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Fans of Mick Herron's critically acclaimed Slough House/Slow Horses book series can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The long-awaited ninth instalment, titled “Clown Town,” is set to hit bookshelves on August 30, 2025, according to recent reports.

Following the events of Bad Actors, the new 336-page novel promises to plunge readers back into the world of London's most unpredictable intelligence operatives. The book's description, released by the publisher, hints at a plot rife with blackmail, buried secrets, and the trademark dark humor that has made the series a standout in contemporary spy fiction.

A Circus of SpiesThe novel's title appears to play on the intelligence community's nickname, “the Circus,” with Jackson Lamb's disgraced agents taking center stage as the titular clowns. As one tantalizing quote from the book suggests: “They used to call our shop the Circus. Well if this is a circus, Jackson, you're in charge of the clowns.”

Old Ghosts and New Threats“Clown Town” looks set to delve into the murky past of British intelligence operations during the Troubles, as Diana Taverner grapples with potential fallout from exposed secrets. Meanwhile, River Cartwright finds himself embroiled in a mystery surrounding his late grandfather's library, uncovering a web of intrigue that threatens to entangle the entire Slough House team.

Familiar faces return, with Louisa Guy, Shirley Dander, Roddy Ho, and Catherine Standish all playing their parts in what promises to be another high-stakes, darkly comedic adventure.

A Reckoning on the HorizonAs tensions mount and Taverner's schemes unfold, Jackson Lamb faces the challenge of reining in his unruly band of misfits. The book's synopsis ominously warns that “if they don't all come home, there'll be a reckoning,” suggesting that the slow horses may be galloping towards their most dangerous mission yet.

With its blend of political intrigue, personal vendettas, and the ever-present threat of betrayal, “Clown Town” looks set to continue the series' tradition of subverting spy fiction tropes while delivering a gripping narrative.

Fans of the Slough House series can mark their calendars for August 30, 2025, though this is subject to change. As always, Spybrary.com will keep you updated on any developments in the world of spy fiction.

Sign up for our monthly Spybrary Briefing to stay informed.

Join the Spy Book Podcast Community Discussion

Spybrary is more than just a spy podcast; it's a friendly community to chat with fellow spy book and spy film fans from around the world. We encourage you to share your views on each spy book/movie, engage in discussion with fellow fans, and immerse yourself in the captivating world of spy fiction, spy fact and spy films.

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The James Bond Book Club

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time in the year of publication, as we embark on this 007 James Bond literary adventure together.

Shane Whaley – Spybrary Podcast Host

Are you a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond books? If so, you won't want to miss the latest episode of the James Bond Book Club presented by Spybrary. In this episode, host Shane Whaley and guests David Craggs, Andy Onyx, Frieda Toth and Hildebrand's Ian Douglas dive deep into Ian Fleming's controversial and highly divisive novel The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) as if they are in the year of publication.

This episode is now available to watch on YouTube.

They provide fascinating analysis and insight into The Spy Who Loved Me plot, characters, and writing style. You'll hear their thoughts on how Ian Fleming's latest James Bond novel compares to other James Bond novels and get a glimpse into the success of Ian Fleming's writing. Whether you're a die-hard James Bond fan or just love a good book club style discussion, this episode offers a detailed and engaging look at The Spy Who Loved Me and all its elements. Tune in now to join the conversation!

We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, the locations, the femme fatale, the allies, and the glamour.

All that and much more on the latest edition of the James Bond Book Club, available on all good podcast apps and at the link in the first comment. Will you join us in 1962?

What exactly is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club, and what makes it different from other 007 James Bond book clubs?Step into a time machine and journey back to the thrilling era of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels on the captivating James Bond Book Club podcast. Delve into the pages of each 007 adventure as we unravel the secrets hidden within, exploring many captivating themes that will transport you to a different time and place.

Uncover the magic behind each novel as we analyze the significance of its publication year, immersing ourselves in the very essence of the zeitgeist and uncovering the historical and cultural events that shaped Fleming's gripping tales. Gain insight into the author's brilliant creation James Bond, as we explore the personal experiences that inspired the intriguing plots and characters.

Indulge your senses with the visual delights of the U.K.'s first edition cover art, marveling at the iconic designs that graced the books' covers and examining their artistic symbolism. Traverse the globe alongside Bond as we traverse the richly described locations, from glamorous cities to exotic locales, (do mud baths in Saratoga, count?) all brought vividly to life through Fleming's masterful prose.

Witness the evolution of Bond's character, peeling back the layers of his complex persona and understanding the choices that have molded him into the indomitable secret agent we know and sometimes love. Meet the unforgettable villains who threaten Bond's very existence, their nefarious plans and motivations dissected to reveal the depths of their malevolence.

Enter the world of seductive femme fatales who leave their mark on Bond's heart and the story's narrative, exploring the enigmatic allure and dangerous charms they possess. Discover the diverse supporting characters playing pivotal roles in James Bond's adventures, each leaving an indelible impact on the reader.

Unravel the luxury brands that have become synonymous with James Bond, exploring the marketing and iconic imagery associated with the legendary spy. Relive the most thrilling moments and pulse-pounding set pieces that define each novel, immersing yourself in the heart-stopping chapters that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Lastly, witness each novel's critical reception, discover how these literary masterpieces were received at the time of their release and understand their lasting impact on the spy genre. But remember, in our journey through Fleming's world, we'll focus solely on the books, deliberately omitting any reference to the iconic 007 movies.

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time, as we embark on this literary adventure together. Be sure to explore our vast library of previous episodes, where we've explored the captivating world of the James Bond Book Club. Join us and immerse yourself in the gripping universe of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

This is the James Bond Book Club on Spybrary.

Ian Fleming's Goldfinger on the James Bond Book ClubThe James Bond Book Club – Dr Nohttp://www.spybrary.com/182James Bond Book Club – MoonrakerThe post The Spy Who Loved Me – Ian Fleming’s Boldest Experiment Yet! appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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Inside the Iranian Embassy Siege with Ben MacintyreIn this riveting episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, guest host David Clark is joined by author and investigative journalist Tim Tate to dissect his latest espionage non-fiction book To Catch A Spy which examines the enigmatic and controversial history surrounding Roger Hollis the former MI5 Director General, Margaret Thatcher, Peter Wright and the explosive Spycatcher affair!

Researched like an intelligence officer, argued like a barrister, and as engaging and intriguing as a Le Carré, Tate presents a critical and compelling analysis which makes for both a fascinating and disturbing portrayal of how a government treated truth, justice, and public accountability with disdain.'

Simon Ball, International Association For Intelligence Education European Chapter

Watch our conversation on Spybrary TV – To Catch A Spy -How the Spycatcher Affair Brought MI5 in from the Cold with Tim TateKey Discussion Points:

  1. The Lord Burke Trend Investigation:

    • Hear more about Lord Burke Trent's comprehensive 1975 inquiry into suspicions that Roger Hollis might have been a Soviet spy. Although Margaret Thatcher later claimed Hollis was cleared, newly released 2023 memos reveal a startling 80-20 probability judgment against Hollis, exposing a profound discrepancy.
    • The Unfinished Business of the Spycatcher Trial:

    • Explore the complexities and high stakes behind the British government’s attempts to ban Peter Wright’s memoir, “Spycatcher,” and the subsequent litigations plus revelations of Thatcher's misleading statements, and the notorious Streisand effect that turned the book into a global bestseller.

    • Intrigues and Paranoia

    • Uncover the dynamics between key figures such as Chapman Pincher, Victor Rothschild, and Peter Wright. Delve into Wright's relentless pursuit of truth within MI5 and how Cold War paranoia fueled complex espionage webs.

    • Counterintelligence Conundrums:

    • Analyze the persistent ambiguity and moral grayness inherent in counterintelligence work, as seen in the case of MI5's Roger Hollis. How do operations and detections of espionage blur lines between proof and suspicion?

    • Harold Wilson Plot:

    • Examine the alleged plot by MI5 officers, led by Peter Wright, to force Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s resignation using gathered information and Soviet defector claims, casting new light on internal intelligence machinations.

    • Talking Spy Fiction:

    • Tim Tate’s preference for Len Deighton's spy novels and their portrayal of class divides within espionage, comparing them to modern spy fiction like John le Carré, which evoke moral ambiguity and the true nature of espionage combatting glamorized cultural depictions.

    • Thatcher and the Legacy of Lies:
    • Reflect on the broader implications of Thatcher’s deceptive statements, the unresolved secrets that still shadow intelligence services today, and the ongoing need for transparency and legal reforms.
    • Tim Tate’s Upcoming Works:
    • Get a sneak peek into Tim Tate’s upcoming book investigating the recruitment of Nazi war criminals by British and U.S. intelligence for Cold War purposes—an ambitious project three and a half years in the making.

Call to Action: For those intrigued by the intricate world of spies, secrets, and treachery, don’t miss out on Tim Tate’s To Catch A Spy.

Dive deeper into the Spybrary archives for more interviews rich with espionage insight and historical revelations!

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts about the episode in our Spybrary community to engage with like-minded espionage enthusiasts.

More about To Catch A Spy -How the Spycatcher Affair Brought MI5 in from the Cold with Tim TateThe Spycatcher affair remains one of the most intriguing moments in the history of British intelligence and a pivotal point in the public's relationship with the murky world of espionage and security. It lifted the lid on alleged Soviet infiltration of British services and revealed a culture of law-breaking, bugging and burgling. But how much do we know about the story behind the scandal?

In To Catch a Spy, Tim Tate reveals the astonishing true story of the British government's attempts to silence whistleblower Peter Wright and hide the truth about Britain's intelligence services and political elites. It's a story of state-sanctioned cover-up plots; of the government lying to Parliament and courts around the world; and of stories leaked with the intention to mislead and deceive.

This is a tale of high treason and low farce. Drawing on thousands of pages of previously unpublished court transcripts, the contents of secret British government files, and original interviews with many of the key players in the Spycatcher trials, it draws back the curtain on a hidden world. A world where spies, politicians and Britain's most senior civil servants conspired to ride roughshod over the law, prevented the public from hearing about their actions and mounted a cynical conspiracy to deceive the world. It is the story of Peter Wright's ruthless and often lawless obsession to uncover Russian spies, both real and imagined, his belated determination to reveal the truth and the lengths to which the British government would go to silence him.

Tim Tate is a multi-award-winning documentary film-maker, investigative journalist and best-selling author. Over a career spanning 45 years he has written for most national newspapers and made more than 80 documentaries for British and international broadcasters. His films have been honoured by Amnesty International, the Royal Television Society, UNESCO, the International Documentary Association, the Association for International Broadcasting, the [US] National Academy of Cable Broadcasting and the New York Festivals.

He is the author of 18 published non-fiction books. His most recent work, The Spy Who Was Left Out In The Cold (Transworld, UK/St Martin's Press, US) uncovered the secret history of Cold War superspy Michał Goleniewski. Hitler's British Traitors (Icon Books) revealed the untold story of espionage, sabotage and treachery by pro-Nazi British fascists during the Second World War. It was selected as Book of The Week by The Times. His 2018 book Hitler's Forgotten Children (Elliott & Thompson), which told the story of the Nazi Lebensborn program through the life of one of its victims, Ingrid von Oelhafen, has been translated into twelve languages and published in 16 countries. Tim is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Tim Tate unpicks the fascinating complexity of the Spycatcher affair. In a wilderness of mirrors, the worst betrayal was in Number 10.Honourable Malcolm Turnbull

Tim Tate reveals an extraordinary tale of spying scandals, mixed with Government skulduggery, which spiralled out of control and turned into a prolonged and very English farce.Rt. Hon. Neil (Lord) Kinnock, former leader of Labour Party (1983–1992)

Tate lifts the lid on one of the most controversial periods of MI5's history, an era when MI5 sought to silence its very own spycatcher.Dr Helen Fry, author of Women in Intelligence

Researched like an intelligence officer, argued like a barrister, and as engaging and intriguing as a Le Carré, Tate presents a critical and compelling analysis which makes for both a fascinating and disturbing portrayal of how a government treated truth, justice, and public accountability with disdain.Simon Ball, International Association For Intelligence Education European Chapter

Tim Tate uses hitherto unpublished court evidence and withheld official files to charge the Thatcher government with deceptionCountry Life

What a story it is … I'm grateful to Mr Tate for reminding us of this important and occasionally comic episode.Lobster

An enthralling account of the paranoias of Cold War Britain.Nick Cohen

Buy your copy of To Catch A Spy by Tim Tate – its Spybrary Approved!

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy To Catch A Spy by Tim Tate * Follow Tim Tate on Twitter/X * Other books by Tim Tate * Follow David Clark on X * Len Deighton Books * The Charlie Muffin book series by Brian Freemantle as recommended by David Clark and seconded by Spybrary's Shane Whaley * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Bringing Jackson Lamb (Slow Horses) to life with actor Gary Oldman In this captivating episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, join host Shane Whaley as he sits down briefly with the legendary actor Gary Oldman, who portrays the enigmatic Jackson Lamb in the hit TV adaptation of Mick Herron‘s “Slow Horses.” Gary Oldman reveals how Jackson Lamb first appeared on his radar and the differences working with spy authors Mick Herron and John le Carré on Slow Horses and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

A big thank you to Catherine Spillane and Gary ‘The Fixer' Dexter for arranging this short but sweet chat with Gary Oldman.

Watch our conversation with Gary Oldman on YouTube.Show Notes:

Introduction:

[00:00:00] Host Shane Whaley welcomes listeners and introduces the acclaimed actor, Gary Oldman.

Gary Oldman's Journey to Jackson Lamb:

[00:00:56] Gary reveals the fortuitous events that led him to the role of Jackson Lamb.

[00:01:39] Gary elaborates on his wish list for a perfect TV role and how “Slow Horses” serendipitously matched his criteria.

Collaboration with Mick Herron:

[00:02:58] Gary shares amusing anecdotes about Mick Heron's hands-off approach to character insights and his collaborative spirit.

[00:03:37] The conversation touches on how adaptations often require trimming the source material and Mick's laid-back attitude about these changes.

How Mick Herron and John le Carré have very different personalities:

[00:04:24] Gary makes an interesting comparison between Mick Heron and John le Carré’s engagement with their characters and stories.

Upcoming Works and Future Possibilities:

[00:04:45] Discussion about Mick Herron's potential upcoming ninth book in the “Slough House” series.

[00:04:51] Shane and Gary express their enthusiasm for “The Secret Hours,” a backstory on Jackson Lamb, and the possibility of adapting it for TV.

Closing Notes:

[00:05:07] Light-hearted banter about finding a young Gary Oldman for possible prequel adaptations.

[00:05:15] Shane thanks Gary for his time and contributions to the show and bids farewell.

Tune In and Discover:

How Gary Oldman found his way to the world of “Slow Horses.”

The intriguing dynamics of adapting a beloved book series to TV.

Gary’s personal reflections on working with Mick Herron and his unique storytelling style.

Exciting hints about future projects and potential adaptations from the “Slough House” universe.

