Boysie Oakes is a fictional secret agent created by the British spy novelist John Gardner in 1964 at the height of a period of spy fiction mania.

Boysie Oakes
First appearanceThe Liquidator
Last appearanceA Killer for a Song
Created byJohn Gardner
Portrayed byRod Taylor
In-universe information
GenderMale
OccupationSecret Agent
NationalityBritish

Character biography

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Oakes is mistakenly recruited into a British spy agency despite being a coward who wants to be left alone. He features in eight novels over an eleven year period and eventually becomes the head of the agency.

Appearances

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Literature

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He appears in eleven novels: The Liquidator (1964), Understrike (1965), Amber Nine (1966), Madrigal (1967), Founder Member (1969), Traitor's Exit (1970), The Airline Pirates (1970), published in the U.S. as Air Apparent, and A Killer for a Song (1975).

He also appears in the short stories A Handful of Rice and Corkscrew in Hideaway (1968) and in the short stories Boysie Oakes and The Explosive Device and Sunset At Paleokastritsa in The Assassination File (1974).

Film

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The first novel in the series, The Liquidator, was made into a feature film of the same name in 1965, starring Rod Taylor as Boysie Oakes.

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