THE NEW AVENGERS OFFICIAL NOVELISATIONS

House of Cards by Peter Cave

Published by Futura Publications in 1976, this was the first New Avengers paperback.  It was published in the USA by our good friends at Berkeley Medallion in October, 1978.  The story is based on the screenplay for the TV episode, House of Cards, which was written by Brian Clemens (who gets no credit anywhere in the book).  There was also a hardcover edition of this published in the UK.

From the back of the UK edition:

HOUSE OF CARDS...
Codename for a terrifying game of espionage: twelve 'sleeping' Russian agents conditioned by narco-hypnosis to live for years as normal English citizens, unless they receive a torn playing card.  At that point they become deadly, mindless killers, each programmed to destroy a specific human target.
THE NEW AVENGERS
John Steed, Mike Gambit and the exquisite Purdey find themselves trapped in a web of terror and assassination as the House of Cards mysteriously begins to crumble and killer after killer is unleashed against the top men in British Intelligence.  Among the targets - John Steed himself...
HOUSE OF CARDS
The first in a new series based on the TV series, THE NEW AVENGERS, starring Patrick Macnee, Joanna  Lumley and Gareth Hunt.

Price 55p

From the back cover of the US edition:
CODE NAME:  HOUSE OF CARDS
SUBJECT:  ASSASSINATION
TARGET:  ONE JOHN STEED

Assigned to rescue a Soviet defector, the impeccable Steed, the voluptuous Purdey and the dashing Gambit find themselves targeted in a nightmare deep agent plot: 12 Soviet "sleepers", narco-programmed for terror and triggered by a torn deck of cards, marching like zombies on British Intelligence with orders to kill.

Price $1.50

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