Don't miss this insightful and warm conversation with Gary Oldman, only on the Spybrary Spy Podcast. Whether you're a fan of espionage thrillers, literature, or just a Gary Oldman enthusiast, this episode promises to deliver fascinating tidbits and behind-the-scenes stories.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Watch Slow Horses * Read the Slough House/Slow Horses books * Mick Herron * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Inside the Iranian Embassy Siege with Ben MacintyreWe go inside the Iranian Embassy siege on today's Spybrary podcast. Join us for a gripping episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, as host Shane Whaley sits down with renowned historian Ben Macintyre and counterterrorism and intelligence expert Rossa McPhillips to delve into the harrowing events of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London. Macintyre's latest book, The Siege serves as the cornerstone of our discussion, offering an unprecedented look at this tense and historic event.

A thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time—from the true-life espionage master and New York Times bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat and The Spy and the Traitor.

Watch our conversation about The Iranian Embassy Siege with Ben Macintyre and Rossa McPhillips on YouTube.Key Points Discussed:

Introduction of Guests:

Shane Welcomes Ben Macintyre discussing his prolific career, including works like “The Spy and the Traitor” and “A Spy Among Friends.”

Introduction of Rossa McPhillips, who offers unique insights from his background in British Army Intelligence and Metropolitan Police counterterrorism.

Personal Fascination with the Iranian Embassy Siege:

Ben Macintyre recalls his vivid memories of the live broadcast of the SAS storming the embassy, juxtaposed with a snooker match.

Unprecedented Access to the SAS:

Ben Macintyre shares his privileged access to surviving SAS members, offering firsthand accounts that demystify the event.

Complex Narrative:

Exploration of the complex nature of the gunmen, who were far from heroes but had their own compelling backstories.

Discussion of Iranian Embassy siege terrorists motives and the brutal oppression faced by the gunmen under the Ayatollah's regime.

Strategic Context:

A deeper look into the geopolitical backdrop, including the role of Iraqi intelligence and the Iranian Government response.

Intelligence and Tactics:

MI5's insertion of listening devices and the police's sympathetic yet firm handling of negotiations for a bloodless resolution.

Political Pressures:

Margaret Thatcher's constrained negotiating options and the influence of the American hostage crisis on British decisions.

How Thatcher's response to the siege solidified her “Iron Lady” legacy.

Military and Media:

The celebratory aftermath in Regent Park barracks with Margaret and Dennis Thatcher, a bittersweet moment with a touch of humor involving tear gas.

The impact of the event on SAS recruitment and their struggle to balance secrecy with newfound fame.

Ben Macintyre’s Next Book:

Ben Macintyre's teases us with some clues to the topic of his next book,.

Tour Announcement:

Details on Macintyre's upcoming US and Canadian tour, engaging fans across major cities.

Closing Remarks: Whaley, McPhillips, and Macintyre conclude the discussion with appreciative comments on Macintyre's impressive body of work and enthusiastic anticipation for future projects. A heartfelt thank you to listeners for tuning in and a call to explore Macintyre's new release, “The Siege“.

Join Us Next Time: Stay tuned for more thrilling spy content on the Spybrary Spy Podcast!

More about The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World by Ben MacintyreA thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time—from the true-life espionage master and New York Times bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat and The Spy and the Traitor.

“[Ben Macintyre is] John le Carré’s nonfiction counterpart.”—The New York Times

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

Policeman Trevor Lock was supposed to have gone to the theater that night. Instead, he found himself overpowered and whisked into the embassy. The terrorists never noticed the gun hidden in his jacket. The drama that ensued would force him to find reserves of courage he didn’t know he had. The gunmen themselves were hardly one-dimensional—all Arabs, some highly educated, who hoped to force Britain to take their side in their independence battle against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Behind the scenes lurked the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had bankrolled the whole affair as a salvo against Iran.

As police negotiators pressed the gunmen, rival protestors clashed violently outside the embassy, and as MI6 and the CIA scrambled for intelligence, Britain’s special forces strike team, the SAS, laid plans for a dangerous rescue mission. Inside, Lock and his fellow hostages used all the cunning they possessed to outwit and outflank their captors. Finally, on the sixth day, after the terrorists executed the embassy press attaché and dumped his body on the front doorstep, the SAS raid began, sparking a deadly high-stakes climax.

A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, The Siege takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11. Drawing on exclusive interviews and a wealth of never-before-seen files, Macintyre brilliantly reconstructs a week in which every day minted a new hero and every second spelled the potential for doom.

Buy your copy of The Siege – its Spybrary Approved

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy The Siege by Ben Macintyre * Follow Ben Macintyre on Twitter/X * Other books by Ben Macintyre * Ben Macintyre UK and US book tour details. * Follow Rossa McPhillips MBE * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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On writing spy fiction with spy authors Joseph Kanon and Paul VidichOn today’s episode, acclaimed spy authors Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich sit down for an intriguing discussion that delves deep into the world of writing spy fiction.

As many of you know, I’ve been lucky enough to share drinks, meals, and some unforgettable conversations with some of the best spy authors working today. And every time, I think to myself, “I wish I had brought a bug— or called Roddy Ho for some tech to record this!” Well, today, that wish comes true, well, kind of.

We’re bringing you an intriguing chat with two living legends of spy fiction—Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich. Now, Joseph needs no introduction. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ve probably read Los Alamos or Defectors, one of my all-time favorites. He’s even ranked number three on Tim Shipman’s list of the best spy authors.

But why stop there? I thought, why not bring another heavyweight into the mix? So I invited Paul Vidich, author of the brilliant Beirut Station, to host this conversation. Paul’s work is always top-notch, and having him on the show alongside Joseph to discuss why they love reading and writing spy fiction is ‘premier cru' for us fans of spy novels.

Whether you're an aspiring author or a die-hard fan, you’ll pick up some valuable insights into the craft of writing spy fiction.

Their conversation spans themes of desperation, moral dilemmas, and the unique ways spy novels probe into character development. They highlight the tension of leading double lives and discuss the differences in British and American spy fiction.

Kanon reveals how the setting of a city sparks his storytelling and how he meticulously reconstructs its historical authenticity through detailed research. Both authors underscore the critical role of dialogue in character development.

Check out Joseph Kanon's latest novel Shanghai.

Joseph Kanon also reflects on the dramatic weight of World War Two settings in his novels and the moral imperatives faced by those in desperate circumstances. The spy authors discuss why they enjoy reading and writing spy ficition and compare and contrast the writing of Len Deighton. Graham Greene and John le Carré.

Kanon shares his admiration for Len Deighton's societal observations from an outsider perspective and he reveals some of his own writing habits, which have evolved during the pandemic yet remain rooted at the New York Public Library.

Whether you're a dedicated fan of spy fiction or curious about the intricacies of writing spy fiction, today's episode promises fascinating insights . So, sit back and enjoy as Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich talk all about writing spy fiction.

Watch our conversation on writing spy fiction with authors Paul Vidich and Joseph KanonEnjoyed this episode? Then do check out our conversation with Paul Vidich about Beirut Station on Spybrary.

Paul Vidich Beirut StationThe best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Shanghai by Joseph Kanon * Official Joseph Kanon Website * Buy Beirut Station by Paul Vidich * Official Paul Vidich Website * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Bond in Motion Review and Field ReportToday's episode is a Bond in Motion review and interview in the form of a brief field report submitted by friend of Spybrary and spy author Payne Harrison.

Watch Spybrary's Bond in Motion Review with spy author Payne Harrison and the International Spy Museum's Director of Adult Education Amanda OhlkeWelcome to the latest episode of the Spybrary, guest hosted by Payne Harrison!

Join us as we visit the Bond in Motion exhibit at the incredible Spy Museum in Washington, DC.

In this episode, we're thrilled to be joined by Amanda Ohlke, Director of Adult Education at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. Amanda takes us on an exclusive tour, shedding light on the astonishing collection of James Bond vehicles and artifacts on display.

Highlights of the episode:
– Learn about the Herculean effort to assemble this breathtaking exhibition.
– Discover how iconic Bond cars, like the Aston Martin Vanquish and the battered Aston Martin from Quantum of Solace, were transported and showcased.
– Get insights into some of the key exhibits, including the famous submarine from “For Your Eyes Only” and the legendary 1964 Aston Martin DB5 from “Goldfinger.”
– Find out how these artifacts are arranged, secured, and even brought into the museum’s third floor! –
See reunited vehicles like the green Jag driven by Zhao and the Vanquish in an icy chase scene from Die Another Day.
– Hear intriguing behind-the-scenes stories, such as the challenges of craning vehicles into the museum amid intense winds.

If you’re a James Bond enthusiast or a fan of spy artifacts, you don't want to miss this in-depth look at one of the most comprehensive Bond exhibits ever.

What is the Bond in Motion exhibit all about?The International Spy Museum is proud to host this official exhibition of iconic vehicles, all used on-screen by 007 and his many allies and adversaries. While James Bond is a fictional character, he embodies the spirit of many real spies in this museum. These men and women, from around the world, were inspired by over six decades of the Bond film franchise and its enduring cultural influence.

Bond In Motion is a celebration of six decades of 007 vehicles. The exhibition features 17 iconic pieces from the EON Productions Archive and the Ian Fleming Foundation. Props, scale models and clips from the films are also on show alongside cars, motorcycles, submarines, and more from the Q Branch garage.

Experience Bond In Motion on display at SPY through April 2025.

Ticket Details Combo Ticket (Bond In Motion + Spy Museum) – Receive a $2 discount to Bond In Motion when purchased together with admission to the Spy Museum.
Bond In Motion Ticket (Exhibit Only) – $12.00 / personBond In Motion Ticket for Spy Museum Members (Exhibit Only)FREE

Join today to experience the exhibition for free. Learn more about becoming a member.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Bond in Motion Exhibit * Follow The International Spy Museum DC * Payne Harrison Official Website * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Love and Let Die John Higgs interviewWelcome to another thrilling episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast! Today's episode is helmed by Spybrary contributor, author and music aficionado Andy Onyx, who interviews John Higgs, the author of Love and Let Die – James Bond, The Beatles and The British Psyche.

Watch our conversation about Love and Let Die with author John Higgs and Spybrary Guest Host Andy OnyxWhat is Love and Let Die, James Bond, The Beatles and the British pysche by John Higgs all about?A deep-dive into the unique connections between the two titans of the British cultural psyche—the Beatles and the Bond films—and what they tell us about class, sexuality, and our aspirations over sixty dramatic years.

The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of pop music. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins. Dr No, the first Bond film, and Love Me Do, the first Beatles record, were both released on the same day: Friday 5 October 1962. Most countries can only dream of a cultural export becoming a worldwide phenomenon on this scale. For Britain to produce two iconic successes on this level, on the same windy October afternoon, is unprecedented.

Bond and the Beatles present us with opposing values, visions of the British culture, and ideas about sexual identity. Love and Let Die is the story of a clash between working class liberation and establishment control, and how it exploded on the global stage. It explains why James Bond hated the Beatles, why Paul McCartney wanted to be Bond, and why it was Ringo who won the heart of a Bond Girl in the end.

Told over a period of sixty dramatic years, this is an account of how two outsized cultural phenomena continue to define American aspirations, fantasies, and our ideas about ourselves. Looking at these two touchstones in this new context will forever change how you see the Beatles, the James Bond films, and six decades of cross-Atlantic popular culture.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Love and Let Die * Follow John Higgs on X * John Higgs Official Website * Follow Andy Onyx on X * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Honour Among Spies with author Merle NygateWelcome to another thrilling episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast! Today, we have the exceptional Merle Nygate joining us to dive deep into her latest espionage novel, Honour Among Spies, the highly anticipated sequel to The Righteous Spy.

Tune in as host Shane Whaley commends Merle's expertise in writing riveting action scenes and her knack for adding delicious touches of realism with food scenes that flesh out the characters and setting.

Merle takes us behind the scenes, sharing how her boxing lessons inform her authentic fight sequences and discussing her approach to crafting stories that blend ethical dilemmas with gritty espionage tactics. We'll also explore her unique concept of “vinyl tradecraft” and the influence of real-life events and conspiracy theories on her writing.

As the conversation unfolds, we'll touch on the personal journeys of characters like Petra and Eli, who grapple with complex moral choices and the taxing demands of spy life. Discover how Merle's multifaceted career as a novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer shapes her craft, and hear about her dreams of adapting her gripping tales for television.

And don't worry, there's a glimpse into what might be next for the series, including the possibility of a third book! So sit back, relax, and enjoy this fascinating discussion on Spybrary, where spy fiction aficionados come together to celebrate the best in espionage literature.

Watch our conversation about Honour Among Spies with author Merle Nygate and Spybrary Host Shane WhaleyWhat is Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate all about?A TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH

‘Absolutely gripping' Alex Gerlis, Every Spy a Traitor

‘Nygate is not afraid to get her hands bloody' James Owen, The Times

‘Perfect for fans of early le Carré and Len Deighton' Gavin Collinson – author of An Accident in Paris

At the heart of London's spy operations, Mossad head of station Eli carries the scars of a past disaster while grappling with the turbulent political landscape back home. His resolve to uphold his duty and keep his job is tested like never before.

Desperate to tip the scales in the espionage game, Eli concocts a risky plan involving tampered drones destined for Russian hands. But to execute this plan, he has to exploit those closest to him. Eli's moral compass clashes with the mission, leading him down a treacherous path of betrayal.

As the stakes escalate, Eli finds himself embroiled in a deadly web, racing to foil an apocalyptic agenda. Alliances are tested, sacrifices are made, and Eli must confront the consequence of his actions head-on, and navigate a shadowy underworld to prevent a terrorist plot from unleashing chaos on a global scale. Will they emerge victorious, or will the darkness consume them all?

A must-read for fans of Homeland and NCIS, it will also appeal to readers of Charles Cumming and John le Carré.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate (US) * Buy Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate (UK) * Follow Merle Nygate on X * Merle Nygate Official Website * The Righteous Spy by Merle Nygate * The Righteous Spy Interview, Episode 62 of the Spybrary Podcast * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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On His Majesty's Secret Service with author Charlie HigsonWelcome to Spybrary, the podcast dedicated to spy and espionage books. In this episode, your host, Shane Whaley, is joined by special guests Charlie Higson and Mark Ashby to discuss the updated and revised paperback edition of On His Majesty's Secret Service.

Charlie Higson, author of the latest James Bond novel On His Majesty's Secret Service shares his unique perspective on modernizing the iconic agent. Higson discusses his journey into writing a James Bond novel for the 60th anniversary of “On Her Majesty's Secret Service,” offering insights into updating the character for contemporary readers while staying true to Ian Fleming's legacy. From Bond's motivations to his characterization, discover the fascinating evolution of the world's most famous spy with Higson's fresh take.

Joined by fellow Bond aficionado Mark Ashby, the conversation delves into attending Bond premieres and the impact of Higson's young Bond series. Uncover Higson's intricate plans for Bond's backstory, from leaving Eton to entering the Secret Service during World War II, providing a new lens on the beloved character's formative years.

Explore the captivating dynamics of political extremism, historical ties, and societal stability as discussed by our insightful guests. From threats to the British monarchy to the challenges of creating contemporary villains, Higson's narrative intrigues with its deep-rooted exploration of espionage and intrigue.

Join Shane, Charlie, and Mark as they unravel the secrets behind On His Majesty's Secret Service, offering listeners a rare glimpse into the mind of a modern Bond author and the ever-evolving world of espionage literature. Tune in for a thrilling discussion that combines historical context, character evolution, and the enduring allure of the iconic James Bond.

