John Brock

John Brock is a fictional British undercover agent created by Desmond Skirrow. He appeared in three fast-paced, witty, and irreverent spy novels written in the late 1960s. Like his creator, he is an advertising executive in London but also a part-time agent for an secret department on the Addison Road run by The Fat Man. Brock is tough, witty, extremely competent, and supremely resilient. Even by fictional standards, he absorbs incredible amounts of physical damage at the hands of his adversaries before, after a few whiskeys and a few hours sleep, he is ready for his next fight against overwhelming odds and, quite likely, yet another beating.

At the time of his first appearance in It Won't Get You Anywhere, published in 1966, Brock is mostly likely in his early 40s, a large (at least 6'1"), tough, extremely fit man who had apparently served with British special forces in small boats during World War II. An elliptical reference to climbing Gothic church spires, a traditional Oxford student activity, indicates that he may have attended that university before his military service.