Desmond Cory is a pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 used by British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

/thriller writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 Shaun Lloyd McCarthy (Lancing, Sussex, February 16, 1928 - January 2001)

Desmond Cory authored some 40+ novels, including the creation of serial characters such as Johnny Fedora

Johnny Fedora

Johnny Fedora is a fictional British secret agent who was the protagonist of 16 novels published between 1951 and 1984. Written by Shaun Lloyd McCarthy, under the pseudonym of Desmond Cory, Fedora was dubbed by literary critics as the 'thinking man's James Bond'...

, a debonair British secret agent. Cory also wrote screenplays for Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

 novels (such as England Made Me

England Made Me

England Made Me is the debut album by Black Box Recorder, whose members include Luke Haines, Sarah Nixey and John Moore, released in July 1998 via Chrysalis Records....

) and had a number of his own novels appear on the big-screen and in TV thriller series.

Desmond Cory is arguably one of Britain’s most prolific thriller writers. His writing spans over 40 years, during which time he used up to three different pen names, such was the demand for his work. Academics cover his works in such books as British Mystery and Thriller Writers Since 1940, and Detecting Men: A Reader's Guide and Checklist for Mystery Series Written By Men.

Critical Acclaim for Cory

"Even though Johnny Fedora predates James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

, comparisons with Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

's better known hero are inevitable. Agent 007's popularity is often attributed to the admission by President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 that From Russia With Love was one of his favourite novels. After that revelation in 1957, sales of the Fleming spy novel soared. Seven years later when [Cory's] Hammerhead was republished in the United States as Shockwave, the book jacket carried a quote from Anthony Boucher of the New York Times saying that Johnny Fedora "more than deserves to take over James Bond’s avid audience." Reviews of Feramontov and Ian Fleming's Octopussy appeared side by side in the New York Times Book Review of 1966. Of Feramontov a reviewer said, "As one has come to expect from Cory, colorful action, copious carnage, elaborate intrigue, frequent surprises." Octopussy, however, was dismissed as "a thin and even emaciated volume." In reviewing Timelock, Boucher commented, "I must say once more that I find Cory's Johnny Fedora a much more persuasive violent, sexy and lucky agent than James Bond."

—Prof. Marcia Songer - taken from her white-paper on the Evolution of Desmond Cory - 2003

there is these days a comparatively slender band of first-class writers who are producing thrillers worthy of serious attention – among them authors like Margaret Allingham, John Creasy, Carter Dickenson, David Dodge, Ellery Queen, Simenon, and, of course Agatha Christie. Among them, too, is Desmond Cory, a man whose ingenuity, imagination, and good humour pervade his works with an agreeable excitement and read-ability."

—Bristol Evening Post

Bristol Evening Post

The Bristol Evening Post is a newspaper covering news in the city of Bristol, including stories from the whole of Greater Bristol, Northern Somerset and South Gloucestershire....

1960

"You hear that there was a Golden Age of thrillers in Britain between the wars. When you read Cory you realize that it hasn’t ended."

—Echo - 1993

"Readers who like their thrillers to complement their intelligence must on no account miss Mr. Cory".

—Edmund Crispin, The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times (UK)

The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...

1971

External links

• Official Desmond Cory web site
• Desmond Cory Bibliography A fuller appraisal of Cory's work