Watch our conversation about On His Majesty's Secret Service with author Charlie Higson and Mark AshbyWhat is On His Majesty's Secret Service, the latest James Bond book by Charlie Higson all about?BOND SAVE THE KING

It’s the 4th of May, two days before the coronation of King Charles III and the world’s favourite spy has his work cut out for him.

Bond is sent at the last minute to thwart an attempt to disrupt the coronation by the deadly megalomaniac Æthelstan of Wessex, who is on a mission of his own to rule the United Kingdom and rewrite history.

Can Bond thwart his plans by infiltrating Æthelstan’s private army and ending his reign of terror before it begins?

In support of the National Literacy Trust.

THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION OF ON HIS MAJESTYS SECRET SERVICE FEATURES REVISED TEXT AND EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT.

This title will be published on 6 June 2024.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy On His Majesty's Secret Service by Charlie Higson * Follow Charlie Higson on X/Twitter * Charlie Higson Official Website * Other books, including Young Bond by Charlie Higson * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Gordon Henderson MP shares more about his spy thriller Steven Statton – A Very Working Class Spy!Order! Order! Welcome to Episode 239 of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast! I'm your host, Shane and today Whaley goes to Westminster. But don't worry; I'm not running for office! I recently had the pleasure of enjoying a tea break with Gordon Henderson MP. I am a politics nerd so it was a delight for me to combine both of my passions, espionage and politics.

Gordon isn't just a sitting member of Parliament for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent—he's also a passionate writer of spy fiction. We'll dive into his experiences and inspirations, including his admiration for Len Deighton and his creation of a very relatable, working-class spy named Steven Statton.

Join us as Gordon Henderson MP shares insights into his writing process, offers advice for aspiring authors, and Shane cheekily asks him about the latest spy scandals in Parliament. Plus, you'll hear his thoughts on his favorite spy novels, films, and music that fuels his creativity. So, grab a cup of tea and settle in for an engaging conversation in the heart of the Palace of Westminster. All this and more, coming up on Spybrary!

What is Steven Statton A Very Working Class Spy all about?Steven Statton – a very working-class spy, is a thrill-a-minute story of intrigue and betrayal at the heart of Britain’s most secretive intelligence agency. Although set mainly in London, the story sees Steven Statton travel the world in an effort to counter an Iranian plot to use the Mafia to destabilise Britain by flooding its streets with heroin. However, Statton’s task is made harder when he is betrayed by somebody working in the British Secret Service. Matters come to a head in a lockup garage in London’s East End, where Statton has a violent confrontation with two Mafia hitmen, and with his own boss.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy A Very Working Class by Gordon Henderson * Gordon Henderson MP Official Website * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Welcome to the second episode of Section F – our Spy Movie track on the Spybrary Spy Podcast. Our handpicked hosts and guests discuss their favorite spy movies both the classics and the hidden gems of spy films. Today Section F delve into the movie adaptation of Len Deighton's Funeral in Berlin, starring Michael Caine as the iconic Harry Palmer.

Unlike the suave and debonair James Bond, Harry Palmer brings a gritty, realistic edge to the spy genre, challenging traditional spy representations with his working class cunning and street smarts.

Spybrary's Section F dissect Palmer's intricate world of divided loyalties set against the vivid backdrop of 1960s Berlin, discussing the film's complex plot, the innovative use of the Technoscope filming technique, and the nuanced portrayal of characters who navigate the murky waters of Cold War espionage.

Join us as we explore how “Funeral in Berlin” not only captured the essence of its era but also set new standards in spy filmmaking. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the Harry Palmer series, this episode delivers deep insights and lively discussions.

Meet Your Section F – Spy Film Hosts.

Jonathan Melville
Michael Huie
Eric Newsom
Steve Lichtman
Producer: Shane Whaley

You can also watch this Funeral In Berlin film review discussion on YouTube, and as always, episodes can be listened to on all good podcast apps.

Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film directed by Guy Hamilton and based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine as the character Harry Palmer that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File (1965). The third film was Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

That and more in this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast.

Spybrary the podcast and community for spy books, spy movies and spy TV.



More About Funeral in Berlin

Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film directed by Guy Hamilton and based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine as the character Harry Palmer that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File (1965). The third film was Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

British secret agent Harry Palmer is sent to Berlin by his superior Colonel Ross to arrange the defection of Colonel Stok, a prominent Soviet intelligence officer. Palmer is sceptical but links up with Johnny Vulkan, an old German friend and former criminal associate, who now runs the Berlin station for British intelligence.

Palmer makes a rendezvous with Stok in the Soviet zone of the divided city, finding him eccentric and likeable. Stok asks for the defection to be managed by Otto Kreutzmann, a West German criminal who has organised a number of recent escapes. When Palmer returns to the western sector he meets Samantha Steel, a model. He spends the night with her, but is suspicious of her forward manner. The next day he has his police contacts establish her identity and arranges for a criminal to burgle her apartment, where several different false passports are discovered….

Looking for more spy movie content then check out Section F's treatment of The Third Man starring Orson Welles.

Join the Spybrary Community for spy fans by spy fans.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post Decoding Funeral In Berlin with Spybrary’s Section F appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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In a glitzy ceremony at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square, I.S. Berry, a former CIA officer turned author, clinched the prestigious 2024 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. The accolade was bestowed upon I.S. Berry's debut work, “The Peacock and The Sparrow,” heralding a new era in spy fiction.

I.S. Berry, a former CIA officer, brings a gritty realism to the spy genre, which traditionally oscillates between the intensely realistic, what some readers call literary, and the over the top dramatically adventurous.

I.S. Berry's book set during the Arab Spring delves into the life of a Bahrain based CIA operative entangled in political strife and a deep personal romance, marking a new caliber of storytelling in espionage fiction.

The Mystery Writers of America, which has hosted the Edgar Awards for 78 years, celebrates the finest in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television. “The Peacock and The Sparrow” not only captivated the judges but also resonated widely among readers and critics, balancing the fine line between stark realism and narrative allure. I.S. Berry is in good company previous winners of this award include Joseph Kanon for Los Alamos (1998) and the late Jason Matthews who picked up the gong for Red Sparrow in 2014.

Speaking exclusively to Spybrary's Shane Whaley, I.S. Berry reflected on the significance of the Edgar Award, stating, “I think every debut author has doubts about her abilities and doesn't quite know if she's a ‘real' writer. So getting an Edgar is like a green light, formal confirmation. The Edgar is awarded by committees of writers, so it's extremely meaningful to know you have the respect of your peers.”

We are a broad church at Spybrary, with readers like myself who prefer a more realistic espionage read and others who prefer more action-oriented books. So when the entire congregation raves about a book, then we know it’s a good ‘un. We are delighted that the Edgar judges felt the same way.

Shane Whaley – Spybrary.com

Spybrary's Shane Whaley lauds Berry's novel for its broad appeal, noting, “We are a broad church at Spybrary, with readers like myself who prefer more realistic espionage reads and others who prefer the more action-oriented books. So when the entire congregation raves about a book, then we know it’s a good ‘un. We are delighted that the Edgar Award judges felt the same way.”

You only have to read one paragraph to know that you are in the hands of an assured writer, one who knows spying and understands character and can immediately take you to a time and place you don’t know

Tim Shipman

Further testament to the exceptional quality of I.S. Berry's debut novel, Tim Shipman, chief political commentator of the Sunday Times and author of the Top 125 Spy Authors list, weighed in on Berry's Edgar win.

Shipman remarked, “It’s really hard for spy writers to win an Edgar, they tend to go to crime writers, so the fact that Ilana has won tells you a lot about her first book. You only have to read one paragraph to know that you are in the hands of an assured writer, one who knows spying and understands character and can immediately take you to a time and place you don’t know.”

“I’ve got to know Ilana a little bit since it first came out and I’ve been hugely impressed by the way she has got stuck in and tirelessly marketed her book and put it on the radar of spy fans around the world. For all these reasons, this is a very pleasing victory for one of our own.”

Such endorsements underscore the novel’s impact and its reception within a community known for its discerning taste in thriller books.

Reflecting on a Momentous Win

Berry described her initial reaction to the award as one of shock and overwhelming joy. “Flabbergasted and elated. Like, wow, it's real,” Berry recounted. She expressed immense gratitude towards her readers and peers, acknowledging the role they played in her journey: “It felt like the award was as much for them as for me.”

Berry also thanked the CIA and “all my fellow formers who've rallied around the notion of a realistic spy novel. Legendary spy novelists who've gone above and beyond to support me – David McCloskey, Joseph Kanon, Paul Vidich, to name a few. And, absolutely, Spybrary! From the beginning, Spybrary's support for Peacock has been amazing and made all the difference. The online Spybrary community embraces literary spy novels, and I've felt like Peacock found its home there.”

The Edgar Award, conferred by a panel of esteemed writers, adds a significant feather to Berry’s cap, affirming her prowess and potential in a crowded thriller field. Previous winners of the Best First Novel category include notable authors like Viet Thanh Nguyen for “The Sympathizer” in 2016, a profound narrative intertwining espionage and cultural identity, and Flynn Berry (no relation) for “Under the Harrow” in 2017, which explored psychological dimensions within the thriller genre.

Looking Forward

Berry's next book promises to further probe the depths of international espionage, featuring an American officer's kidnapping juxtaposed against a backdrop of CIA-Mossad collaboration. This novel, inspired by real events and classic espionage literature, aims to subvert traditional genre expectations, focusing on a strong female lead in a high-stakes international scenario.

“It's a reverse of The Little Drummer Girl (my favorite le Carré book) – in mine, the case officer is female and the terrorist source is male. One of the plot lines is inspired by the real life Danish Al Qaeda penetration, Morten Storm.“

A Celebratory Evening

The author celebrated her win quietly back in Washington, D.C., with her family, reflecting on both the journey thus far and the path ahead. Her son’s laughter upon seeing the Edgar statue—a quirky symbol of literary achievement—echoed the light-hearted yet profound nature of the evening

The Spybrary TakeI.S. Berry's Edgar Award win serves as a beacon of inspiration for aspiring thriller authors. With each word penned, Berry invites us into a world of intrigue and uncertainty, where the line between reality and fiction blurs, and the human experience takes centre stage. As we eagerly await her next literary offering, let us reflect on the enduring legacy of a debut novel that has left an indelible mark on the genre.

Shane Whaley, host of the Spybrary PodcastListen to our spoiler-free conversation with I.S. Berry to learn more about her Egdar award-winning novel The Peacock and the Sparrow.

Spy Author Interview – I.S. Berry The Peacock and the SparrowEx-CIA Officer I.S. Berry Spy Thriller Marks a Stunning Literary Debut – The Peacock and The Sparrow

Amazon links in this report imay earn Spybrary a small commission.

Join the Spy Book Podcast Community Discussion

Spybrary is more than just a spy podcast; it's a place to chat with fellow spy book and spy film fans from around the world. We encourage you to share your views on each spy book/movie, engage in discussion with fellow fans, and immerse yourself in the captivating world of spy fiction, spy fact and spy films.

Talk more about spy books and spy movies in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post I.S. Berry’s Debut Novel The Peacock and The Sparrow Triumphs at 2024 Edgar Awards appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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The James Bond Book Club

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time in the year of publication, as we embark on this 007 James Bond literary adventure together.

Shane Whaley – Spybrary Podcast Host

Are you a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels? If so, you won't want to miss the latest episode of the James Bond Book Club presented by Spybrary. In this episode, host Shane Whaley and guests David Craggs, Andy Onyx and Hildebrand's Ian Douglas dive deep into Ian Fleming's Thunderball as if they are in the year of publication.

This episode is now available to watch on YouTube.

They provide fascinating analysis and insight into this iconic book's plot, characters, and writing style. You'll hear their thoughts on how Ian Fleming's Thunderball compares to other James Bond novels and get a glimpse into the success of Ian Fleming's writing. Whether you're a die-hard James Bond fan or just love a good book club style discussion, this episode offers a detailed and engaging look at Thunderball and all its elements. Tune in now to join the conversation!

We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, the locations, the femme fatales, the allies, and the glamour.

All that and much more on the latest edition of the James Bond Book Club, available on all good podcast apps and at the link in the first comment. Will you join us in 1961?

What exactly is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club, and what makes it different from other 007 James Bond book clubs?Step into a time machine and journey back to the thrilling era of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels on the captivating James Bond Book Club podcast. Delve into the pages of each 007 adventure as we unravel the secrets hidden within, exploring many captivating themes that will transport you to a different time and place.

Uncover the magic behind each novel as we analyze the significance of its publication year, immersing ourselves in the very essence of the zeitgeist and uncovering the historical and cultural events that shaped Fleming's gripping tales. Gain insight into the author's brilliant creation James Bond, as we explore the personal experiences that inspired the intriguing plots and characters.

Indulge your senses with the visual delights of the U.K.'s first edition cover art, marveling at the iconic designs that graced the books' covers and examining their artistic symbolism. Traverse the globe alongside Bond as we traverse the richly described locations, from glamorous cities to exotic locales, (do mud baths in Saratoga, count?) all brought vividly to life through Fleming's masterful prose.

Witness the evolution of Bond's character, peeling back the layers of his complex persona and understanding the choices that have molded him into the indomitable secret agent we know and sometimes love. Meet the unforgettable villains who threaten Bond's very existence, their nefarious plans and motivations dissected to reveal the depths of their malevolence.

Enter the world of seductive femme fatales who leave their mark on Bond's heart and the story's narrative, exploring the enigmatic allure and dangerous charms they possess. Discover the diverse supporting characters playing pivotal roles in James Bond's adventures, each leaving an indelible impact on the reader.

Unravel the luxury brands that have become synonymous with James Bond, exploring the marketing and iconic imagery associated with the legendary spy. Relive the most thrilling moments and pulse-pounding set pieces that define each novel, immersing yourself in the heart-stopping chapters that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Lastly, witness each novel's critical reception, discover how these literary masterpieces were received at the time of their release and understand their lasting impact on the spy genre. But remember, in our journey through Fleming's world, we'll focus solely on the books, deliberately omitting any reference to the iconic 007 movies.

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time, as we embark on this literary adventure together. Be sure to explore our vast library of previous episodes, where we've explored the captivating world of the James Bond Book Club. Join us and immerse yourself in the gripping universe of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

This is the James Bond Book Club on Spybrary.

Ian Fleming's Goldfinger on the James Bond Book ClubThe James Bond Book Club – Dr Nohttp://www.spybrary.com/182James Bond Book Club – MoonrakerThe post Ian Fleming’s Thunderball- The James Bond Book Club appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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In this episode of the Spybrary Podcast, host Adam Brookes interviews the former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez about her latest book In True Face A Woman's Life in the CIA.

Join us for a riveting episode with Jonna Mendez, a former CIA operative with an enthralling tale of espionage, covert operations, and the very human aspect of intelligence work.**

Watch this conversation with Jonna Mendez on Spybrary TV!Spybrarys' Adam Brookes dives deep into the clandestine world of espionage with the remarkable Jonna Mendez, who shares her extraordinary experiences from a reputable career in the CIA. Prepare to be captivated as Mendez recounts real-life scenes straight from a spy thriller – from enduring hostile interrogation and utilizing disguise artistry to operational challenges in Moscow and the intricate realm of intelligence gathering.

