Malko (novels)
Malko is a German pocket booklet series that was published from 1977 to 2001 by Cora Verlag in Berlin in over 150 volumes. It is a translation of the French series SAS by Gérard de Villiers, which was published continuously from 1965 to 2013 . Hero of the series is the Austrian citizen and Prince Malko Linge, who as a contract - a secret agent for the CIA assumes global orders.
Character, plot structure
SAS is the abbreviation of Son Altesse Sérénissíme (French: His Highness ) and Special Air Service . Malko Linge is an Austrian prince who is forced to work temporarily for the CIA to maintain his castle near Liezen . The agency always calls on him for delicate assignments where diplomatic sensitivity is required and Americans cannot be deployed for political reasons.
In contrast to James Bond , Malko does not use any specially prepared weapons or vehicles, with the exception of an extra-flat, never exactly typed pistol. His strength lies in investigating and establishing contacts to defuse conflicts. If necessary, the CIA provides him with bodyguards Chris Jones and Milton Brabeck, former US marines, in the dramaturgical role of the sidekick . Both are not particularly intelligent, but efficient and loyal and often save Malko's life in seemingly hopeless situations. Malko rejects violence as a matter of principle, but is often forced by the circumstances to use force for self-defense or the defense of third parties up to the killing of his opponents. During his operations, conflicts often arise due to different attitudes within the CIA itself or other American authorities.
Examples of the plot's contemporary background in Latin America and the Seychelles
As far as can be proven, the novel is usually set against a real political background, mostly civil wars, areas of conflict from the Cold War , terrorism or drug trafficking milieu.
Nicaragua
Weapons for Nicaragua takes place in the Nicaraguan Revolution 1978/79. The CIA leadership in Langley recognizes that the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle is not ready for political reforms and that this means that left-wing extremists are threatening to outstrip the bourgeois reform politicians in their resistance to the system. Although Malko initially rejects the Sandinista de Liberación Nacional ( Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional ) because they themselves operate with brutal means, he finally takes their side. He gets caught between the fronts of Somoza's secret service and the CIA resident in Managua , where he meets Somoza himself at a party.
El Salvador
This pattern is repeated in Terror in Salvador (vol. 45, 1981, original title Terreur à San Salvador ), which is set in the Salvadoran civil war . The exiled Cuban Enrico Chacon, called El Carnicero ( Spanish : The Butcher ) is the founder of the death squad Mano blanco ( White Hand ) in El Salvador and is supported by the army, police, the oligarchy and the CIA resident Walter Dallas in the capital San Salvador covered. Chacon has done assignments for the CIA across Latin America. Since he is now murdering at random, the agency has asked him to return to the USA, but he refuses because he wants to continue fighting communism in the country on his own. After Chacon orders the murder of Archbishop Óscar Romero , Malko is hired by CIA division chief David Wise. He should persuade Chacon to leave El Salvador to defuse the political situation and to give the bourgeois forces a chance.
With the help of the Jesuits - priest Batista succeeds Malko to make the town Chacon identified. However, he is betrayed by the cameraman Peter Reynolds, who is an agent provocateur of the CIA and a friend of Chacon and who has long tried to infiltrate the left-wing guerrilla movement of Salvador. Malko kills Chacon in a sniper duel . It turns out that Malko's investigation results were always passed on to Dallas by Reynolds, who in turn notified Chacon. Malko informs the guerrillas about Reynolds' role, who is then killed by them. In self-defense , Malko kills Dallas, who fears his shady role in Langley will be revealed.
When Malko left El Salvador, he learned from the press that Dallas was shot with the same gun as the archbishop. Both dead are presented to the public as victims of the subversivos , the left-wing guerrillas. Malko suspects that his killing of Dallas will enable the military junta to crack down on the left even more ruthlessly. Major Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta of the ARENA party can easily be recognized in Chacon , who also appears in Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986) .
