Keith Allison, Author at Diabolique Magazine

The Amazing Mod Spy Fiction and Disappearance of Adam Diment. "Adam Diment is 23. His hero, Philip McAlpine, is based on himself. That is to say he's tall, good-looking, with a taste for fast cars, planes, girls and pot." So wrote the London Sunday Times in 1967, upon the release of Adam Diment's first novel, The Dolly Dolly Spy. It's a brisk spy thriller that taps into the swinging London era, full of Carnaby Street fashion, Soho cool, and wild slang. But it turns out that the London Sunday Times had it backward; it was Adam Diment ,the author, who was based upon Philip McAlpine, the character. Or somewhere in between. Adam Diment was, when the book came out, a shaggy-haired, dope-smoking, free-love cat who wrote the counterculture equivalent of James Bond. Philip McAlpine, the hero of The Dolly Dolly Spy, did indeed bear a striking resemblance to Diment, both physically and philosophically. But how much of Diment was the real deal, and how much had been carefully crafted behind-the-scenes, molding a bland but willing Frederick Adam Diment into Adam Diment, swinging thriller writer and man of mystery—exactly what was needed to market the book and its equally popular sequels? And then, after becoming the toast of swinging London, Adam Diment vanished. It was such an abrupt and, at least to those who did not know Diment, unexpected departure from the public eye that some assumed he'd been murdered, or committed suicide, or perhaps been spirited away in the night to a seaside village full of quirky people who knew too much and needed to spend time wearing cardigan sweaters and running down the beach away from giant balloons. Some reported he was a casualty of drugs, or that he attained enlightenment. He was spotted on the beach in Ibiza and living with a mysterious Cuban-English model at a remote Italian villa. Backpackers caught sight of him in Cambodia and India. Was he living in Zurich, reeling from some shady financial fraud? Was he a student at UCLA? Was he a farmer in Kent? How had a young man who, before his 25th birthday, had written such popular books, who had more book deals and writing deals and movie deals in the works—how had such a young man so totally vanished? Had Diment not written espionage novels, his disappearance probably wouldn't have attracted as much attention. Literature is full of authors, even popular authors, who come and go in the blink of an eye, never to be heard from again, without generating so many theories as to their fate as have arisen about Adam Diment. That he was young, with moddish good looks and impeccable style, and was making the scene with a parade of beautiful young women and hip celebrities made his disappearance all the more puzzling. Who would walk away from that life? Surely there must be more to the story. Something incredible. Maybe even something sinister. Or maybe there’s not. Adam Diment, out for a prowl on the streets of swinging London. High Spy. "This espionage racket is spreading like mould, I thought. Soon I won’t have a friend left who’s not in the racket."—Adam Diment, The Great Spy Race I don't remember how Adam Diment first came to my attention. Born in the 1970s as I was, I was not on the Adam Diment bandwagon in the 1960s, though that bandwagon was huge. The Dolly Dolly Spy sold over a million copies in its first year, was translated into seventeen languages, and netted Diment the single biggest advance ever given to an unpublished author. He toured the US and UK and was fêted at every stop, except for the ones where squares showed up to heckle his flamboyant attire and long hair. But even those encounters only fueled the fire of his popularity. Back when I first heard about Diment, sometime around 2014, the path to learning more about him was straight and narrow. one did an internet search and ended up at Rob Baker's website, Another Nickel in the Machine. His 2009 post, "The Disappearance of the Author Adam Diment," was, at the time, the most complete account of the strange legacy of Adam. Baker's own research and the many comments left by former friends and business acquaintances of Adam Diment still serve, to this day, as the ideal starting point for anyone interested in Diment's story. Between 2009 and 2015, most articles about Diment paraphrased Baker's. In 2015, John Michael O'Sullivan, writing for Esquire UK, took the next step. He pored over the comments on Baker's article and tracked down everyone he could find who might provide insight, confirm or disprove rumors, and hopefully lead him to the elusive Adam Diment. On his surreal odyssey, O'Sullivan spoke to former friends, colleagues, and girlfriends of Adam Diment, including Suzie Mandrake, one of Diment's frequent partners in crime and a remarkable story in her own right. O'Sullivan spoke to publishers, publishers' assistants, and Diment's old roommate, Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice, who went on to write lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita. He talked