Malko Linge, full-time Austrian prince, has been on France’s bestseller lists since 1965. In the books, Prince Malko works as a part-time freelance for the CIA to pay his Austrian castle’s upkeep.
The creation of novelist Gerard de Villiers, Malko (also known as SAS – Son Altesse Serenissime, or His Most Serene Highness) is a spy who takes on the world’s evildoers. De Villiers, 74, whose page-turners are dense with sex and violence, said world events supply him with plenty of material for plots. He turns out a manuscript every quarter.
French intellectuals turn their noses up at the books and they are rarely sold in bookstores. That doesn’t seem to have thwarted their popularity. Kiosks at train stations and airports, among other populist venues have sold more than 200,000 copies of each title. The series has about a million readers a year.
“Finding a story four times a year is not a problem – the news delivers more material than I can use“, says de Villiers.
The latest SAS, “Red Lebanon“, was released Jan. 3 and quickly rose to the number three slot in French fiction bestsellers. The intrigue is about American, Israeli and Saudi spies working together to kidnap Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah, shortly after the 33-day Lebanese-Israeli conflict of July 2006.
The rest is about Malko’s sexual escapades, including his desperate effort to seduce Rima, a prudish Lebanese Shiite.
In the next novel, Malko will be investigating Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko’s death by poisoning in London last November. “Polonium 210” will be released on April 4.
Two of the books have been filmed in the eighties. One reviewer on IMDB gave the movie “SAS à San Salvador” a rating of 1/10. “And that 1 is for the tits!”
