Philip McAlpine Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Dolly Dolly Spy | 1967 | Buy |
| The Great Spy Race | 1968 | Buy |
| The Bang Bang Birds | 1968 | Buy |
| Think Inc | 1971 | Buy |
Adam Diment burst onto the British literary scene in 1967 with The Dolly Dolly Spy, his first novel, published when he was just 22 years old. The book introduced Philip McAlpine, a pot-smoking, long-haired young spy who was everything James Bond was not. Diment’s publisher, Michael Joseph, promoted him as the “anti-Bond” writer, and the press took notice. His youth, good looks, and swinging London lifestyle made him a minor celebrity.
Diment wrote three more McAlpine novels in quick succession: The Great Spy Race and The Bang Bang Birds both appeared in 1968, followed by Think Inc in 1971. The books captured the mood of late-1960s counterculture, mixing espionage plots with a casual, irreverent tone that felt fresh compared to the Cold War seriousness of most spy fiction at the time.
After Think Inc, Diment vanished from the publishing world entirely. He gave no interviews, published nothing further, and left no public explanation for his departure. His four novels went out of print and became collector’s items. For fans of 1960s spy fiction, Diment remains a curiosity: a writer who arrived with real energy, produced a short, distinctive body of work, and then simply walked away.