Venezuela
In The Heirs of Terror ( Que viva Guevara , Vol. 7, 1977) Malko is apparently installed in Venezuela at the end of 1968 . The CIA has intercepted the Cuban fishing boat Maracay off the Guatemalan coast, which is supposed to land weapons, fighters and propaganda material in support of left-wing guerrilla groups in Guatemala, Colombia and Venezuela. With the exception of two crew members, the agency liquidated the Maracay's crew . The boat was transferred to Bridgetown , Barbados , where the Cuban secret service has no contacts. The CIA plans to smuggle two "moles" into Venezuela from here, which are supposed to infiltrate the urban guerrillas there . The Venezuelan authorities have not been informed for security reasons.
One of the two surviving Cubans from the Maracay is the young Czech Janos Plana, who worked as a harvest worker in Cuba and who volunteered to join the Cuban company. It remains unclear whether he is simply politically naive or an employee of the Czechoslovak secret service. He is replaced by the Czech-speaking Malko, who also resembles him outwardly. The surviving Cuban is replaced by the Cuban exile Carlos, who hates communists.
When landing in Venezuela, Carlos is killed in a marine accident. In Caracas, Malko succeeds in making contact with the urban guerrilla who, however, distrusts him and demands the murder of General Orlando Léal Gomez, chief of the special troops, as proof of his loyalty , which causes remorse in Malko. But Malko witnesses how the general shoots two street boys in front of his eyes on Christmas night after going to a nightclub, just because they begged him. Malko kills Léal with a clear conscience, thus proving his loyalty to the guerrillas.
During his research, Malko learns that the guerrillas, fanatical supporters of the dead Che Guevara , want to kill the American Vice President during a visit to Caracas. Malko gets caught between the fronts of the Venezuelan secret police Digepol, the urban guerrilla and, to his surprise, the Venezuelan Communist Party, which in turn has infiltrated the guerrilla. The CP also wants to prevent the assassination attempt, since it sees the urban guerrilla as only a group of ideological extremists who endanger the legal political work of their party. At the last moment Malko discovers the plot of the assassination attempt, but cannot prevent it: the guerrillas have given a little girl who is supposed to appear at the ceremony for the president, a camouflaged time bomb. The Vice President can still be warned and saved, but the detonation of the bomb cannot be prevented. The girl and numerous visitors to the event were killed.
A special role is played by Pepe Rodriguez, former head of the secret service of the dictator Trujillo , who runs a torture center in his villa in cooperation with Digepol. Malko is also tortured here, but is freed by his two CIA bodyguards, Chris and Milton, who have since flown in. In the character of Rodriguez it is easy to recognize Johnny Abbes García , who is said to have died in a fire in Haiti as early as 1964 .
Seychelles
In Operation Seychelles (vol. 55, undated , original title Naufrage aux Seychelles ) de Villiers processed Operation Plumbat of the Israeli secret service Mossad .
The motor ship “Laconia B” hit a reef near the Seychelles island Denise and immediately sank. It was on the way from South Africa to Eilath and loaded with 200 tons of uranium oxide , where the material is to be used to build Israeli atomic bombs . The CIA wants to prevent the Mossad from recovering the uranium while Iraqi secret agents are trying to remove the material from the wreck . Since the USA cannot intervene in the Seychelles for political reasons, as the government sympathizes with Iraq, Malko is hired. He realizes that a recovery from the American side is out of the question, and detonates a bomb on the wreck of the Laconia B , which causes it to slide into deeper waters, where it cannot be retrieved by either the Israelis or the Iraqis.
Surinam
In Countdown of Death in Suriname (vol. 66, no year, original title Aventure au Suriname ), the so-called December murders in Suriname in December 1982 are discussed, which Dési Bouterse is still charged with today.
