There was a time when one writer more than any other seemed to capture the darker side of the imaginations of a generation of young male readers, and on a vast scale too. A writer that dealt with the taboo, pushed boundaries, felt dangerous to read, was scorned by the consensus of literary respectability, but whose name was a byword for action, thrills, and sensational storytelling.
In previous decades occult horror writer Dennis Wheatley, and military action writer Sven Hassel, who wrote of the explicit adventures of an SS penal regiment, occupied this mantle and became the biggest selling authors of their respective eras. Their novels were hidden in school desks and their names carried a unique charge of static electricity and excitement.
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