Philip St. Ives

Created by Oliver Bleeck (Ross Thomas)

The very urbane PHILIP ST. IVES is a bit different from your average private eye. Sure, he's certainly not above the traditional private eye virtues of brain and brawn, but there's no rundown office, no bottle of rotgut in the desk drawer waiting for him at the end of a hard day slogging down the mean streets of some crime-ridden, corrupt city he can never seem to escape. Nope, St. Ives is a jetsetter whose beat seems to be the world. His cases take him to London, Yugoslavia, Rotterdam, Washington, and all points in between and along the way. And no sleazy divorce work for Phil either. He's a former police reporter turned professional go-between, a sort of semi-legit middleman working to negotiate the return of stolen property or even kidnap victims from the bad guys .

Above-average thrillers, with a dry sense of humour at work. And no wonder--Oliver Bleeck is the pseudonym of world-renowned thriller author Ross Thomas.

There was even a film made from The Procane Chronicle starring none other than Charles Bronson. It certainly takes liberties with the source material, and the ending is uncharacteristically light-hearted, considering all that's lead up to it. Still, while the film won't make anyone forget The Maltese Falcon or Chinatown, it's certainly one of the better things Bronson's ever done, and the supporting cast is dynamite. Jacqueline Bissett is breathtakingly beautiful, if underused, and it's great fun to see some of the supporting cast on their way to bigger and better roles. And Elisha Cook Jr., the apparently hardest working man in hardboiled crime films, drops in for a bit part.

UNDER OATH

• In the film, St. Ives,, the character becomes Raymond St. Ives (instead of Philip). It's based on the third book in the series, The Procane Chronicle. It was mildly enjoyable (does sport a, not at all graphic, sex scene in which Jacqueline Bisset asks to be hit; after some hesitation, a reluctant St. Ives complies), but I'm a caper film fan. More importantly, it led me to Ross Thomas."
  (Mark Sullivan)

NOVELS

• The Brass Go-Between (1969)
• Protocol for a Kidnapping (1971)
• The Procane Chronicle (1972; AKA The Thief Who Painted Sunlight)
• The Highbinders (1974)
• No Questions Asked (1976)

FILMS

• ST.IVES. Buy this video
  (1976, Warner Brothers)
  94 minutes
  Written by Barry Beckerman
  Based on The Procane Chronicles by Oliver Bleeck
  Directed by J. Lee Thompson
  Produced by Pancho Kohner
  Starring Charles Bronson as RAYMOND ST. IVES (Philip in the book)
  Also starring Jacqueline Bisset, John Houseman, Maximilian Schell, Harry Guardino, Dana Elcar, Dick O'Neill, Elisha Cook Jr., Daniel J. Travanti, Michael Lerner, Jeff Goldblum, Robert Englund

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

Associate Member