In this episode, you'll discover:

The seemingly impossible.
How a renowned burglar turned into an invaluable asset within a CIA office.

Surviving the darkness.
Mendez reveals her harrowing experience during a hostile interrogation training course and the mental fortitude it took to overcome her claustrophobia.

The art of disguise.
Dive into the secretive world of masks and how the CIA uses Hollywood-inspired techniques to outmaneuver surveillance teams.

Embracing technology.
As the world grows more complex, Mendez addresses the efficacy of masks against facial recognition and the internet's role in modern espionage.

Escape Through Visualization: Mendez describes her mental escape during a CIA training exercise and how this skill became her personal superpower.

Infrared Intelligence: Learn how Jonna Mendez managed to develop crucial film in a clandestine hotel room operation.

The Babushka Strategy: A daring operation involving disguise and deception on the streets of Moscow.

The Legacy of Secrecy: Mendez reflects on the impact of leading a covert life on personal relationships and the struggle to transition back to normalcy post-CIA.

The spy behind the smile. Mendez opens up about the human dimension of spying, from the emotional toll of secrecy to the reliance on personal connections.

More About In True Face – A Woman's Life in the CIA Unmasked by Jonna Mendez

The bestselling coauthor of The Moscow Rules and Argo tells her riveting, courageous story of being a female spy at the height of the Cold War

Jonna Mendez began her CIA career as a “contract wife” performing secretarial duties for the CIA as a convenience to her husband, a young officer stationed in Europe. She needed his permission to open a bank account or shut off the gas to their apartment. Yet Mendez had a talent for espionage, too, and she soon took on bigger and more significant roles at the Agency. She parlayed her interest in photography into an operational role overseas, an unlikely area for a woman in the CIA. Often underestimated, occasionally undermined, she lived under cover and served tours of duty all over the globe, rising first to become an international spy and ultimately to Chief of Disguise at CIA’s Office of Technical Service.

In True Face recounts not only the drama of Mendez’s high-stakes work—how this savvy operator parlayed her “everywoman” appeal into incredible subterfuge—but also the grit and good fortune it took for her to navigate a misogynistic world. This is the story of an incredible spy career and what it took to achieve it.

The Best 125 Spy Authors ranked – grab your free copy today!Check out Adam's interview with Liza Mundy The Secret History of Women at the CIAJournalist Liza Mundy reveals more about her latest book The Sisterhood – The Secret History of Women of the CIA with Adam BrookesIts time to come in from the cold……join our community of spy book readers.Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Jonna Mendez Official Site * Buy In True Face A Woman's Life in the CIA Unmasked by Jonna Mendez * Adam Brookes Official Site * Join the Spybrary Community * Grab your free top spy writers ranked dossier



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Four Shots In The Night with Henry HemmingSummary

In this episode of the Spybrary podcast, Shane Whaley and guest host Rossa McPhillips MBE discuss the book ‘Four Shots in the Night‘ by Henry Hemming.

Four Shots In the Night tells the story of the 1986 murder of a British spy inside the IRA and the subsequent investigation that took place 30 years later. It explores the role of Martin McGuinness and British intelligence in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The hosts also discuss the historical context of the conflict and the process of getting Sinn Fein involved in the political process as well as the Kenova report. The book is praised for its extensive research and the new insights it provides into the intelligence operations during that time.

During the conversation, Spybrary Podcast host Shane Whaley shared a photo of his copy of Four Shots in the Night and how many tabs he used for information that was new to him.

Watch our conversation about Four Shots In the Night with Henry Hemming and Rossa McPhillipsThis video interview is thanks to your Patreon dollars. Spybrary thanks you all for your support!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to ‘Four Shots in the Night'

02:11 The Emotional Impact of the Story

05:16 Focus on Frank Hegarty

08:52 The Complex Character of Martin McGuinness

15:05 The Allegations of Martin McGuinness as a Spy

22:06 The Role of Intelligence in the Northern Ireland Troubles

28:32 The Ethics of Agents Committing Criminal Activity

30:21 The Death of Frank Hegarty and Closure for Families

34:40 Future Projects

What is Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming about?Four Shots in the Night is the story of a political murder: the killing of an IRA member turned British informant.

The search for justice for this one man's death—his body found in broad daylight, with tape over his eyes, an undisguised hit—would deliver more than the truth. It exposed his status as an informant and led to protests, campaigns, far-reaching changes to British law, a historic ruling from a senior judicial body, a ground-breaking police investigation, and bitter condemnation from a US Congressional commission. And there have been persistent rumors that one of the country’s most senior politicians, the Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness, might have been personally involved in this particular murder.

Relying on archival research, interviews, and the findings of a new complete police investigation, Four Shots in the Night tells a riveting story not just of this murder but of his role in the decades-long conflict that defined him–the Troubles. And the questions it tackles are even larger: how did the Troubles really come to an end? Was it a feat of diplomatic negotiation, as we've been told–or did spies play the decisive role? And how far can, or should, a spy go, for the good of his country? Four Shots in the Night is a page-turner that will make you think.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming * Follow Henry Hemming * Other books by Henry Hemming * Follow Rossa McPhillips MBE * Support Spybrary on Patreon * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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The Spy Game Books with Michael Frost Beckner

An utterly distinctive voice in spy fiction. Nobody captures espionage quite like Beckner. Cerebral and unvarnished, with dialogue so sharp it's like dancing on hot coals.

I.S.Berry – Author and Former CIA Officer

In this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, Shane Whaley interviews Michael Frost Beckner, the writer of the movie Spy Game. They discuss Michael's Spy Game book series including a new novella called Kaleidoscope and how it fits into his Spy Game trilogy.

They also talk about the complexity of the characters in Michael's Spy Game books and the inspiration behind them. Michael shares his thoughts on the spy genre and the attraction it holds for him.

“KALEIDOSCOPE does for the CIA what THE SOPRANOS did for the mob… The function and dysfunction of a whole family where the patriarch is ensnared in a dark and dangerous world.”

MICHAEL APTED, Academy Award nominated film director of COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, ENIGMA

Watch our conversation about the Spy Game books with Michael Frost BecknerThis video interview is thanks to your Patreon dollars. Spybrary thanks you all for your support!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
01:28 The Origins of Spy Game
06:39 The Making of Spy Game
08:22 The Success and Impact of Spy Game
13:25 The Spin-Off: Kaleidoscope
21:05 Reading Order and Recommendations
22:22 Complex Characters and Influences
25:12 The Most Fun Character to Write
27:13 Writing Aiken and Check
27:35 Aiken's Three Kinds of Madness
28:27 Writing Aiken's Speech and Writing Style
29:23 Writing Muir's Point of View
30:19 Muir's Complex Internal Voice
31:41 Gwen and Silas in the Novella
32:29 Michael Kingston's Character in the Kaleidoscope Series
33:55 The Family Saga and the International Plot
35:04 Tragedy, Success, and Big Stakes
35:36 The Ending of the Novella
39:07 Attraction to the Spy Genre
39:40 The Moral Complexity of Spies
40:59 Early Influences and Attraction to Spy Books
46:17 The Agency TV Series
48:55 Appreciation for the Spyberry Community
49:11 Availability of Books and Release of Kaleidoscope

The Spy Game Books In Order By Michael Frost BecknerSpy Game Books with Michael Frost Beckner The Aiken Trilogy
1. Muir's Gambit
2. Bishop's Endgame
3. Aiken in Check

The Muir Trilogy
1. Drought (Fall 2024)

Kaleidoscope: A 5-Part Spy Game Serial (novellas)
Part 1: 4th of July (25 March)
Part 2 – 5 (June – Dec 2024)

What is Kaleidoscope 4th of July All About?“KALEIDOSCOPE does for the CIA what THE SOPRANOS did for the mob… The function and dysfunction of a whole family where the patriarch is ensnared in a dark and dangerous world.” MICHAEL APTED, Academy Award nominated film director of COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, ENIGMA

An utterly distinctive voice in spy fiction. Nobody captures espionage quite like Beckner. Cerebral and unvarnished, with dialogue so sharp it's like dancing on hot coals.” – I.S. BERRY, Author of THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW, A New Yorker & NPR Best Book of the Year & Edgar Award Nominee

With his critically acclaimed and award-winning Muir's Gambit, Bishop's Endgame, and Aiken in Check, novelist and screenwriter Michael Frost Beckner thrilled espionage fans worldwide with a return to his classic Robert Redford/Brad Pitt movie Spy Game.

Kaleidoscope: 4th of July expands Beckner's Spy Game universe to dig deep into the personal and professional lives of three generations of a CIA family trapped in the web of the Agency's oldest and darkest secret.

Praise for the Spy Game Series:
“Pass the popcorn!” Amazon Editors' Pick, Vanessa Cronin, Sr. Editor
“The top of the thriller heap.” “Chilling.” “Inspired.” Editor's Pick, Publishers Weekly
“Marvelous.” “Relentlessly tense.” Kirkus Reviews

While furthering the exploits of Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop, Beckner introduced readers to memorable new characters: Russell Aiken, Lara van Eyck, Charlie March, and Nina Alverez. But perhaps most provocative were CIA Chief of Counterintelligence Silas Kingston—”the most feared man at Langley;” the only person who ever outmastered Nathan Muir at the spy game—and his determined, conscientious but emotionally-scarred daughter, CIA operations manager Lynn.

Now, following in the footsteps of Charles Dickens and Stephen King (The Green Mile), Beckner embarks on his most ambitious project to date: an espionage saga told in five parts to be released throughout 2024. A tale of loyalty and love, betrayal and redemption, Kaleidoscope spins around three generations of the CIA Kingston family…

PART ONE: 4TH OF JULY

There are other families, neither happy nor mindfully sad; sanctioned to deception, these families kindle their lives with the flint of authorized deceit. Their pyre is “service,” and it is “national security.” Its flame is “duty.” “Honor.” And it is “faith.” Thus fueled, these families allow this fire to consume their every honest emotion.
Relentlessly.
Equally.
And to completion.

“Nobody vanishes,” Silas Kingston insists, but one Kingston has…

A vanishing or an escape? Conspiracy, or treason? When clandestine officer Michael Kingston goes missing in Turkey, the secrets and lies of three generations of a CIA family—spies, spouses, lovers, children—collide with the most fiercely protected operation within the CIA.

KALEIDOSCOPE

Since the 20th century, energy—its possession, production, distribution—has been the key to a nation's power. The “why-eternal” of all conflict. Today, global demand for energy outstrips resources. As directed by Silas Kingston, KALEIDOSCOPE is the hidden hand within the CIA, older than the Agency itself, overscoring all operations.

Intimately personal and international in scope, the secrets of KALEIDOSCOPE entwine with those of the Kingston family, pitting the survival of one against the destruction of the other.

BUY NOW and receive A SPY GAME BONUS! Three preview chapters of Beckner's upcoming (Fall 2024) Spy Game novel, Drought – Book I of The Muir Trilogy.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Kaledioscope 4th of July A Spy Game Novella * Buy The Spy Game Books series * Follow Michael Frost Beckner * Watch Spy Game starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt * Support Spybrary on Patreon * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Former Ambassador and advisor to three UK Prime Ministers Tom Fletcher reveals more about his latest spy novel The Assassin.

‘The author can draw authenticity from a career spent at the coal face of diplomacy and intelligence, which is why it is a page turner’

Frederick Forsyth

‘Tom Fletcher was the ultimate Downing Street operator’ David Cameron

Welcome to another riveting episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast. I'm your host, Shane Whaley, and today we dive into the thrilling world of spy fiction with our special guest, Tom Fletcher, the former UK ambassador and advisor to three UK Prime Ministers turned espionage thriller writer.

Tom Fletcher's new book, “The Assassin,” is creating waves and it's not just because of its gripping scenes; it's a novel that hits the zeitgeist with its daring exploration of climate change and the moral quandaries it poses for future generations.

In this episode, we'll uncover the inspiration behind “The Assassin,” a sequel that can stand alone yet continues the intriguing tale from “The Ambassador.” We'll tackle everything from Tom's firsthand experiences in the heart of governmental intelligence to the ethical crossroads his protagonist, Ambassador Ed Barnes, faces.

Tom gives us a glimpse into his writing process and why he's attracted praise from the likes of Frederick Forsyth and Andy McNabb for his authenticity and style.

Get ready to embark on a literary journey that blends authenticity with heart-stopping thrills as we discuss the roles spies and diplomats play in shaping our world, both in fiction and reality, with Tom Fletcher—an author whose work is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.

Watch our conversation with Tom Fletcher This video interview is thanks to your Patreon dollars. Spybrary thanks you all for your support!

What is The Assassin by Tom Fletcher all about?‘A diplomatic genius’ Gordon Brown

‘Tom Fletcher is the essential diplomat, and was my support and sounding board about virtually every country on earth’ David Cameron

How far will he go to save a future he may never see?Having been made High Commissioner in Nairobi, Ed Barnes is keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. But when his daughter, Sophie, is kidnapped following a security crisis for which he is blamed, his attempts at normality fall apart once again. He finds himself at the heart of a complex negotiation with a dangerous Somali terrorist group, in an effort to avert a regional security crisis and free his daughter.

Meanwhile, across the globe a series of political assassinations have been shaking the world of business and government. Tensions boil over when a Chinese envoy is murdered in Jordan, only days before a crucial climate change conference, sparking a diplomatic crisis and the threat of US/China confrontation.

In the search for his daughter, Barnes follows the trail of violence from Kenya, through the highest levels of the UN in Geneva, to the Dead Sea in Jordan. With the world on the brink of ecological crisis, Barnes must uncover the terrible truth about the assassinations, prevent a global conflict and save the climate deal. But how much is he prepared to sacrifice to be a good ancestor?

The explosive sequel to The Ambassador from former No.10 advisor Tom Fletcher, The Assassin is perfect for fans of Robert Peston, Ken Follett and Tom Bradby.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy The Assassin by Tom Fletcher * Buy The Ambassador by Tom Fletcher * More Tom Fletcher non fiction books * Follow Tom Fletcher on X * Support Spybrary on Patreon * Canelo Publishers * How the Americans Took Over Spy Fiction by Tim Shipman for The Sunday Times * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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The James Bond Book Club

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time in the year of publication, as we embark on this 007 James Bond literary adventure together.

Shane Whaley – Spybrary Podcast Host

Are you a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels? If so, you won't want to miss the latest episode of the James Bond Book Club presented by Spybrary. In this episode, host Shane Whaley and guests David Craggs, Andy Onyx and Hildebrand's Ian Douglas dive deep into Ian Fleming's For Your Eyes Only as if they are in the year of publication.

Thanks to your Patreon dollars this episode is now available to watch on YouTube. Thanks for your generous support.

They provide fascinating analysis and insight into this iconic book's plot, characters, and writing style. You'll hear their thoughts on how Ian Fleming's For Your Eyes Only compares to other James Bond novels and get a glimpse into the success of Ian Fleming's writing. Whether you're a die-hard James Bond fan or just love a good book club style discussion, this episode offers a detailed and engaging look at For Your Eyes Only and all its elements. Tune in now to join the conversation!

