Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens

Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens are fictional counterspies who appeared in short stories by the British mystery and thriller writer Michael Gilbert in the 1960s through the 1980s. Most of the stories were collected in two books, Game without Rules and Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens; there may still be some uncollected works. When Game without Rules first appeared in 1967, the New York Times critic Anthony Boucher called it the second best collection of spy stories ever written, next only to Somerset Maugham's Ashenden: Or the British Agent. Later that year Boucher changed his mind to write that Game without Rules was even better than Ashenden.

The two counterspies are outwardly gentlemanly and urbane but beneath their innocuous appearance are exceedingly hard-boiled killers who work for a Mr. Fortescue at the Joint Services Standing Committee, more often known as JSSIC(E). The cover of Mr. Fortescue is that of bank manager at the Westminster branch of the London and Home Counties Bank. As one adversary refers to them bitterly just before dying, they are "middle-aged cut-throats" who joined the JSSIC(E) in the mid-1950s and, by the time the stories end, have grown old but no softer.