In 1964, Gardner began his novelist career with The Liquidator, in which he created the character Boysie Oakes who inadvertently is mistaken to be a tough, pitiless man of action and is thereupon recruited into a British spy agency.
Following the success of his Oakes books, Gardner created new characters: Derek Torry-a Scotland Yard inspector of Italian descent[REF]-and Herbie Kruger,[REF] the latter of which appeared in a series of novels published simultaneously with his Bond works [REF].