Join us as we discuss the latest Ian Fleming James Bond book of short stories For Your Eyes Only. We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, the locations, the femme fatales, the allies, and the glamour.

All that and much more on the latest edition of the James Bond Book Club, available on all good podcast apps and at the link in the first comment. Will you join us in 1960?

What exactly is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club, and what makes it different from other 007 James Bond book clubs?Step into a time machine and journey back to the thrilling era of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels on the captivating James Bond Book Club podcast. Delve into the pages of each 007 adventure as we unravel the secrets hidden within, exploring many captivating themes that will transport you to a different time and place.

Uncover the magic behind each novel as we analyze the significance of its publication year, immersing ourselves in the very essence of the zeitgeist and uncovering the historical and cultural events that shaped Fleming's gripping tales. Gain insight into the author's brilliant creation James Bond, as we explore the personal experiences that inspired the intriguing plots and characters.

Indulge your senses with the visual delights of the U.K.'s first edition cover art, marveling at the iconic designs that graced the books' covers and examining their artistic symbolism. Traverse the globe alongside Bond as we traverse the richly described locations, from glamorous cities to exotic locales, (do mud baths in Saratoga, count?) all brought vividly to life through Fleming's masterful prose.

Witness the evolution of Bond's character, peeling back the layers of his complex persona and understanding the choices that have molded him into the indomitable secret agent we know and sometimes love. Meet the unforgettable villains who threaten Bond's very existence, their nefarious plans and motivations dissected to reveal the depths of their malevolence.

Enter the world of seductive femme fatales who leave their mark on Bond's heart and the story's narrative, exploring the enigmatic allure and dangerous charms they possess. Discover the diverse supporting characters playing pivotal roles in James Bond's adventures, each leaving an indelible impact on the reader.

Unravel the luxury brands that have become synonymous with James Bond, exploring the marketing and iconic imagery associated with the legendary spy. Relive the most thrilling moments and pulse-pounding set pieces that define each novel, immersing yourself in the heart-stopping chapters that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Lastly, witness each novel's critical reception, discover how these literary masterpieces were received at the time of their release and understand their lasting impact on the spy genre. But remember, in our journey through Fleming's world, we'll focus solely on the books, deliberately omitting any reference to the iconic 007 movies.

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time, as we embark on this literary adventure together. Be sure to explore our vast library of previous episodes, where we've explored the captivating world of the James Bond Book Club. Join us and immerse yourself in the gripping universe of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

This is the James Bond Book Club on Spybrary.

Ian Fleming's Goldfinger on the James Bond Book ClubThe James Bond Book Club – Dr Nohttp://www.spybrary.com/182James Bond Book Club – MoonrakerThe post Ian Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only- The James Bond Book Club appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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Author Paul Vidich talks spy fiction and Beirut Station – Two Lives of a Spy – Join Spybrary Spy Book Podcast host Shane Whaley, author Paul Vidich and Spybrarian David Craggs as we unpack Paul Vidich's latest spy thriller ‘Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy.' Beirut Station is a novel pulsating with emotional depth and geopolitical intrigue.

You can listen to this Paul Vidich interview on podcast or watch the conversation on YouTube – videos are paid for using your Patreon dollars – thank you for supporting Spybrary!

Set amidst the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in Beirut, Lebanon, the story follows the precarious journey of a Lebanese-American protagonist entangled with the UN, CIA, and Mossad in a mission to eliminate a terrorist threat. Special guest Paul Vidich returns for a third appearance on Spybrary , offering listeners a rare glimpse into his creative process and the inspiration drawn from historical events and legendary spies like Kim Philby.

This episode brims with lively discussions on Vidich's adept portrayal of Annalise a robust female spy lead character who navigates the moral complexities of her clandestine world.

We discuss the seamless blending of fact and fiction and Paul Vidich's layered approach to character development. Beirut Station reminding us once again that heroes and villains in spy novels, much like in real life, occupy grey areas of morality.

Join us for this enthralling conversation and then connect with your fellow espionage aficionados in our online community to share your thoughts on Paul Vidich's Beirut Station.

So what is Beirut Station By Paul Vidich all about, Shane?A stunning new espionage novel by a master of the genre, Beirut Station follows a young female CIA officer whose mission to assassinate a high-level, Hezbollah terrorist reveals a dark truth that puts her life at risk.

Lebanon, 2006.

The Israel-Hezbollah war is tearing Beirut apart: bombs are raining down, residents are scrambling to evacuate, and the country is on the brink of chaos.

In the midst of this turmoil, the CIA and Mossad are targeting a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist, Najib Qassem. Najib is believed to be planning the assassination of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is coming to Beirut in ten days to broker a cease-fire. The spy agencies are running out of time to eliminate the threat.

They turn to a young Lebanese-American CIA agent. Analise comes up with the perfect plan: she has befriended Qassem's grandson as his English tutor, and will use this friendship to locate the terrorist and take him out. As the plan is put into action, though, Analise begins to suspect that Mossad has a motive of its own: exploiting the war’s chaos to eliminate a generation of Lebanese political leaders.

She alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Analise is now the target and there is no one she can trust: not the CIA, not Mossad, and not the Lebanese government. And the one person she might have to trust—a reporter for the New York Times—might not be who he says he is…

A tightly-wound international thriller, Beirut Station is Paul Vidich's best novel to date.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Did you know that one of the UK's top journalists Tim Shipman of The Sunday Times, has a passion for espionage novels? And that he has meticulously curated a compendium of his favorite 125 spy authors for the Spybrary Podcast and Community, all carefully ranked with suggestions on which book to start with from each spy author.

Grab your copy of this invaluable dossier and as a bonus, your enlistment ushers you into the monthly Spybrary Briefing, where we divulge imminent and upcoming spy book releases.

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Buy Beirut Station * Paul Vidich Official Website * Paul Vidich Interviews on Spybrary * Follow Paul Vidich on X * How the Americans Took Over Spy Fiction by Tim Shipman for The Sunday Times * Follow Spybrary on X * Join the Spybrary Community



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Welcome back, fellow spy enthusiasts, to another captivating episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast! Today, we are thrilled to present a very special 90-minute episode titled “Ian Fleming: The Complete Man” with the esteemed novelist and Iatest Ian Fleming biographer Nicholas Shakespeare.

Now you can watch the interview with Nicholas, Ajay and Jeremy on YouTube.

For this interview, Spybrary host and founder Shane Whaley recruited James Bond and Ian Fleming scholars Ajay Chowdhury and Jeremy Duns, to dive deep into the life and works of the legendary creator of James Bond, Mr. Ian Fleming with biographer Nicholas Shakespeare.

With unrivaled access to the Fleming family, archives, and a trove of new material, Shakespeare presents a new, nuanced portrait of Ian Fleming's life. So place your devices on do not disturb and enjoy this in depth interview with Ian Fleming biographer Nicholas Shakespeare.

This episode was made possible by Spybrary Patreon supporters – please consider subscribing today to help us continue to bring you the spy book content you crave.

More About Ian Fleming – The Complete Man by Nicholas ShakespeareIan Fleming – The Complete ManA fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers.

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote.

Ian's childhood with his gifted brother Peter and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness'”all his life. Only a thriller writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected, and widely travelled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change.

Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.

Order your copy of Ian Fleming – The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare today!

The mission begins now.

Meet Today's Spybrary Guest Hosts

Ajay Chowdhury

Ajay Chowdhury was born in London and read Law at university there and in The Netherlands. For over two decades, Ajay has consulted on various motion picture, music, publishing, television and theatrical projects. Ajay has been involved with British and European feature film production in various capacities. He was the associate producer on two feature films, ‘Lost Dogs’ (2005) and ‘Flirting With Flamenco’ (2006). Ajay has been an Advisory Board member on Tongues On Fire – London Asian Film Festival.

In 2015, he co-wrote the internationally bestselling, ground-breaking ‘Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films‘ with Matthew Field, published by The History Press. The book was updated in paperback to cover The Road To Bond 25 and published in August 2018. They also co-authored the 100 page plus bookazines, ‘Remembering Roger Moore' (2018) and ‘Sean Connery: A James Bond Journey' (2022) featuring new interviews with over 75 co-stars of the Bond açtors, published by MI6 Confidential. In 2023, they both contributed to VICE TV's ‘Icons Unearthed: James Bond', the most in-depth documentary series on Ian Fleming and the 007 phenomenon ever made, based on their book. In 2024, their work was cited in Paul Duncan's ‘James Bond: Dr No' (Taschen).

Ajay has written extensively about Ian Fleming and James Bond and has contributed to numerous books, websites, articles, podcasts, broadcasts and exhibitions about all things 007. Ajay is the global spokesperson for The James Bond International Fan Club.

Jeremy Duns

Jeremy Duns is the author of Dead Drop: The True Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold War’s Most Dangerous Operation (titled Codename: Hero in the US), and the spy novels Free Agent, Song Of Treason (originally titled Free Country), The Moscow Optionand Spy Out The Land.

His journalism has been published in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, Time Out and elsewhere. Free Agent was one of the Daily Telegraph’s ‘Thrillers of the year’ in 2009, and was praised by William Boydas ‘a wholly engrossing and sophisticated spy novel set against a forgotten corner of 20th century history’. The Times called Song Of Treason ‘a masterly excursion back to the bad old days of the Cold War’, while The Guardian said it was ‘a treat for fans of traditional Len Deighton-style spy thrillers’. Oleg Gordievsky called Dead Drop an ‘excellent book’ that ‘contains lessons that are still valid in the 21st century’ and Francis Wheen called it an ‘irresistible real-life thriller’.

Producer: Shane Whaley

Ian Fleming The Complete Man Discussion Spybrary is more than a podcast. Did you know that we host a community of almost 4000 spy book fans? Join the Spybrary Community and dive into some of these conversations.

On a scale from “research novice” to “Fleming expert,” where do you stand with your knowledge of Ian Fleming? Share one new thing you learned from this inerview with the biographer of Ian Fleming The Complete Man with Nicholas Shakespeare.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupThat and more in this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast.

Want more James Bond chat? Check out Spybrary's James Bond Book Club, where we review each Ian Fleming James Bond novel as if we are in the year of publication.

The James Bond Book Club on Spybrary



Join the Spybrary Community for spy fans by spy fans.

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Ever found yourself bingeing on Len Deighton's books and then wishing you could get your hands on a Len Deighton biography or memoir to get inside the head of the author who I consider the best spy writer of all time?

Yeah, me too. But, let's face it, with the man himself hitting the grand age of 95 this week (happy belated, Len!), the chances of a memoir popping up now are looking pretty slim.

While we might not get the full-blown Len Deighton autobiography we're dreaming of, and a source close to Len shared that he is appalled by the idea of a Len Deighton biography there's a little treasure trove of Len Deighton TV interviews on YouTube. It's not the same, I know, but these interviews are gold for anyone trying to catch a glimpse into the mind of the master of espionage writing and military history himself.

These three interviews recorded in the late 1970s with Melvyn Bragg, the early 1980s and the mid-2000s are the closest thing we've got to a Len Deighton biography. Deighton talks candidly about his life, from growing up in a London workhouse to life as a BOAC steward in the 1950s. Deighton also shares more about his lucky break with the IPCRESS File and we learn more about his politics and worldview. He rarely gives interviews so our door is always open to you Len if ever you want to share more with your army of fans on our Spybrary Podcast, heck I would even fly to the Channel Islands for that interview!

Readers can also track down the Len Deighton Companion written by Len's friend Edward Millward Oliver.

The Companion is not a biography but does provide us with an excellent breakdown of characters, plot lines, and places in Deighton's books. A must-have for his fans, but in desperate need of an update. I believe the Len Deighton Companion was published in 1987.

There is a lot to unpack in these interviews though, so why not give them a watch and discuss in our Spybrary community with almost 4000 fellow spy book fans?

Here is a selection of other Len Deighton interviews and articles that offer insights into his life. (Some of these may be behind paywalls but journos got to eat and all that.) Please do send any that I am missing so I can add them to this list.

The Deighton Dossier – the only website about Len endorsed by the man himself.

Len Deighton on Desert Island Discs

Len Deighton: a taste for deception and self-delusion (Financial Times)

Len Deighton interview: ‘Nobody could have had a happier life than I've had' by Jake Kerridge (Telegraph)

Len Deighton Collects Outdated Travel Guides (New York Times)

Why Len Deighton’s spy stories are set to thrill a new generation – The author’s son explains why the working-class heroes of his father’s soon-to-be-reissued novels will resonate today. (The Guardian)

Len Deighton and the mundanity of spies. (The New Statesman)

Len Deighton reveals how he wrote SS-GB, the bestseller that imagines Hitler had won the war. (Radio Times.)

The Power of the Pen – and its successors. (The Guardian)

A taste of the action: Len Deighton's cult Sixties' cookbook is back

Listen to All about Len Deighton with Deighton Dossier’s Rob Mallows on the Spybrary Podcast.

Did you know a group of Spybrary listeners met up in Berlin to walk in the footsteps of Bernard Samson, Werner Volkmann, et al? Listen to our report from Berlin on this episode of Spybrary: Len Deighton and Bernard Samson’s Berlin. We also received this message from Len Deighton himself who was tickled that a group of us planned to find Bernie's Berlin.

Len Deighton – The Berlin of the Game, Set and Match ennealogyBerlin in the years of the Cold War was a defeated, divided and dangerous arena where the vast resources of the East faced those of the West in a poisonous life or death struggle that ended withe the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It was a pivotal time in modern history and I was a privileged spectator with friends on both sides of the divided city.

Here they are: Lisl Hennig, who saved Werner from the nightmare horrors of the Holocaust, now living in Berlin's distant twenties and enjoying its comforts; Dicky Cruyer, fearless and foolish, with promotion his main concern and major occupation; Frank Harrington, the time-serving ‘Berlin Resident' becomes Benard's surrogate father; Bret Renselaar, the wealthy American workaholic; Werner Volkmann, Bernard's plain-speaking life-long friend who is love with the wrong woman, and knows it; Fiona Samson, Bernard's unyielding, intellectual wife; Erich Stinnes, the unsentimental KGB officer and David Bernard's rich and pompous father-in-law determined to get custody of Bernard's two young children And our sardonic commentator Bernard himself; the puritanical male chauvinist, who falls deeply in love with the irresistible Gloria, but feels guilty at doing so.

It's a long story; nine books; ten if you include the prequel “Winter” with its revelations. That was enough space and enough time to watch them as they grow older, more jaded more weary and wary. We share their joys and their disappointments; their love affairs and their rejections; their tragedies and their triumphs. But, as the Ancient Greeks taught us, pitiless inevitability is key to drama as it is of life..

Their ghosts walk the streets of Berlin waiting for you to open the book and have them spring back to life again.

Leonard Cyril Deighton – July, 2018.

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Spybrary is more than just a spy podcast; it's a place to chat with fellow spy book and spy film fans from around the world. We encourage you to share your views on each spy book/movie, engage in discussion with fellow fans, and immerse yourself in the captivating world of spy fiction, spy fact and spy films.

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Special guest Mark Edlitz, author of “James Bond After Fleming,” joins James Bond aficionados Bill Kanas, Brian McKaig, and guest host Matt Raubenheimer on the Spybrary Spy Podcast to dissect the evolution of 007 in books Together, they unravel the challenges, strategies, and approaches of various continuation 007 authors in the ever-thrilling James Bond literary saga.

