James Atlee Phillips (1915-1991) was a colorful pulp fiction writer who also published under the name Philip Atlee. He worked as a journalist, traveled with overseas airlines, spent some time in the military, and had a stint in Hollywood, where he worked for John Wayne and he wrote the script for Robert Mitchum’s film Thunder Road. His first book was an expose of the society folks in Fort Worth, Texas, where he grew up. His name was anathema there for years afterward.
For more about Phillips, see these websites: https://what-when-how.com/pulp-fiction-writers/phillips-james-atlee-pulp-fiction-writer/
https://bigbendsentinel.com/2019/06/27/a-stealth-author-from-fort-worth-is-revealed/
Phillips started a series of spy novels in 1963 that Fawcett Gold Medal published as part of its line of paperback originals to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of Ian Fleming. His action/thriller type of story fit in perfectly with the mysteries, adventures, and Westerns that made up the Gold Medal line. His experience and that of his brother David, who was a CIA officer, added authenticity to the espionage aspects of the books. The main character Joe Gall was a semi-retired CIA agent who took contracts for specific jobs, hence the addition of the word “Contract” in each title.
In The Skeleton Coast Contract (Fawcett, 1968; Open Road Media, 2021), the eighth book of the series, Gall is offered a contract to retrieve nearly a ton of uncut alluvial diamonds from the southwest coast of Africa in a region known as the Skeleton Coast, which is now Namibia. Diamonds there are not mined, they are from an undersea deposit and are tossed up to the beach as part of tidal action. From there they could be raked off the shore. The on-site representatives of the corporate owner of the diamonds, Consolidated Diamond Mines of Southwest Africa, were discovered murdered a few months previously and a considerable haul of diamonds missing. Gall’s job was to find the diamonds and move them into Rhodesia without being caught.
There’s not a dull paragraph to be found in this well-written rip-roaring thriller. From the first few pages when a courier parachutes into Gall’s mountain hide-away with his orders to the final shootout, the action does not stop. Stolen diamonds, a jail break, the Kalahari Desert, bushmen with poison-tipped arrows, a hijacked ship, there is something for everyone. Fans of Ian Fleming or early Frederick Forsyth will love these books. Thriller readers looking for a new series and who don’t mind slightly dated themes should look into them as well. Entertaining!