Knife references in books.

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DMG

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Some authors are accurate in their description of tools and weapons used by their characters.

For example, Thomas Harris gave Lecter a Spyderco Civilian in Silence of the Lambs. (The movie made it a Harpie, iirc)

In the Border Trilogy Cormac McCarthy gave the boys a Marbles hunting knife and gave the pimp that fought John Cole an Italian stiletto.

What other books have specific, accurate descriptions of blades?
 
Donald Hamilton.

The author of the old out of print Matt Helm series was a knife guy, and was very detailed in his use of knives for his agent protagonist semi hero. He used everything from an old Weidmansheild German folder to a Buck 110, to a Swiss Army knife. In one story he even had agent Helm cut a bad guys throat with a semi sharp Boy Scout knife.

A used book store may have old copies of the novels, they are very very good reading.
 
Without Remorse (Tom Clancy) - Clarke Kelly uses a KaBar 1217
Point of Impact (Stephen Hunter) - I'm sure I remember Bob Lee Swagger has a Randall right in the beginning, in the hunt scene.
 
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Marathon Man has a detailed description of the blade carried by the evil nazi dentist. Talks about it like a surgical instrument with a steep thick bevel. In the movie it's just some nondescript knife.
 
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Mary gave him a brand-new "Barlow" knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a "sure-enough" Barlow, and there was inconceivable grandeur in that -- though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin on the bureau, when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.
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Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
 
robert marcinko "red cell" - field fighter
david morell "the protector" - cqc7
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DMG said:
... I don’t understand why he could t cut anything with it.
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no sharpening skill ?
 
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unwisefool said:
It was either a dulled knife for children or it was a cheap knife with no edge
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I doubt the were making childproof stuff in the 1840s and it said in the book that it was a genuine Barlow. Maybe he dulled it and wasn’t able to sharpen it?

this is something I have wondered about every time I reread Tom Sawyer.
 
Here is a quote from Huckleberry Finn where people were apparently using their Barlows.
Shamelessly borrowed from this site:
http://barlow-knives.com/history.htm


“All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country-people hitched their horses to the awning-posts. There was empty dry-goods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching – a mighty ornery lot.”
– Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
 
Judges 3:16-22 KJV
But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. [17] And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man. [18] And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present. [19] But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king: who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him. [20] And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat. [21] And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: [22] And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.
 
DMG said:
I doubt the were making childproof stuff in the 1840s and it said in the book that it was a genuine Barlow. Maybe he dulled it and wasn’t able to sharpen it?

this is something I have wondered about every time I reread Tom Sawyer.
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That's why I thought Barlow was in quotes, because it wasn't real
 
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Lawrence Block, the famous mystery writer, surprised me with his knife knowledge in a few books. He actually used to attend the NY custom knife show a bit. Here's an old story he wrote about it years ago (you can see it must have been early in his knife education) -

https://books.google.com/books?id=2OECAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7&dq=lawrence+block+custom+knives&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-w6jq7t3tAhXyUjUKHV33C8EQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=lawrence block custom knives&f=false .

William Burroughs was another author with a small time collectors bend, here he is with his Ruana 30-A -

william-burroughs-weilding-a-knife.jpg
.

Hunter Thompson had a small collection of Gerbers and Al Mar knives.

David Morrell, as mentioned is a collector, and usually get things right.

Hemingway had a knife made for him by J Mongin of France, you can see a copy here -

https://www.couteaux-berthier.com/s...-by-j-mongin-mongin,us,4,MONGIN_HEMINGWAY.cfm .

David Mamet, screen writer and playwrite is very friendly with Bill Bagwell.

Etc....
 
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The writer James Jones was a knife collector too, the Randall #16 dive knife was actually made at his request for a purpose built dive knife. Randall's show up in his books quite a bit.
 
Kim Stanley Robinson mentioned SAKs in a couple books of his I read. It's been a few years each, but in Antarctica, a character carves up a lobster for dinner with a large SAK, and in Red Mars, a SAK is mentioned being added to a tool kit Nadia puts together early in the book. I don't recall any other mentions in either book.
 
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"Got tight on absinthe last night. Did knife tricks."
–Ernest Hemingway, personal letters.

"While they were at the limekilns the would-be escapers made themselves two knives: they chiseled strips of metal from shovels, sharpened them at the blacksmith's shop, tempered them, and cast tin handles for them in clay molds."
–Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago.
 
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