Listen now to uncover fascinating insights into the world Ian Fleming created and how it has been skillfully perpetuated through the pens of talented continuation authors!

Today, we are talking all about the world of James Bond after Fleming on Episode 229 of the Spybrary Spy Podcast “The Continuation 007 Novels.” Join us as we decode the world of Bond novels post-Ian Fleming with an elite panel of James Bond Continuation 007 novels fans: Matt Raubenheimer in the hosts chair, Mark Edlitz author of James Bond After Fleming, Brian McKaig, and Bill Kanas.

Today, we'll explore the varying directives given to continuation authors, the challenge of maintaining a consistent Bond universe, and the particular styles of authors like Kinglsey Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Anthony Horowitz.

Dive into the complexity and charm of the Gardner era with Brian McKaig's insights, learn why Bill Kanas cherishes these stories, and follow Matt Raubenheimer's unique path through the Bond series. Mark Edlitz brings his guide to Bond literature, offering starting points for new and veteran readers alike.

More About James Bond After FlemingIan Fleming wrote twelve original James Bond novels and two collections of short stories. Despite the cultural importance of Fleming’s 14 books, they represent just a fraction of the Bond novels. Since Fleming’s death, his estate has authorized the publication of numerous Bond novels and spin-off works.

These continuation novels include scores of books about Bond’s dangerous adventures, movie novelizations, a pseudo-biography, and various spin-off series about the teenage Bond, the Secret Service’s beloved secretary Miss Moneypenny, and the next generation agents in the Double O division.For the first time ever, Mark Edlitz offers a comprehensive overview of every exciting Bond adventure in one illustrated volume. Whether you are fully immersed in Bond’s world or new to the spy game, James Bond After Fleming is an essential reference book that is a must-have for any Bond fan.

Order your copy of James Bond After Fleming today!

The mission begins now.

Meet Your Spybrary James Bond After Fleming Panelists

Guest Host – Matt Raubenheimer
Mark Edlitz – author of James Bond After Fleming
Bill Kanas
Brian McKaig – The Bondologist Blog
Producer: Shane Whaley

The video version of our James Bond After Fleming round table is coming soon!

In this episode you will also learn:

  • Bill Kanas’s suggested order of John Gardner to Raymond Benson novels and contextual novelization reading
  • Brian McKaig's preference for starting with “Colonel Sun” followed by Gardner’s and then Benson’s works
  • Addressing cherry pickers’ potential entry points into the Bond novel series

James Bond 007 Continuation Novel Discussion QuestionsSpybrary is more than a podcast. Did you know that we host a community of almost 4000 spy book fans? Join the Spybrary Community and dive into some of these conversations:

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group1. How do the different continuation authors' approaches to the James Bond character and adventures influence your perception of the 007 universe? 2. What effect did the specific instructions from Ian Fleming Publicatons have on the storytelling and direction of the continuation 007 novels? 3. How does Raymond Benson's direction to insert Bond into movie-like adventures compare and contrast with Horowitz's mandate to tie his work more closely to Fleming's style? 4. What are your thoughts on the first post-Fleming Bond novels by Kingsley Amos and Arthur Calder Marshall, and how do you believe they impacted the integrity of the character? 5. With some continuation novels out of print, what are your strategies for finding and experiencing these rarer titles? 6. How do you feel about the gap between Colonel Sun and the works of Christopher Wood/Gardner, and how did it influence the subsequent evolution of Bond in literature? 7. Considering Mark Edlitz's discussion on canon, how important is continuity and a unified narrative for the Bond series to you as a reader? 8. Gardner had a prolific period as a Bond author. How do you believe his background and personal interests influenced his portrayal of Bond, and do you agree that he should have concluded his work after a certain number of books? 9. Brian McKaig and Bill Kanas have different entry points and appreciation for the Bond novels. How did your own introduction to the Bond series shape your views on the continuation novels? 10. After hearing the podcast discussion, which Bond continuation novels or novelizations are you most interested in exploring, and why?

That and more in this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast.

Want more James Bond chat? Check out Spybrary's James Bond Book Club, where we review each Ian Fleming James Bond novel as if we are in the year of publication.

The James Bond Book Club on Spybrary



Join the Spybrary Community for spy fans by spy fans.

The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.The post James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation 007 Novels with Mark Edlitz appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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Welcome back to Spybrary, the ultimate podcast for spy books, spy movies, and spy TV series. In today's ‘intel' episode, we share more about an upcoming Sandbaggers fan-organized virtual event featuring Roy Marsden (Neil Burnside.)

Paul Hodges of the Sandbaggers Facebook community shares ‘that The Sandbaggers Facebook Group will be hosting our first global event, named “Sandbagger Two”, to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of the initial UK broadcast of The Sandbaggers. It will be a virtual voice+presentation event held via Zoom on Saturday, October 7, 2023 at 11am EDT, 8am PDT, 4pm BST, etc. for 120 minutes. Besides a robust agenda, I am so excited to share the news that Roy Marsden and Greg Rucka will be the keynote speakers at Sandbagger Two. More information is available at our Facebook Group which can be found by searching Facebook for The Sandbaggers Yorkshire Television 1978-1980. I hope to see you at Sandbagger Two.

We asked Paul what fans can expect, what was Roy Marsden's reaction to being invited, and why Paul thinks the spy TV show has maintained such a loyal following after all these years.

This is Spybrary, so we have covered The Sandbaggers in a special three-parter where we reviewed each series. Why not listen to The Sandbaggers Podcast episodes prior to joining The Sandbaggers virtual event?

The Sandbaggers Series two So what is The Sandbaggers all about?The Sandbaggers is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, The Sandbaggers examines the effect of espionage on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists. All but three of the 20 episodes of the three series were written by its creator, Ian Mackintosh, who died during the recording of series three. The series was produced by Yorkshire Television, based in Leeds.

Premise
Neil D. Burnside (Roy Marsden) is Director of Operations in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (abbreviated ‘SIS'), a.k.a. MI6, although that name is never used in the series. The series follows Burnside as he oversees a small, elite group of intelligence officers, the Special Operations Section, nicknamed “Sandbaggers”, composed of highly trained officers whose missions tend to be politically sensitive or especially vital, such as escorting defectors across borders (or preventing defections from the UK), carrying out assassinations, or rescuing operatives from behind the Iron Curtain.

The series depicts Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and SIS having a co-operative agreement to share intelligence; a regular theme shows SIS as so underfunded that it has become dependent on the CIA. Burnside consequently goes to great lengths to preserve the “Special Relationship” between the CIA and SIS, most notably in the episode of the same name. Episodes frequently revolve around Burnside's frustration at trying to operate his directorate in the face of what he believes to be unwarranted bureaucratic and governmental interference, in particular from his Deputy Chief, Matthew Peele.

And don't forget to check out Tim Shipman's best spy writers, all 125 of them ranked!

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Today, we discuss The Deadly Affair, starring James Mason, on the next episode of the John le Carré movie club series on the Spybrary Podcast. This is the series where our panel of spy film fans will take a deep dive into a John le Carre movie. Following our full debriefing of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy […]

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Spy Book Reviews by spy fans for spy fans! Those fans of Holmes may not agree with “spin-off” stories about their favourite characters, but what HB Lyle has done with one of Conan Doyle's minor characters is nothing short of inspirational.  Martin Paul – Spybrarian Spy Hunter by H.B.Lyle- Spy Book Review by Martin Paul […]

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Welcome to Spybrary, the podcast for spy book enthusiasts! In today's episode, we are diving into the world of espionage books with an interview featuring a remarkable debut novelist, ex-CIA officer I.S. Berry. Her book, “The Peacock and the Sparrow,” has been causing quite a stir in the Spybrary community. Without a doubt, The Peacock […]

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Spybrary's Man in Station L (Northern Sector) author Andy Onyx slipped us this brush pass review of the David Callan books penned by James Mitchell. Welcome back to Spybrary, the ultimate podcast for spy books. In today's episode, we dive into the thrilling world of Callan, the antihero of espionage. Get ready to uncover the […]

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On this episode of Spybrary the Spy Podcast, host Shane Whaley sits down with guest Michael Smith, an intelligence historian and author of The Real Special Relationship: The True Story of How the British and US Secret Services Work Together. Michael Smith delves into the origins of the special relationship between the UK and the […]

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On this 4th of July, let's celebrate four of the best American spy writers working today! Let me introduce you or maybe reacquaint you with the best American spy writers of the modern era. Most of you know my preference is for the more cerebral, realistic spy book rather than a shoot em up. These […]

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View Post Welcome to Spybrary, the ultimate podcast for fans of spy books. In this thrilling episode, we have a special guest, David Clark, who worked as a Special Advisor to former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. David has an intellectual and professional interest in intelligence, making him the perfect guest for today's topic: Revealing […]

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Welcome to another episode of the Spybrary podcast, the show for readers of spy books and espionage novels. I'm your host, Shane Whaley, and today we have a special guest with us, William Maz, an accomplished author of spy thrillers. In this episode, we delve into the intriguing world of Bucharest, Romania, as portrayed in […]

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In this episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast, it's Dead Drop 5, and guest James Bond Bondologist Matthew Dewhurst-Grice reveals his five best James Bond novels. These are the James Bond books that he has asked his handler to stash in a dead drop behind the Iron Curtain

He shares how he first discovered the James Bond books and discusses his appreciation for Ian Fleming‘s work. The conversation covers topics such as the historical significance of the original James Bond books, the controversy surrounding the “sensitization” of some Bond editions, and the potential for new audiences to discover and appreciate the James Bond books.

Spybrary host Shane Whaley also asks Matthew about his experience attending the premiere of the James Bond film, No Time to Die at the Royal Albert Hall London.

Join us on the Spy Book Podcast, Spybrary, and discover the thrilling world of spy books in our exclusive spy book series, ‘Dead Drop 5'.

Spy Books and Dead Drops…what is this series exactly?Stephen England – Dead Drop 5 on the Spybrary Podcast
This riveting series is a crowd favorite, but be warned, your bank balance may take a hit based on these spy book recommendations. In these episodes, our brave podcast guests are dispatched on a clandestine mission behind the Iron Curtain, where danger lurks at every shadowy corner.

But fear not, they won't embark on this perilous journey unequipped.

Our intrepid agents can request five spy novels to be stashed in the East Berlin dead drop.

But that's not all.

Beyond these spy books, our guests are granted a selection of useful items, each carefully curated to make their stay in East Berlin more manageable, perhaps even a touch more comfortable.

Join host Shane Whaley as he interviews author Stephen England about his upcoming mission to East Berlin and the five books he would like to take. They discuss the importance of well-written prose in spy novels and Stephen's book choices, including “Private Wars” by Greg Rucka and “The Agent Runner” by Simon Conway.

Get ready to dive into ‘Dead Drop 5‘, only on Spybrary, but be warned, this series could seriously damage your bank account!

Matthew's top five best James Bond Books are….Are you a fan of spy novels that transport you to different times and places? Do you appreciate well-written prose that captures the life of being Britain's, if not the world's best spy? Look no further than these five James Bond book recommendations from Bondologist Matthew Dewhurst-Grice.

Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming

Casino Royale introduces readers to the world of espionage and high-stakes gambling. In this thrilling novel, James Bond, a newly minted secret agent, is assigned to thwart the plans of Le Chiffre, a dangerous financier with terrorist ties. Bond's mission takes him to the glamorous Casino Royale, where he must outwit his adversaries in a high-stakes poker game.

With its gripping storyline, intricate plot twists, and the introduction of the iconic character of James Bond, Casino Royale remains a timeless classic and a must-read for fans of thrilling spy adventures.

With A Mind To A Kill by Anthony Horowitz

With a Mind To A Kill, the forty-first official James Bond novel, is a thrilling story written by Anthony Horowitz, a talented writer and screenwriter from England. It was published in May 2022 by Vintage Books, with the support of Ian Fleming Publications.

This exciting adventure occurs after Ian Fleming's last book, “The Man with the Golden Gun,” written in 1965. Interestingly, this is Horowitz's first James Bond novel that includes no “extra material” credited to Ian Fleming. So get ready for a captivating tale filled with action and suspense!

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming

Offering a unique perspective within the world of James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me novel diverges from the traditional format by presenting the story through the eyes of a female protagonist, Vivienne Michel.

The narrative unfolds with a captivating blend of suspense, danger, and romance. Vivienne finds herself embroiled in a perilous situation, and James Bond's intervention sets off a chain of events that will test their mettle. With its compelling characters, unexpected plot twists, and exploration of themes such as identity and survival, “The Spy Who Loved Me” is a standout entry among the best James Bond books, according to Dewhurst-Grice.

For Special Services” by John Gardner,

In this James Bond book, our hero takes center stage on a loan to the United States government. Teaming up with the fearless and captivating Cedar, daughter of his old ally Felix Leiter, Bond faces off against a resurfaced nemesis: the infamous SPECTRE organization.

Prepare for a gripping journey as Bond and Cedar navigate through a series of perilous encounters, including a skyjack and a harrowing plunge in an elevator. From the swarms of deadly ants lurking in the American heartland to a spine-chilling ordeal aboard a private monorail, danger lurks at every turn. Brace yourself as our heroes confront the malevolent heir to Blofeld's wicked empire, culminating in a thrilling showdown. Dive into the pages of For Special Services and immerse yourself in the high-stakes world of espionage, suspense, and the enduring allure of James Bond.

Be warned, though, Kingsley Amis disagrees with Matthew. In a review, Amis called this James Bond book “an unrelieved disaster,” Gardner “not the most self-assured of writers,” and said that the plot was “absurd” and “blundering”. Amis said, “What makes Mr. Gardner's book so hard to read is not so much its endlessly silly story as its desolateness, its lack of the slightest human interest or warmth. […] But then, to do anything like that, the writer must be genuinely interested in his material.

By Royal Command by Charlie Higson.

In Higson's James Bond book, readers are transported to the formative years of James Bond's life, often set against a backdrop of danger and intrigue.

By Royal Command marks a thrilling milestone in the Young Bond series, presenting Ian Fleming's legendary superspy, James Bond, in his teenage years during the 1930s. Authored by the talented Charlie Higson, this fifth younger James Bond book takes readers on a gripping journey with our protagonist, James, now fourteen years old. The narrative sweeps across various captivating locations, including the picturesque Alps of Kitzbühel, England, France, Lisbon, and Vienna, where danger lurks around every corner.

First published by Puffin Books on September 3, 2008, “By Royal Command” emerged in hardcover form, shrouding its cover art—featuring a striking black and red Union Jack—until its release day. The excitement continued with the paperback edition hitting shelves on May 28, 2009, treating readers to an additional delight—an extract from the gripping Young Bond short story, “A Hard Man to Kill,” also crafted by Charlie Higson.

The thrilling tale of “By Royal Command” crossed the Atlantic, captivating readers in the United States upon its release by Disney-Hyperion on May 18, 2010. Adorned with captivating cover artwork by Owen Richardson, the U.S. edition ensured that Bond enthusiasts worldwide could embark on this adrenaline-fueled adventure.

