Harrys Game

Presenting: Harry’s Game (1982 Fontana edition) by Gerald… Deymour (we see you, typo—yes, it’s Gerald Seymour, the one who weaponises tension like a metronome). ISBN: 0006161383. Condition: Good, which in bookseller dialect means “lived-in, loyal, and still fully capable of raising your heart rate without so much as a car chase.”

This is the Cold Brew of Troubles-era thrillers: lean, dark, and quietly devastating. No superheroics, no gadget buffet—just human beings under pressure, decisions made in alleys and kitchens, and stakes that feel like they’ve been slipped into your coat pocket when you weren’t looking. Seymour writes the kind of sentences that check your passport and moral compass at the same time.

From the outside: classic Fontana paperback charisma—cover art that whispers “1970s news bulletin, but make it noir,” edges with honest rub, and pages with that tasteful tea-stain patina of time. The spine has been opened like a confidante, not cracked like a walnut. Expect mild page tan—think sepia filter chosen by someone with restraint. No feral underlining. No passive-aggressive highlighter. Just a seasoned copy that knows the difference between suspense and shouting.

Inside: Belfast’s shadowed streets, London’s quiet rooms, and the unnerving hum of ordinary life carrying on while extraordinary things happen out of frame. Harry goes hunting; the hunted hunts back; everyone keeps their voice down. The book’s genius is its volume control—tense at a whisper. You’ll turn pages like you’re defusing something, which, frankly, you are.

Why this copy? Because Crappy Old Books has a gift for finding decidedly un-crappy paperbacks and then underselling them with a name that lowers your expectations so the book can stroll in and exceed them. Our Good means “fully readable, delightfully shelvable, happy to be lent to a friend you actually trust.” It’s not gift-wrapped perfection; it’s the one you actually read.

Ideal for:

• Readers who prefer moral dilemmas to missile launches.

• Fans of thrillers that believe silence is louder than an explosion.

• Anyone who thinks a paperback should look like it’s been somewhere and learned something.

In short: Harry’s Game is a taut, humane thriller that keeps its cool while your pulse accelerates. A proper Fontana survivor with character in the paper and steel in the prose—brought to you by Crappy Old Books, where the name is ironic and the stock is the good kind of dangerous.

Keep browsing: See more Thrillers books Other books by Gerald Deymour