The Berlin Memorandum
| Industry | Publishing |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
| Products | Books, novels |
The Berlin Memorandum is a 1965 espionage novel authored by Elleston Trevor under the pseudonym Adam Hall. Released in the UK by Collins and titled The Quiller Memorandum in the US through Simon & Schuster, it marks the debut of the character Quiller. This figure became central to a series of 19 thrillers, ultimately standing as Trevor's most acclaimed creation until his passing in 1995.
Reception
According to The Bookseller, the novel ranked among Collins' top-selling titles during the spring of 1965 in the United Kingdom. Segments of the work were serialized in the Daily Mail. By June that year, The Publishers Association identified it as one of the five leading fiction bestsellers in Britain.
In 1966, the book earned both the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière recognizing it as the premier international crime novel.
Writing for The New York Times Book Review, Anthony Boucher highlighted that The Quiller Memorandum garnered a substantial readership and was considered among a select group of exceptional spy novels from the 1960s. It is regarded as part of a wave of espionage fiction shaped by John le Carré’s 1963 work The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Trevor admitted that a review of le Carré’s novel influenced him, although he deliberately refrained from reading it to preserve his creative originality.
Adaptation and subsequent events
In 1966, the novel was transformed into a film titled The Quiller Memorandum, featuring George Segal and scripted by Harold Pinter. The cinematic version significantly deviated from the source material, including altering Quiller’s nationality to American, a change that author Trevor found displeasing.
Following the movie’s release, Collins reissued the book in the UK in 1967 under the title The Quiller Memorandum. A further edition was published in 2004 by Forge Books, accompanied by an introduction penned by Otto Penzler.
Plot summary
Quiller serves as an intelligence agent for a secretive organization known as "the Bureau," a covert unit formed after World War II to thwart any revival of German militarism. While specifics of his wartime activities remain unclear, he is acknowledged as an authority on Nazi underground groups and their escape routes, commonly referred to as "ratlines."
Set mainly in 1965, Quiller receives orders from the Bureau to discreetly provide intelligence support to West Germany’s principal war crimes investigative body, the Z Commission. Although weary and inclined toward retirement, he consents to probe a clandestine Nazi group implicated in assassinating a respected associate.