Long ago he had learned to live alone, hunt alone, depend on himself alone. Now he wasn't alone and he wished...

• 1974
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Sam had gotten the safe open and was looking at the envelopes when he heard the first thump on the deck outside. He had no time to look further. Footsteps sounded in the pilot room adjacent to the safe. Durell's face went blank. He tossed the e...

• 1974
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Sam Durell had been with K Section for more years than he cared to remember. As chief field agent he knew the world's cities and jungles better than any man alive. And the fact that he was still alive was proof of his toughness. But this assignmen...

• 1975
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"NOT AN HOUR, NOT A MINUTE, NOT A SECOND WHILE YOU ARE IN LUBINDA WILL YOU BE SAFE. YOU WILL NOT REST, YOU WILL NOT EAT OR DRINK, YOU WILL NOT SLEEP. YOU WILL DIE, DURELL." Durell was used to threats. He had always lived on the knife-edge of terr...

• 1975
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It started with a trap for an assassin. An international assassin. Right here in the good old U.S. of A. Only this time it was worse than it had ever been for Sam. Because this time the lovely Deirdre, the only woman Sam Durell had ever really loved,...

• 1976
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"THE ASSASSINS ARE HIGHLY TRAINED. EMPLOYED BY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS ALL ABOUT K SECTION AND THE INTERNAL SECURITY BUREAU. SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO DESTROY US. AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE." The first time Sam became aware of them, they had murdered Premier Sh...

• Jun-1979
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As chief field agent for K section, Sam had long ago narrowed the circle of those he trusted almost to the vanishing point. He had become accustomed to a solitary life spent grappling with danger and the unknown. Some people figured danger was like a...

• Jun-1976
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"YOU'RE CAUGHT IN A NUTCRACKER, SAM, BETWEEN THE RUSSIANS AND CHINESE." It was supposed to be a routine assignment. Nothing dangerous. Nothing sticky. Just track down the famous missing Afghan Dragon -- a national treasure worth in the neighborho...