to backpackers, hotel clerks, and others whose ship passed in the night with Adam Diment. He spoke to relatives. He got close to what was most likely Adam Diment's home, only to find an open front door and an empty house. He tracked Diment to a hotel in Cambodia, only to have the conversation with the front desk go from,"Yes he's here," to" Sorry, he just left," in the blink of an eye. O'Sullivan's article was posted to the Esquire UK website in November and appeared in the December 2015 print issue. Between Baker and O'Sullivan, they represent the first and last word on the strange saga of Adam Diment. While I will recount pieces of it, I suggest that you go to those two sources. They're the ones who did the leg work and deserve the accolades. What is often mentioned only in passing are the Philip McAlpine books themselves. Much that is written about them is, in my opinion, a bit off. Three of them—The Dolly Dolly Spy, The Great Spy Race, and The Bang Bang Birds—were published in 1967 and '68. The fourth, Think, Inc., came out in 1971. They are not comedies, nor exactly are they spoofs, though many articles refer to them as such. Diment was contracted for two more Philip McAlpine books, which never materialized since the author dematerialized. They certainly contain satire, but the books are pretty grounded despite their fanciful attire, and in the case of Think, Inc., surprisingly bleak. They are also snapshots, if exaggerated—like Adam Diment himself—of life in London during the 1960s. Although inevitably compared to Ian Fleming and James Bond, Diment and Philip McAlpine have more in common with The IPCRESS File, Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm, and the morally grey antiheroes of John Le Carre. That none of the books has been in print for decades contributes to people who write about them relying on hearsay and second-hand knowledge. They are available on the second-hand market, but the second-hand market being what it is, that means you could be seeing prices anywhere from $2 to $40 for a paperback. Let's begin our journey through the psychedelic world of Diment and McAlpine by doing what I just complained about: writing about James Bond. From Cool to Fool. "‘I think the sexy spy’s going out of vogue, don’t you, Bill, darling?’"—Adam Diment, The Dolly Dolly Spy There's no one event that sparked the era known in retrospect as swinging London, but the book to which I refer to most often as a concise history of the era, Shawn Levy's Ready! Steady! Go!, names three players that served as major flashpoints: David Bailey, Mary Quant, and the Beatles (Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, and the Rolling Stones get in on the fun as well). Bailey was a fashion photographer who eschewed norms and famous models in favor of searching London clubs and streets for more contemporary, realistic models. He happened upon a young woman named Jean Shrimpton, photographed her, and turned her and her look into the face and style of the era. Mary Quant was a young fashion designer who wanted to make cool, affordable clothes for kids who had some—but not much—money and fewer inhibitions than their parents. She opened a shop, designed her own clothes, and invented a thing called the miniskirt. And the Beatles became the fucking Beatles. All spy fiction is viewed through the lens of James Bond. Ian Fleming's creation cast a long shadow, and EON's cinematic version casts a longer shadow still. When we look back on the legacy of James Bond, we tend to think of the series as the apex of cool, despite the forays into "attitudes of the time" around the portrayals of women and minorities. We do the same thing for other retro icons: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley...Perry Como. OK, maybe not Perry Como. But a slew of other things that came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s are regarded fondly as pretty cool. This state is one that can only be arrived at when the tastes of an era are far enough removed from their actual era that they become compressed and without nuance; what was cool in the 1960s was cool in all of the 1960s, to all of the people, regardless of age or race or whether it was early or later '60s. The passage of time make bedfellows of such diverse things as Martin Denny, Honeybus, and James Brown. And James Bond. Bond was, and still is, usually defined as cool—if a tad out of step with modern moral sensibilities. However, had I been a twenty-something in the late '60s, it’s likely I wouldn’t have felt the same way. If I had been that age at that time, I suspect I would have been very much into the swinging London scene. I suspect that in large part because I am, now. Clockwise from top left: Jean Shrimpton, photographed by David Bailey; Mary Quant, the inventor of the miniskirt, makes sure the hemline isn't too low; David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton. Bond vs. the Brit Beat. "McAlpine is the most modern hero in years. He’s hip, he’s hard, he likes birds and, sometimes...