Please note, we earn a very small commission for any purchases made through Amazon links listed in today's shownotes.

Links and Resources Mentioned on this episode The Hildebrand James Bond Community – Spybrary approved.

Follow Matthew on Instagram

The Spybrary Online Community – by spy book fans for spy fans.

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Author Stephen England finds himself embedded deep in Communist-controlled East Berlin, and has asked his handler to leave him 5 of his favorite spy books at the Dead Drop location in Friedrichshain Park.

Join us on the Spy Book Podcast, Spybrary, and discover the thrilling world of spy novels in our exclusive series, ‘Dead Drop 5'.

Spy Books and Dead Drops…what is this series exactly?Stephen England – Dead Drop 5 on the Spybrary Podcast
This riveting series is a crowd favorite, but be warned, your bank balance may take a hit based on these spy book recommendations. In these episodes, our brave podcast uests are dispatched on a clandestine mission behind the Iron Curtain, where danger lurks at every shadowy corner.

But fear not, they won't embark on this perilous journey unequipped.

Our intrepid agents can request five spy novels to be stashed in the East Berlin dead drop.

But that's not all.

Beyond these spy books, our guests are granted a selection of diverse items, each carefully curated to make their stay in East Berlin more manageable, perhaps even a touch more comfortable.

Join host Shane Whaley as he interviews author Stephen England about his upcoming mission to East Berlin and the five books he would like to take. They discuss the importance of well-written prose in spy novels and Stephen's book choices, including “Private Wars” by Greg Rucka and “The Agent Runner” by Simon Conway.

Get ready to dive into ‘Dead Drop 5', only on Spybrary, but be warned, this series could seriously damage your bank account!

Stephen England's 5 Spy Books You Need to Read for a Thrilling AdventureAre you a fan of spy novels that transport you to different times and places? Do you appreciate well-written prose that captures the madness of the spy business? Look no further than these five spy book recommendations from author Stephen England.

First on the list is Private Wars by Greg Rucka, a spy book set in Central Asia with skillfully crafted prose. Next is The Agent Runner by Simon Conway, a masterful portrayal of the dirty bomb plot and the madness of the spy business. Stephen also recommends Appointment in Tehran by James Stejskal for its gripping plot and characters.

Pick up Night Heron by Adam Brookes for a gritty look at espionage. This novel is praised for its realistic portrayal of China and its compelling characters. Finally, Security Detail by Matt Cricchio offers a nuanced exploration of the conflict in Afghanistan and the people caught up in it.

Whether you're a fan of modern world terror novels or prefer a cold war spy historical setting, these spy novels are sure to provide a thrilling adventure. So grab a copy and prepare to be transported to the murky world of intelligence, espionage and skullduggery!

Links and Resources Mentioned on this episode with Andy Onyx on the Spybrary Spy PodcastStephen England Author Website

The Spybrary Online Community – by spy book fans for spy fans.

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The James Bond Book ClubIan Fleming's Goldfinger on the James Bond Book Club

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time in the year of publication, as we embark on this 007 James Bond literary adventure together.

Shane Whaley – Spybrary Podcast Host

Are you a fan of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels? If so, you won't want to miss the latest episode of the James Bond Book Club presented by Spybrary. In this episode, host Shane Whaley and guests David Craggs and Andy Onyx dive deep into Ian Fleming's classic novel Goldfinger as if they are in the year of publication. They provide fascinating analysis and insight into this iconic book's plot, characters, and writing style. You'll hear their thoughts on how Ian Fleming's Goldfinger compares to other James Bond novels and get a glimpse into the success of Ian Fleming's writing. Whether you're a die-hard James Bond fan or just love a good book club style discussion, this episode offers a detailed and engaging look at Goldfinger and all its elements. Tune in now to join the conversation!

Join us as we discuss the latest Ian Fleming James Bond novel, Goldfinger. We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, the locations, the femme fatale, the allies, and the glamour. Today it's the turn of Oddjob, Auric, and the infamous Pussy Galore.

All that and much more on the latest edition of the James Bond Book Club, available on all good podcast apps and at the link in the first comment. Will you join us in 1959?

What exactly is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club, and what makes it different from other 007 James Bond book clubs?Step into a time machine and journey back to the thrilling era of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels on the captivating James Bond Book Club podcast. Delve into the pages of each 007 adventure as we unravel the secrets hidden within, exploring many captivating themes that will transport you to a different time and place.

Uncover the magic behind each novel as we analyze the significance of its publication year, immersing ourselves in the very essence of the zeitgeist and uncovering the historical and cultural events that shaped Fleming's gripping tales. Gain insight into the author's brilliant creation James Bond, as we explore the personal experiences that inspired the intriguing plots and characters.

Indulge your senses with the visual delights of the U.K.'s first edition cover art, marveling at the iconic designs that graced the books' covers and examining their artistic symbolism. Traverse the globe alongside Bond as we traverse the richly described locations, from glamorous cities to exotic locales, (do mud baths in Saratoga, count?) all brought vividly to life through Fleming's masterful prose.

Witness the evolution of Bond's character, peeling back the layers of his complex persona and understanding the choices that have molded him into the indomitable secret agent we know and sometimes love. Meet the unforgettable villains who threaten Bond's very existence, their nefarious plans and motivations dissected to reveal the depths of their malevolence.

Enter the world of seductive femme fatales who leave their mark on Bond's heart and the story's narrative, exploring the enigmatic allure and dangerous charms they possess. Discover the diverse supporting characters playing pivotal roles in James Bond's adventures, each leaving an indelible impact on the reader.

Unravel the luxury brands that have become synonymous with James Bond, exploring the marketing and iconic imagery associated with the legendary spy. Relive the most thrilling moments and pulse-pounding set pieces that define each novel, immersing yourself in the heart-stopping chapters that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Lastly, witness each novel's critical reception, discover how these literary masterpieces were received at the time of their release and understand their lasting impact on the spy genre. But remember, in our journey through Fleming's world, we'll focus solely on the books, deliberately omitting any reference to the iconic 007 movies.

Prepare to experience Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as if reading them for the first time, as we embark on this literary adventure together. Be sure to explore our vast library of previous episodes, where we've explored the captivating world of the James Bond Book Club. Join us and immerse yourself in the gripping universe of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

This is the James Bond Book Club on Spybrary.

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Looking for an in-depth guide to John Le Carré radio adaptations? Look no further than the BBC's extensive catalog of thrilling spy dramas.

From “Call For The Dead” to “The Secret Pilgrim,” Le Carré's iconic novels have been brought to life on BBC Radio, featuring talented actors like George Cole, Simon Russell-Beale, and Brian Cox. Whether you're a fan of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” or “The Honourable Schoolboy,” there's a radio adaptation that will captivate you. Our comprehensive list compiled by Spybrarian Martin Reynolds covers all the adaptations, including production notes and where to find them online. So, tune in and discover the world of John Le Carré radio adaptations today!

Martin also recently appeared on the panel of our first-ever edition of the John Le Carré Movie Club on the Spybrary Podcast. You can listen on our favourite podcast app (search Spybrary) or at Spybrary HQ.

BBC Radio adaptations of John Le Carré Books

The BBC has, since its inception, produced many radio dramas on the UK, World Service, and local language services. Whilst the majority of the work consists of original commissions many feature adaptations of both conventional plays and books. Within the world of spies, Fleming, Deighton, Higgins, and Le Carré have all featured, with Le Carré seeming to have been a frequent source of inspiration.

To this end, I've managed to put together a list of the Le Carré adaptations, many of which I've been able to listen to with the help of both Radio4 Extra/BBC Sounds (or Audible). Unofficial sources such as Internet Archive and short lived YouTube channels are necessary locations as much of the older material has long since been removed from public distribution (typically taped box sets) or was never available beyond its original broadcast.

For ease, I've listed by book publication order. Beyond dropping in a few production notes, I won't review the individual adaptations for now.

Call For The Dead

1978

Adapted by René Basilico and produced by John Fawcett-Wilson this is a five part/30 minute episode serial that was originally for the World Service. George Cole (yes, Arthur Daley himself) appears as George Smiley, and Alfred Burke as Mendel

2009

Adapted by Robert Forrest and produced by Patrick Rayner this was the first of ‘The Complete Smiley' adaptations being presented as a single 1.5-hour Saturday Afternoon play. Simon Russell-Beale appears as Smiley.

A Murder of Quality

1968

Adapted by regular Saturday Night Theatre writer Frederick Bradnum and produced by David Geary this is the earliest radio adaptation of Le Carré that I am aware of. Broadcast as a single 1.5 hour play as part of the Saturday Night Theatre strand it features David Bird (not a name I recognise) as Smiley.

1981

René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson return with another serial, again five parts of 30 minutes each and George Cole as Smiley.

2009

Adapted by Shaun McKenna and produced by Marc Beeby, this is also a single 1.5 hour play. Simon Russell-Beale returns as Smiley with Geoffrey Palmer guesting in a typically strong cast.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

1986

René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson are again at the helm if a six part/30 minute serial. The casting of Colin Blakely as Leamas sounds intriguing but attempts to find this series have so far come to nothing.

2009

Robert Forrest and Patrick Rayner take ‘The Complete Smiley' adaptations into long form with a series of three 1 hour long episodes for the Sunday Afternoon ‘Classic Serial' strand. Whilst Simon Russell-Beale appears as Smiley the key performance across the three plays is Brian Cox as Leamas.

The Looking Glass War

2009

Shaun McKenna adapted and Marc Beeby produced the sole version of this book as two 1 hour episodes. Simon Russell-Beale appears briefly as Smiley; Ian McDiarmuid and Philip Jackson as LeClerc and Haldane are memorable performances.

A Small Town In Germany

1982

René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson took seven 30 minute episodes on this adaptation. Kenneth Haigh takes the lead role as Turner. Another adaptation on the ‘to be tracked down list', I've only ever caught one episode on a short-lived YouTube stream.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

1988

What René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson may have lacked in time, again only seven 30 minute episodes, they certainly didn't lack in cast for this adaptation. Bernard Hepton joins as Smiley with other cast including James Grout, Alan McNaughton, Rosemary Leach and John Bennett.

2009

Shaun McKenna and Steve Canny delivered three 1 hour long episodes. Simon Russell-Beale returns as Smiley with Ewan Bailey, Kenneth Cranham, Maggie Steed and Anthony Calf in other roles.

The Honourable Schoolboy

1983

Frederick Bradnum returns to write with Roger Pine producing two 1.5 hour long episodes in the ‘Saturday Night Theatre' strand. Martin Jarvis (credited as a National Theatre Player) leads the cast with a rather quiet Peter Vaughn as Smiley.

2010

Shaun McKenna adapted and Marc Beeby produced on the three hour long episodes for the ‘Complete Smiley Adaptation'. The ‘regular' cast is enhanced to take up the wider number of characters; Hugh Bonneville is superb as Jerry Westerby.

Smiley's People

1990

Finishing their stint with Smiley, René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson returned with seven 30 minute episodes. Bernard Hepton undertakes the final duties of short form serial Smiley.

2010

Robert Forrest and Patrick Rayner return to finish the Karla trilogy section of ‘The Complete Smiley'. Simon Russell-Beale gets to pick up the lighter from the Berlin cobbles.

The Russia House

1994

René Basilico and John Fawcett-Wilson with seven 30 minute episodes. Tom Baker as Barley Blair

A Perfect Spy

1993

René Basilico adapts and John Fawcett-Wilson produces on eight 30 minute episodes. James Fox takes on the role of Pym (mostly at a Typewriter) with James Grout as a really abrasive Brotherhood.

2017

Robert Forrest returned to adapting Le Carré with Bruce Young (responsible for producing most Rebus adaptations amongst other work) producing on three 1 hour episodes in the ‘Classic Serial' strand. Julian Rynd-Tutt takes promotion to Pym (he played Young Pym in 1993) alongside Bill Patterson as Brotherhood and a wonderful Anton Lesser as Axel.

The Secret Pilgrim

2010

Robert Forrest and Patrick Rayner round off the ‘Complete Smiley' adaptations with three 1 hour episodes. Simon Russell-Beale features as Smiley ensconced in a creaky armchair next to a fire, with Patrick Malahide in the primary narration role as Ned representing the post-Smiley Circus.

Want even more Spy Book recommendations?

Then check out this ranking of the best spy authors 125 spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman.

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Author David Brierley chats thriller writing and research on the latest episode of the Spybrary PodcastOn Episode 206 of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast, we chat with Andy Onyx, the author of the cold war espionage novel Like Dolphins

Readers looking for a quirky Cold War spy story will find much to enjoy in Like Dolphins.

Shane Whaley, Spies and Books, Spybrary

In the latest installment of his Barbell spy book series, spy author Andy Onyx takes us on a journey through the world of Cold War spy fiction. With a cast of intriguing characters and a plot that delves deep into the world of espionage, this episode is a must-listen for fans of cold war espionage novels.

‘Now in Like Dolphins it was to place my existing characters of BREAKSPEAR (Bradley) and KESTREL (Wallace) in the last knockings of the Cold War, right at the end, in a plot like no other.

The tag lines “Withnail and Spy” and “ A Cold War Trainspotting” set the scene of late 80s culture, music, style, the end of football hooliganism, the rising rave scene.

We’re at a critical point in the Cold War with an ailing GDR behind the Wall further de-stabled by reforming winds of Glasnost and Perestroika coming from the senior partner, the USSR. Add to that action in the hedonistic capital of Europe, Amsterdam.'

In this episode, we learn that the plot centers around a key football game between Monaco and Dynamo Berlin and that football hooliganism plays a key role in the story. The introduction of ecstasy changes the culture of violence surrounding this subculture and sets the tone for the action to follow.

The cast of characters is explored in depth throughout the episode, with each one complementing one another and creating tension when in the other's presence. The protagonist, KESTREL is tasked with rehabilitating BREAKSPEAR, a previous partner who had a psychological issue and was out of action. The dynamic between the two former partners is fascinating to read, and adds an extra layer of intrigue to the story.

As Andy Onyx reveals more about the plot but keeping spoilers to himself (this is the way on Spybrary), it becomes clear that loyalty will be tested, and betrayal is a constant risk.

Andy Onyx also recommends some must-read books for Cold War spy fiction fans, including “The Outsider” by Frederick Forsyth and “The Fist of God” by the same author. Andy also reveals some of the books on East Germany that he used for researching East Germany.

Onyx has also created an eclectic Spotify playlist featuring music relevant to the story. From “Ride On Time” to “Sympathy for the Devil,” the music adds another dimension to the storytelling.

Overall, Like Dophins is a quirky, intriguing, and informative exploration of Cold War spy fiction. Whether you're a die-hard fan of the spy genre or just looking for something new to read, Like Dolphins is well worth a read.

So what are you waiting for? Tune in to the latest episode to find out how the story unfolds.

Discussed in the episode:

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Like Dolphins by Andy Onyx * Andy Onyx Official Site * Andy Onyx Dead Drop 5 episode – our spy themed version of Desert Island Discs. * The Outsider by Frederick Forsyth * Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth * Stasiland by Anna Funder * Man Without a Face – Markus Wolf. * Join the Spybrary Community



The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.The post ‘Trainspotting meets Cold War Espionage’ with Spy Author Andy Onyx appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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The Innocent by Ian McEwan is a thrilling novel set in 1950s Berlin during the early stages of the Cold War. The book follows the story of Leonard Marnham, a young British post office technician who is sent to Berlin to work on a top-secret project. Leonard is a naive and inexperienced young man who quickly becomes embroiled in a dangerous game of espionage and deceit.

