William Haggard was the pseudonym of Richard Henry Michael Clayton an English civil servant and writer of fictional spy thrillers. He was born in Croydon.

Writing career

His books were set in the 1960s through the 1980s. Like C. P. Snow

C. P. Snow

Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government...

, he was a quintessentially British establishment figure who had been a civil servant in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and his books vigorously put forth his perhaps idiosyncratic points of view. The principal character in most of his novels was Colonel Charles Russell of the fictional Security Executive. During the years of the fictional spy mania initially begun by the 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,...

stories Haggard was considered by most critics to be at the very top of the field.

Colonel Charles Russell series

• Slow Burner (1958)
• Venetian Blind (1959)
• The Arena (1961)
• The Unquiet Sleep (1962)
• The High Wire (1963)
• The Antagonists (1964)
• The Hard Sell (1965)
• The Powder Barrel (1965)
• The Power House (1966)
• The Conspirators (1967)
• A Cool Day for Killing (1968)
• The Hardliners (1970)
• The Bitter Harvest (1971) aka Too Many Enemies
• The Old Masters (1973) aka The Notch on the Knife
• The Scorpion's Tale (1975)
• Yesterday's Enemy (1976)
• The Poison People (1977)
• Visa to Limbo (1978)
• The Median Line (1979)
• The Money Men (1981)
• The Mischief Makers (1982)
• The Heirloom (1983)
• The Need To Know (1984)
• The Meritocrats (1985)
• The Vendettists (1990)

Other novels

• The Telemann Touch (1958)
• Closed Circuit (1960)
• The Doubtful Disciple (1969)
• The Protectors (1972)
• The Kinsmen (1974)
• The Martello Tower (1986)
• The Diplomatist (1987)
• The Expatriots (1989)