De Villiers, prolific French spy author, dead at 83

Prolific spy novelist Gerard De Villiers, the creator of the top-selling SAS series with a hero often described as France’s answer to James Bond, has died aged 83 in Paris.

De Villiers’s wife Christine said he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May and had been undergoing chemotherapy.

“The last weeks he was conscious but very weak. He could not endure the chemotherapy,” she told AFP. “It is exactly the death that he did not want.”

Never a darling of the critics, De Villiers was nonetheless a publishing phenomenon, claiming his books sold between 120 and 150 million copies worldwide.

The 200th book in the series — “SAS: The Kremlin’s Revenge” — was released last month.

Instantly recognisable by their lurid covers inevitably featuring a femme fatale brandishing a handgun or assault rifle, his work was shunned by France’s literary establishment.

But outside literary circles, De Villiers was often praised for his geopolitical insights and was known for cultivating a vast network of intelligence officials, diplomats and journalists who fed him information.

The New York Times newspaper ran a profile on him early this year in which it said his books were “ahead of the news” and “regularly contain information about terror plots, espionage and wars that has never appeared elsewhere”.

His death came as he seemed on the verge of realising a long-cherished dream of breaking into the English-language market, with reports he was working on a deal with a major US publisher.

In an interview with newspaper Le Monde this summer, De Villiers said Random House had offered him $350,000 (260,000 euros) for the rights to five SAS books that would be translated into English. He said he hoped the deal would eventually lead to Hollywood films.

De Villiers gleaned much of his information from field trips around the world, giving credence to the exploits of his aristocratic Austrian hero, Malko Linge, who works as a freelance agent for the CIA to fund the restoration of his family chateau.

The books stuck to a well-trod formula — fast-moving plots, exotic locales and generous doses of graphic sex.

“I never had any pretensions of being a literary writer,” De Villiers told AFP an interview this year. “I consider myself a storyteller who writes to amuse people.”

Born in Paris on December 8, 1929, De Villiers was working as a journalist when he drew inspiration from the success of Ian Fleming’s James Bond series to write his first novel, “SAS in Istanbul”, in 1965.

He went on to publish an average of four SAS novels — so-called after Linge’s honorific “Son Altesse Serenissime” (His Most Serene Highness) — every year, writing them over a month on a 1976 IBM typewriter.

He was often lambasted for his right-wing views, criticised for his overtly sexual portrayals of women and accused of racism.

But De Villiers was unapologetic.

“Some women are sexual objects in my books but others are beautiful, intelligent and brave. And I am always warmly welcomed in Africa, where I have very many readers,” he said.

De Villiers, prolific French spy author, dead at 83