Desmond Skirrow

Desmond Skirrow (1923–1976) was a British advertising executive and thriller writer. Born in Wales, he was a painter, designer, journalist and a creative director for ad agencies. In the late 1960s he wrote three outstanding spy novels about a fictional British agent named John Brock. Like his creator, Brock works in advertising in London, but is also a part-time agent for an undercover department run by The Fat Man. The three novels are tough, irreverent, and witty. He also wrote another novel, Poor Quail, about an advertising executive's move to the countryside, that apparently is not about his secret agent.

Punch called the John Brock books "the Chandler formula, basically, but louder and funnier," while a critic for the Sunday Express wrote that "When I opened his first novel, a thriller, I got the impression that the late Raymond Chandler had come back to life, reanimated perhaps by some of the crude vitality of Mr Mickey Spillane." The Guardian said about his next book that it was "Much better written than much of the turgid solemnity that passes for serious fiction. Neat, sharp, well observed, and extremely funny."

Skirrow also wrote a bit of verse that is included in the New Oxford Book of Light Verse:

Gods chase

Round vase.

What say?

What play?

Don't know.

Nice, though.

Novels

• The Case of the Silver Egg — The Bodley Head, London, 1966; Doubleday, New York, 1968, ISBN 9990371512; children's or young adult book
• It Won't Get You Anywhere — The Bodley Head, London, 1966; Lippincott, New York, 1966, ISBN 0552079111; John Brock novel
• I Was Following This Girl — The Bodley Head, London, 1967; Doubleday, New York, 1966, ISBN 0552081159; John Brock novel
• I'm Trying to Give It Up — The Bodley Head, London, 1968; Doubleday, New York, 1969, ISBN 0370006445; John Brock novel
• Poor Quail — The Bodley Head, London, 1969, ISBN 0370014049; humorous novel