Style, dramaturgy
De Villier's style, which as an author positions itself between John le Carré and Robert Ludlum , is rather homely. His novels live from a detailed local color ; many of the novels contain city maps or maps of the plot, which the reader can use to follow the plot. Allegedly, de Villiers had previously visited most of the locations of his novels for the purpose of extensive research.
reception
Although Malko has been published continuously in Germany for almost a quarter of a century and, apart from Mister Dynamit, is apparently the only German paperback series that fictitiously deals with the global scenes of the Cold War, international terrorism and drug trafficking, no literary or political science study has yet been conducted. In the year of its publication, the Spiegel judged it as an example of the increasing brutalization of the trivial literature scene in the Federal Republic:
“That the CIA agent Malko, a 'merciless fighter' for the free world, goes to work with 'unbelievable severity' is - like everything with Springer - legitimized from the start: by 'the just cause' (according to the Malko advertisement in Springer leaves). Regardless of whether the Harvard graduate and native Austrian Prince Malko Linge, 38 ('No homosexual inclinations'; 'Its effect on women has often been very useful to the agent'), a treasure trove of gold from the dead Emperor Haile Selassie, or an assassination attempt thwarted on Henry Kissinger - pardon will not be given. "
List of novels
The series of novels was published from 1965 to 1987 by Plon / Presses de la Cité, from 1988 to 1997 by Éditions Gérard de Villiers, from 1998 to 2000 by Éditions Malko productions, and since 2001 again by Éditions Gérard de Villiers.
- SAS à Istanbul , 1965 ( Hellfreight to Istanbul , 1978)
- SAS contre CIA , 1965 ('' Putsch in Persia '', 1981)
- Opération Apocalypse , 1965
- Samba pour SAS , 1966 ('' The Death Samba of Rio '', 1981)
- Rendez-vous à San Francisco , 1966
- Le Dossier Kennedy , 1967 ('' The trail leads into the White House '', 1978)
- SAS broie du noir , 1967 ( Safari des horror , 1978)
- SAS aux Caraïbes , 1967 ( hurricane over the Caribbean , 1978)
- SAS à l'ouest de Jérusalem , 1967 ('' Abduction to Sardinia '', 1979)
- L'Or de la rivière Kwaï , 1968 ( Death on the River Kwai , 1977)
- Magic noire à New York , 1968
- Les Trois Veuves de Hong Kong , 1968
- L'Abominable Sirène , 1969
- Les Pendus de Bagdad , 1969 ('' The Rebel of Baghdad '', 1979)
- La Panthère d'Hollywood , 1969
- Escale à Pago-Pago , 1969 ('' Hunting on Samoa '', 1979)
- Amok à Bali , 1970 ('' Hot plaster Djakarta '', 1978)
- Que viva Guevara , 1970 ( The Heirs of Terror , 1977)
- Cyclone à l'ONU , 1970
- Mission à Saïgon , 1970
- Le Bal de la comtesse Adler , 1971 ( Countess Adler's Ball , 1978)
- Les Parias de Ceylan , 1971
- Massacre à Amman , 1971 ('' The Lioness of Amman '', 1981)
- Requiem pour Tontons Macoutes , 1971
- L'Homme de Kabul , 1972 ( The man from Kabul , 1978)
- Mort à Beyrouth , 1972 ('' Focal Point Beirut '', 1981)
- Safari à La Paz , 1972
- L'Héroïne de Vientiane , 1972 ('' Heroin from Laos '', 1981)
- Berlin: Check-point Charlie , 1973
- Mourir pour Zanzibar , 1973 ('' Die für Zanzibar '', 1981)
