U.N.C.L.E.

Open Channel D. Somewhere behind an unremarkable tailor's shop in New York, a steel door slides back on the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement — U.N.C.L.E. — a stateless agency answerable to no single flag, and the only thing standing between an ordinary Tuesday and the ambitions of THRUSH. Its two best men make an unlikely pair: Napoleon Solo, all charm and pressed lapels, and Illya Kuryakin, cool and Slavic and quietly lethal. Under old Mr. Waverly's eye they go where governments cannot, and they come back — usually. These adventures began on television and spilled, grittier and freer, into print. The spine is the run of Ace paperbacks, each a self-contained "Affair": David McDaniel is the standout hand, the man who gave THRUSH its shadowy backstory across titles like The Dagger Affair and the sly, detective-studded The Rainbow Affair, with Peter Leslie, Harry Whittington, John Jakes and others filling out the roster. Around that core orbit the Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine novellas, published under the house name Robert Hart Davis by a rotating stable including Dennis Lynds; a spin-off following April Dancer, the Girl from U.N.C.L.E.; separate British editions; and slim juveniles for younger recruits. The pleasure here is mid-century and unhurried: exotic datelines, absurd doomsday hardware, communicator pens, innocent bystanders swept into the game, and above all the martini-dry double act of Solo and Kuryakin trading needling banter while the fuse burns down. Nothing carries over — each book is one clean mission, read in any order. Newcomers should simply pick up a McDaniel; The Dagger Affair or The Rainbow Affair are the finest of them, and publication order serves for the rest.