The Man From Sphere

[tg]

Dear Demonik

Yesterday, in a bookshop along the Charing Cross Road in London, I picked up a copy of The Man From Sphere, with exactly the cover you depict on this web site.
I know it was a few years ago you posted this, but if you're still interested in getting hold of it I can let you have my copy for free (once I've finished reading it - it's very funny, and really little more than an extended promotion for Sphere publishing dressed up as a racy spy story).
If you're still after this elusive literary masterpiece, let me know - if you send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to me in London I can post it over to you with my compliments.
All the best,
Tom

[dem bones]

yay!

John Gaunt - The Man From Sphere (Sphere, 1968)

Galahad Brown, Paperback Export Sales Manager Extraordinaire is The Man From Sphere with a redhead in London, a blonde on a Zanzibar beach and between, a revolution which threatens the whole of Africa.

Photo: David Davies: Cover: Acorn Litho Feltham Middx

Blurb
Galahad Brown, Export Sales Manager is THE MAN FROM SPHERE but under cover of his travels to increase British export, Brown risks his life as a secret agent.

A particularly brutal murder'' in London leads Brown to the Chinese underground around Paddington, and to the steamy jungles and wave-ruffled beaches of East Africa. A beautiful blonde named Sandra, whose bikini reveals more than her voice, holds the key to a revolutionary evil which threatens Africa and the balance of world power. Galahad Brown must turn that key.

Many, many thanks for sending me this, Tom. i am making good progress and can confirm that this is unquestionably a very VAULT paperback. for one thing, Mr. Gaunt has a superb way with product placement. the several endorsements of Sphere merchandise are to be expected in the circumstances, but did you notice how Man From .... doubles as an appreciation of John Haig Gold Label?

"you won't regret your act of kindness" doesn't seem appropriate in the circumstances as that would be to pretend i wasn't going to 'review' it. Expect the usual unforgivable abuse of eng lit any day now.

[dem bones]

.... two sides of the room were lined with bookshelves containing his hardback editions of world philosophy and literature and a good cross section of Sphere output from Winston Churchill's biography of Marlborough to the top rate science fiction of Brian Aldiss and Jerry Sohl and the evergreen thrillers of Erle Stanley Gardner and Westerns of Zane Grey.... The girl laughed delightedly. She removed Brown's bedside reading, Patrick Campbell's 'All Ways On Sundays' ...."

as mentioned above, there is A LOT of this kind of thing, but every so often a rudimentary plot is allowed to interrupt.

We begin in Oxford Street with a terrified Mr. Jawant Mehta, late of Zanzibar, hunched in a phone booth. He sends through a hasty call to the only man he can trust: Sphere books' export sales manager and Britain's premier secret agent, Galahad Brown. Mehta has a manuscript detailing a sensational conspiracy to overthrow his government which he wants Sphere to knock into shape and publish. Brown agrees to meet him on the platform of Oxford Street tube station in 15 minutes - but by then it's too late. Mr Mehta has apparently thrown himself under a train bound for Wembley Park.

At the inquest (verdict: suicide), Galahad pounces on the bereaved parents. Mr. Mehta shows him around his son's room while Mrs. M makes sandwiches. They discover a brown envelope containing several pages of gibberish and a map of Zanzibar with crosses placed at various locations. Brown can make no sense of the document, but certain parties evidently find it of considerable significance as that night the Mehta's exit this life when they leave the gas tap on. Another "suicide", obviously.

Galahad doesn't like it, and neither does his immediate superior, a pompous stiff with not a solitary Sphere paperback in his office known only as the Assistant Principal. They may dislike one another with a passion but both men agree: this business reeks of the inscrutable yellow man!

Brown pays a visit to Paddington's exclusive Chinese Lantern nightclub, a thriving business concern of the shady Kwei-Yang family. Brown is no stranger to this kind of establishment and prevails on the honorable manager to send a girl to his table. Susan Eaton insists that champagne makes her go 'boom' so Galahad plies her with so much bubbly that she will neither notice nor care about his girth. it works a treat. no sooner are they back at his flat than out come her magnificent blouse-busters and the couple get down to a serious wrestling match on the bed.

'You're so good,' she said, with her eyes closed. 'Such control!'
'You're even better - such lack of it,' Brown replied.

Alas, Galahad has seriously over-estimated his magnetic hold over beautiful women while too much lovely John Haig Gold Label takes its toll on head as well as waistline. next morning he awakes with a chronic hangover to find Susan gone, and with her, Jawant Mehta's map of Zanzibar with the mysterious markings! outsmarted and out-drunk by a GIRL! not so 'Britain's #1 secret agent' now, are we, Mr. Galahad 'the paunchy James Bond' Brown?

Untold Alka-Seltzers later and Brown returns to the Chinese Lantern, but Susan has conveniently thrown a sickie. Learning her address from another hostess, he leaves the club only to be set upon in the street by three kung-fu waiters. lucky for him a pair of passing cockney's are out looking for a scrap and the assailants scarper before they can inflict any lasting damage. Galahad redeems himself by breaking into Susan's flat while she's in the process of "entertaining" a prominent politician (see cover for a clue to the roly poly minister's favoured vice). A brief skirmish ends with the right hon gentleman fleeing naked into the street, Susan bound and gagged with her own stockings, and Galahad retrieving the map. next stop Zanzibar!

to be very continued, etc. ...

[dem bones]

Galahad Brown arrives in Zanzibar toting a briefcase stuffed to bursting with Sphere promo material. He takes a room at the Moulin Rouge hotel, proprietor Madame Waryaski of the powdered bosom. To Brown's trained eye, Madame has the shifty look of a nineteenth century brothel keeper about her and is not to be trusted. Equally sinister, a Russian guest, Volodin, who is ever inviting Brown to join him in a Vodka and has the uncanny knack of showing up wherever the secret agent sees fit to visit on the island. At least he's a big fan of Sphere books, that must count for something. Brown's first port of call is the late Jawant Mehta's bookshop which is now operating under the sole ownership of yet another of those devilishly inscrutable Chinese fiends, Mr. Lei. Lei informs Brown that he and Mehta were 'business partners', which is the first our man has heard of such an arrangement, but he's soon distracted by more urgent matters, specifically the stunning globes on the gorgeous blonde browsing the racks. Sandra Beaumont, a nurse at the local hospital, is taking Chinese lessons from kindly Mr. Lei, and Brown makes a mental note to cultivate her friendship and grill her about the devious yellow peril ASAP.

An investigation of several sites indicated on Mehta's map gives rise to grave concerns. Every 'X' marks a buried arms cache deadly enough for mad James Mbusa, psychotic leader of the Revolutionary Council, to kick-start his next attempted government coup. Satisfied that at last he's on the right track, Brown reckons he's earned a treat and contrives to gash his arm so he can enjoy first hand experience of Sandra's bedside manner which, as it transpires, is so eminently satisfactory he invites her on a picnic. Truth to tell, Galahad is struggling to adapt to his new surroundings - "He couldn't associate John Haig Gold Label with all this sand and crabs." - and the get-her-pissed-and-she'll-be-gagging-for-it approach which served him famously with Susan Eaton has the opposite effect on Sandra who is soon regurgitating her cocktails all over the beach. Leaving her to sleep it off, Brown puts a discreet distance between himself and Sandra's seaweed flavoured vomit to check out another of the 'X's. And who should come ambling along as he's hard at his spying business? Bloody Volodin!

Whatever Mr. Lei's part in all this, he's ceased to be an active player, having had a spear thrust through him in the crowded market place just as Brown was going to nab him for interrogation. it's getting so Brown can't trust anybody to behave as they should, and worse is to follow ....