- L'Ange de Montevideo , 1973 ('' The Angel of Montevideo '', 1979)
- Murder Inc., Las Vegas , 1973 ( Mord-GmbH Las Vegas , 1978)
- Rendez-vous à Boris Gleb , 1974 ('' Agent duel at the Arctic Circle '', 1979)
- Kill Henry Kissinger! , 1974 ( assassination attempt on Kissinger , 1977)
- Roulette cambodgienne , 1974 ('' Death Roulette of the Khmer Rouge '', 1980)
- Furie à Belfast , 1974 ( Terror in Belfast , 1977)
- Guêpier en Angola , 1975
- Les Otages de Tokyo , 1975 ( The Hostages of Tokyo , 1978)
- L'ordre règne à Santiago , 1975
- Les Sorciers du Tage , 1975 ('' The Sorcerers of Lisbon ''. 1978)
- Embargo , 1976 ('' Deadly Darkness Over New York '', 1979)
- Le Disparu de Singapour , 1976 ('' Lost in Singapore '', 1979)
- Compte à rebors en Rhodésie , 1976 ( accounting in Rhodesia , 1977)
- Meurtre à Athènes , 1976 ( murder trap in Athens , 1977)
- Le Trésor du Négus , 1977 ( The gold treasure of the Negus , 1977)
- Protection pour Teddy Bear , 1977 ('' Death on the Thames '', 1979)
- Mission impossible en Somalie , 1977 ('' Hellish Mission in Somalia '', 1979)
- Marathon à Spanish Harlem , 1977 ( The fatal trail to "Carlos" , 1977)
- Naufrage aux Seychelles , 1978
- Le Printemps de Varsovie , 1978 ( Agent Roulette in Warsaw , 1978)
- Le Gardien d'Israël , 1978
- Panique au Zaïre , 1978 ('' Conspiracy on the Congo '', 1979)
- Croisade à Managua , 1979 ( Arms for Nicaragua , 1980)
- Voir Malte et mourir , 1979 ('' Killer Command in Malta '', 1979)
- Shangaï Express , 1979 ('' Stop on the Shanghai Express '', 1979)
- Opération Matador , 1979
- Duel à Barranquilla , 1980 ('' The Guerrillas of Barranquilla '', 1980)
- Piège à Budapest , 1980
- Carnage à Abu Dhabi , 1980
- Terreur à San Salvador , 1980
- Le Complot du Caïre , 1981 ('' The Cairo Plot '', 1981)
- Vengeance romaine , 1981 ('' Finale in the Eternal City '', 1982)
- Des armes pour Khartoum , 1981 ('' Guerrillas against Gaddafi '', 1982)
- Tornade sur Manille , 1981
- Le Fugitif de Hambourg , 1982
- Objectif Reagan , 1982
- Rouge grenade , 1982
- Commando sur Tunis , 1982
- Le Tueur de Miami , 1983
- La Filière bulgare , 1983
- Aventure au Surinam , 1983
- Embuscade à la Khyber Pass , 1983
- Le Vol 007 ne répond plus , 1984
- Les Fous de Baalbek , 1984
- Les Enragés d'Amsterdam , 1984
- Putsch à Ouagadougou , 1984
- La Blonde de Pretoria , 1985
- La Veuve de l'Ayatollah , 1985
- Chasse à l'homme au Pérou , 1985
- L'affaire Kirsanov , 1985
- Mort à Gandhi , 1986
- Danse macabre à Belgrade , 1986
- Coup d'État au Yémen , 1986
- Le Plan Nasser , 1986
- Embrouilles à Panama , 1987
- La Madone de Stockholm , 1987
- L'Otage d'Oman , 1987
- Escale à Gibraltar , 1987
- Aventure in Sierra Leone , 1988
- La Taupe de Langley , 1988
- Les Amazones de Pyongyang , 1988
- Les Tueurs de Bruxelles , 1988
- Visa pour Cuba , 1989
- Arnaque à Brunei , 1989
- Loi martiale à Kaboul , 1989
- L'Inconnu de Leningrad , 1989
- Cauchemar en Colombie , 1989
- Croisade en Birmanie , 1990
- Mission à Moscou , 1990
- Les Canons de Baghdad , 1990
- La Piste de Brazzaville , 1991
- La Solution rouge , 1991
- La Vengeance de Saddam Hussein , 1991
- Manip à Zagreb , 1992
- KGB versus KGB , 1992
- Le Disparu des Canaries , 1992
- Alerte Plutonium , 1992
- Coup d'État à Tripoli , 1992
- Sarajevo Mission , 1993
- Tuez Rigoberta Menchu , 1993
- Au nom d'Allah , 1993
- Vengeance à Beyrouth , 1993
- Les Trompettes de Jéricho , 1994
- L'Or de Moscou , 1994
- Les Croisés de l'Apartheid , 1994
- La Traque Carlos , 1994
- Tuerie à Marrakech , 1995
- L'Otage du triangle d'or , 1995
- Le Cartel de Sébastopol , 1995
- Ramenez-moi la tete d'El Coyote , 1995
- La Résolution 687 , 1996
- Opération Lucifer , 1996
- Vengeance tchétchène , 1996
- Tu tueras ton prochain , 1996
- Vengez le vol 800 , 1997
- Une lettre pour la Maison-Blanche , 1997
- Hong Kong express , 1997
- Farewell to Zaire , 1997
- La Manipulation Yggdrasil , 1998
- Mortelle Jamaïque , 1998
- La Peste noire de Baghdad , 1998
- L'Espion du Vatican , 1998
- Albanie, mission impossible , 1999
- La Source Yahalom , 1999
- Contre PKK , 1999
- Bombes sur Belgrade , 1999
- La Piste du Kremlin , 2000
- L'Amour fou du Colonel Chang , 2000
- Jihad , 2000
- Enquête sur un génocide , 2000
- L'Otage de Jolo , 2001
- Tuez le Pape , 2001
- Armageddon , 2001
- Li Sha-Tin doit mourir , 2001
- Le Roi fou du Népal , 2002
- Le Saber de Bin Laden , 2002
- La Manip du Karin A , 2002
- Bin Laden, la traque , 2002
- Le Parrain on November 17th , 2003
- Baghdad Express , 2003
- L'Or d'Al-Qaida , 2003
- Pacte avec le diable , 2003
- Ramenez les vivants , 2004
- Le Réseau Istanbul , 2004
- Le Jour de la Tcheka , 2004
- La Connexion saoudienne , 2004
- Otages en Iraq , 2005
- Tuez Iouchtchenko , 2005
- Mission: Cuba , 2005
- Aurore noire , 2005
- Le Program 111 , 2006
- Que la bete meure , 2006
- Le Trésor de Saddam: 1 , 2006
- Le Trésor de Saddam: 2 , 2006
- Le Dossier K , 2006
- Rouge Liban , 2007
- Polonium 210 , 2007
- Le Défecteur de Pyongyang: 1 , 2007
- Le Défecteur de Pyongyang: 2 , 2007
- Taliban Otage , 2007
- L'Agenda Kosovo , 2008
- Return to Shangri-La , 2008
- Al-Qaida attaque: 1 , 2008
- Al-Qaida attaque: 2 , 2008
- Tuez le Dalaï-Lama , 2008
- Le Printemps de Tbilisi , 2009
- Pirates , 2009
- La Bataille des S-300: 1 , 2009
- La Bataille des S-300: 2 , 2009
- Le Piège de Bangkok , 2009
- La List Hariri , 2010
- La Filière suisse , 2010
- Renegade: 1 , 2010
- Renegade: 2 , 2010
- Féroce Guinée , 2010
- Le Maître des hirondelles , 2011
- Bienvenue à Nouakchott , 2011
- Rouge Dragon: 1 , 2011
- Rouge Dragon: 2 , 2011
- Ciudad Juarez , 2011
- Les Fous de Benghazi , 2012
- Igla S , 2012
- Le Chemin de Damas: 1 , 2012
- Le Chemin de Damas: 2 , 2012
- Panique à Bamako , 2012
- Le Beau Danube rouge , 2013
- Les fantômes de Lockerbie , 2013
- Sauve-qui-peut à Kaboul: 1 , 2013
- Sauve-qui-peut à Kaboul: 2 , 2013
- La Vengeance du Kremlin , 2013
Film adaptations
- SAS à San Salvador ( SAS Malko - On behalf of the Pentagon ), BRD / F 1982, directed by Raoul Coutard , with Miles O'Keeffe as Malko Linge and Raimund Harmstorf as Enrico Chacon.
- Eye of the Widow , F / USA 1992, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen , with Richard Young and Mel Ferrer , German video title Malko: Eye of the Widow .
Web links
- List of series in the catalog of the German National Library
- Bloody foam burst in front of his nose. The business of violence: horror books achieve circulation records , in: Der Spiegel No. 47 of October 10, 1977
- The man who knows too much , in: Die Welt , April 21, 2013, p. 52