Tim Shipman, in his best spy authors list, ranked Ian McEwan at #77 and wrote:

Another literary novelist who has tried his hand at espionage. Unlike Sebastian Faulks, an author I usually like, but whose attempt at a Bond novel reads like a literary novelist who thinks writing a thriller is easy and somewhat beneath him, McEwan has twice come up with a winner, perhaps because he treated the subject matter like any other subject for literary examination.

The Innocent is a twisty gripper of a book, which embroils a naive telecoms worker in the 1950s tunnel the allies built under the Russian sector of Berlin to tap their communications. He falls for a German woman and his two worlds collide.

Tim Shipman

Regular listeners know about my love for Berlin-based espionage novels, and having never read any of Ian McEwan‘s work then, I had to give this one a go, especially as it features appearances by real life spy/traitor George Blake with the main backdrop to the story being the Berlin tunnel that the Allies dug deep under Berlin, not to get people out, but to listen to Soviet communications from their HQ in East Berlin, Karlshorst!

On today's episode of Spybrary I share my brush pass review of The Innocent with you

Have you read Ian McEwan's The Innocent? Come and let us know your thoughts on the Spybrary fans community.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post The Innocent By Ian McEwan- Brush Pass Review appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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Author David Brierley chats thriller writing and research on the latest episode of the Spybrary PodcastOn Episode 204 of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast, we chat with the author of the best spy book I read last year, Big Bear Little Bear, David Brierley. We are also joined by the publisher, thriller critic, and author Mike Ripley as we dig into David's work and, in particular, how he researches locations for his spy novels.

As I shared in the best spy books of 2022 post, Big Bear Little Bear, published in 1981, was the best spy thriller I read last year. It was hard to ignore this recommendation from Mike Ripley, who shared that the man himself, Len Deighton, had stumbled on a copy of Big Bear Little Bear in a second-hand shop in LA and loved it. He urged Mike to republish Brierley's work under his Ostara publishing arm.

David Brierley comes in at #63 on Tim Shipman's best spy writers of all time list:

‘Brierley created Cody, one of the very best female leads in spy fiction. She is a CIA trained agent who has gone freelance, who we first meet in Cold War, a 1979 novel set in the midst of a French election, which involves assassination, betrayal, and real tension (It scores 4.14 on GoodReads, which is much higher than a lot of books I love).

Cody is resourceful and Brierley was hailed on publication as “a new name joins the world’s greatest spy fiction writers”. Best of all his books are not long and written with a spare and unflashy style that nonetheless has real novelistic flair.

This is espionage for grown-ups. Blood Group O, Skorpion’s Death and Snowline followed. Between those Cody books, Brierley also became renowned for spy thrillers set in Eastern Europe, such as Czechmate.

His best book, though, is Big Bear Little Bear set in 1948 Berlin, before the airlift, where the sole survivor of a blown network works to expose a traitor in British intelligence. My paper, The Sunday Times, reviewed it thus: “ Has the rancid strength of a distillation of the best of Le Carré and Deighton: an authentic winner.” That this praise is only slightly excessive tells you what you need to know.'

The master of cold war espionage fiction returns with a tale of intrigue and suspense set in post-Soviet Latvia. When wine-merchant Matt Clough learns that the father he never knew has died, he sets out to discover the truth of his father's past. What he finds is a secret that will mean great riches, or sudden death.

England, 2001. Matt Clough is an ordinary English wine-merchant, approaching middle age with no family and no great ambition. An orphan. An ex-spy.

Latvia, 2001. Krisjanis Kulbergs is far from ordinary. Ex-spy. Double agent. Master of the triple-cross. Guilty of just about every crime or sin the twentieth century had to offer. He is the unknown father of English wine-merchant Matt Clough. He is also dead.

When Clough learns of the death of a father he never knew, he travels to Latvia to uncover the secrets of his father’s life and his own inheritance. The Cold War has been over for a decade, but some men still keep secrets so great that old spies from both sides of the divide will go to any lengths to get hold of them.

Discussed in the episode:

Chat more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group* Big Bear Little Bear by David Brierley * Kiss Kiss Bang – The Boom in British Thrillers by Mike Ripley * Dead Man Telling Tales by David Brierley – just released (2023) * Czechmate by David Brierley * Jeff Popple (Spybrarian) Review of Czechmate * Skorpions Death by David Brierley * The Cloak and Dagger Girl by David Brierley * Best Spy Books of 2022 (Spybrary) * Tim Shipman's best spy writers ranked list. * Adam Hall/Elleston Trevor * Raymond Chandler * Join the Spybrary Community



The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.The post Conversation with Authors David Brierley and Mike Ripley appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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So you want to read a realistic spy book but are unsure where to start? You have come to the right place. There are plenty of realistic spy books out there that will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing until the very end without the need for you to suspend belief or wear earplugs because of all the cordite and flash bangs . Spybrary's Shane Whaley shares five of the best realistic spy books for those who are new to the espionage genre.

One great option for beginners new to realistic spy books is “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by John le Carré. This classic novel is set during the Cold War and follows the story of a British intelligence officer sent to East Germany to infiltrate the Communists and cause mayhem. The book is known for its gritty realism and attention to detail, making it an excellent choice for those who want to get a taste of the realistic spy genre.

Another great option is “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” by John le Carré. This book is also set during the Cold War and follows the story of a retired intelligence officer, George Smiley who is brought back into the fold to investigate a possible Soviet mole within the British intelligence service. The book is known for its complex plot and rich character development, making it a great choice for those who want to dive a little deeper into the genre.

A more recent and popular option is “The Night Manager” by John le Carré. This book is set in the modern day. It follows the story of a former British soldier recruited by a government agent to infiltrate the inner circle of an international arms dealer. The book is known for its fast-paced action and intricate plot, making it an excellent choice for those who want to experience a more modern take on the spy genre.

Finally, “Red Sparrow” by Jason Matthews. This book is about a Russian intelligence officer who is sent to infiltrate the CIA by seducing a young CIA officer to extract information. This book is known for its gripping plot and strong female lead, making it a goodchoice for those who want to experience a fresh take on the spy genre from a US perspective.

Overall, all of these books are great choices for beginners who are looking to start reading spy novels. They offer a mix of realism, action, and intrigue that will keep you guessing until the very end. Whether you're looking for a classic Cold War story or a more modern take on the genre, there's something for everyone in this selection.

These are my best spy books to start with but as is always the case with literature, ask another spy fan and you will get a different selection. Why not join our Spybrary community and chat spy books with likeminded readers?

Want even more Spy Book recommendations? Then check this out!

Check out the best spy writers according to Tim Shipman http://www.spybrary.com/top125Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post The Best Realistic Spy Books for Beginners appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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Today’s guest is writer Adam Brookes. Adam spent over a decade working for the BBC, appearing on television and radio while crisscrossing the globe and spending an extended amount of time in both China and the US. He’s also written for publications such as Foreign Policy and The Economist. His first espionage novel, Night Heron, was released in 2014 and was followed by Spy Games and The Spy’s Daughter.

His most recent book is Fragile Cargo: China's Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City, currently available in the UK and releasing February 14th in the US.

We discuss his past as a foreign correspondent, the ethics of a reporter spy, how to understand the government in China and his spy novels. Plus the forgotten history of China in WW2, his new book Fragile Cargo and what he thinks about le Carré’s The Honourable Schoolboy. All that and much, much more in this episode.

Discussed in the episode:

Adam’s Website – https://www.adambrookes.com/

Adam’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/AdamBrookesWord

Adam’s spy trilogy – Night Heron, Spy Games, The Spy’s Daughter – https://www.adambrookes.com/philip-mangan-series

Fragile Cargo: China’s Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City

US – https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fragile-Cargo/Adam-Brookes/9781982149291

UK – https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441577/fragile-cargo-by-brookes-adam/9781784743796

The le Carré Cast – https://lecarrecast.com/

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite



The best spy writers ranked by the Sunday Times' Tim Shipman, grab your copy here.Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post Conversation with Spy Author Adam Brookes appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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In this Christmas episode of Spy Rewind, Matthew and Jeff take a look at the episode “The Night of Whirring Death” of the 60’s tv show The Wild Wild West.

They discuss how WWW is the old west’s James Bond, the great Michael Dunn as one of the best villains – Professor Loveless, and Richard Kiel before Jaws! Plus, spy Christmas traditions! All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

Mentioned on the show –

Matthew’s review of Season Two – http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2007/03/review-wild-wild-west-second-season.html

Matthew’s review of Season Three –

http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2007/12/dvd-review-wild-wild-west-third-season.html

Matthew’s review of Season Four –

http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2008/07/dvd-review-wild-wild-west-fourth-season.html

All of Matthew’s Wild Wild West writing –

http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/search/label/Wild%20Wild%20West

Buy the DVD’s –

This episode on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSgSIp0ez1Q&ab_channel=lackdock

Levar Burton reading The Usual Santas – https://chartable.com/podcasts/levar-burton-reads/episodes/130182980-immersive-remix-the-usual-santas-by-mick-herron

Jeff’s review of The Spy Who Came for Christmas – https://spywrite.com/2010/12/22/the-spy-who-came-for-christmas-david-morrell/

Matthew’s Website – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/

Matthew’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/DoubleOSection

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

Christmas music – Music by SoundGalleryByDmitryTaras from Pixabay

Check out an earlier episode of Spy Rewind on the Spybrary Podcast – by spy fans for spy fans.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion groupSupport Spybrary Spy Podcast on Patreon. Become a Spybrary SupporterThe post Spy Rewind – ‘James Bond On a Horse’ aka The Wild Wild West appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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It is that time of year once again when book critics and reviewers are asked what are the best spy books of the year. Spybrary is a ‘by spy fans for spy fans' production so it is in that spirit that we asked our own Spybrary Podcast listeners and community members to reveal what were their best spy books of 2022 with a twist.

We asked our spy book readers two questions.

  1. What is the best spy book you have read that was published in 2022?
  2. What is the best espionage novel you have read this year that was published before 2022?

So if you are looking for spy book recommendations, then read on. Warning, Spybrary does not accept any liability for bankruptcies or divorces that may occur as a result of you browsing this list of the best espionage novels!

If you are looking to join a community of other spy book fans then do come and join us over at the Spybrary Community.

(Whilst I have added Amazon links below and yes we do earn a small cut from each purchase, we would love it if you could purchase these books from an independent bookstore. I add the Amazon link so you can read the reviews before deciding to buy.)

Tim ShipmanThe best spy books published in 2022 is a tough category as we are being treated to some very high-quality work at the moment

  1. I can’t separate Paul Vidich’s The Matchmaker A Spy in Berlin and The Berlin Exchange by Joe Kanon. Both were hugely atmospheric, based on a fascinating premise grounded in fact, tight, taut, and packed an emotional punch. They’re a short nose ahead of Mick Herron’s Bad Actors, where Mick brilliantly tackled my world of politics. Some of his best writing. I’m about to do Simon Conway’s The Survivor and also excited about Tom Bradby’s Yesterday’s Spy.

  2. I enjoyed getting to know Jonas Merrick in Gerald Seymour’s The Crocodile Hunter but nothing was better for me than a re-read of Big Bear Little Bear by David Brierley, whose work is reminiscent of both Vidich and Kanon. This really is a stone cold spy classic.

Check out the best 125 spy writers ranked according to Tim ShipmanMartin PaulBest spy books of 2022 I'm going to say Tom Bradby and Yesterday's Spy. Managed to be serious but with a truly sad undertone.

Pre 2022, I'm going for Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal if we can stretch the definition. Because although we know how it will end, we still enjoy the ride.

Peter NewmanFor me, my best spy novel of 2022 novel is Mick Herron's ‘Bad Actors’, I’m afraid. Not very original! An honourable mention for Conway’s excellent ‘The Survivor’, which was a coin toss loser for the title.

I didn’t read an enormous amount of pre-2022 spy fiction this year, but I think my vote would go to Paul Vidich’s ‘The Mercenary’ which I enjoyed immensely.

Steve RittermanDifficult, but here goes: My favorite spy book, published in '22 was Paul Vidich's THE MATCHMAKER.…a wonderful cold war story told in lean, clean fashion…reminiscent of Ambler, it had everything I love about espionage fiction.

A number of contenders for best spy books read this year and published before, but I'm going with David McCloskey's DAMASCUS STATION…..meaty and visceral, it put me into a world I know little about…if there's a better ‘debut' espionage novel out there, I've yet to read it.

Peter Morgan1 Not read a 2022 published spy book

2 – 2022 is the year I broke my Mick Herron duck so I'll go with Slow Horses.

Clarissa Aykroyd1. I am only about two-thirds of the way through, but for best spy books in 2022, I will go with the ever-excellent Mick Herron's Bad Actors.

  1. I haven't read a lot of spy books this year in general, but I had at least a couple of candidates for “before 2022”. I'll go with the non-fiction The Red Web (about the internet and surveillance in Russia) by our own Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan. Relevant and even if you're somewhat knowledgeable in this area, will probably give you many angles you weren't aware of.

Holly KhanI can only answer (2) but it the best spy book I read that was published before 2022 has to be Ben Macintyre's The Spy and The Traitor; it's a cliche but it really does roll like a film – and should be made into one.

Thomas PerettiI also can only answer #2, but I got a lot of great reading inspiration from the Shipman best spy author list and would probably put The Soul of Viktor Tronko just above A Firing Offense. Two great books in the world of American espionage, which I hadn’t enjoyed much of before this year, and I’m glad an Englishman pointed me in the right direction.

Joe Modelewski1. Judas 62, Charles Cumming (US pub 2022)

  1. The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer, pub 2009

Mike Hassel Shearer1. Dan Fesperman?, Joseph Kanon?, Paul Vidich? hmmm…. I'll go with a new guy William Maz- The Bucharest Dossier.

  1. The Kremlin Letter by Noel Behn. Very complicated even on a 2nd read.

Błażej GęburaBest spy book of 2022: Winter Work by Dan Fesperman, I really liked the theme of cleaning up after STASI being in agony. Also, the family situation (if you can call it that) of the main character added some psychological depth to the plot.

  1. “Our Man in Havana” by Graham Greene. Neither before nor since have vacuum cleaners been more fun.

Payne HarrisonNothing on #1

2: The New Girl by Daniel Silva

Ted SmithBest espionage novel published in 2022 Winter Work by Dan Fesperman
Pre 2022: The Sisters by Robert Littell

Giga Vac1. The Order by Daniel Silva (I think it is from 2022),
2. The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre

Mark LambertI’m going with a couple of American spy novels: 1) Joseph Kanon’s The Berlin Exchange and 2) Charles McCarry’s The Last Supper. It started me on a bit of a McCarry run – currently wrapping up book 8 of the Paul Christopher series Shelley’s Heart.

Stephen EnglandFor this year, I'd have to go with Bevan Roberts' “Kingdom of Spies.” An exceedingly entertaining look at the realities of espionage in an often-overlooked corner of the War on Terror.

For before 2022, I'm torn between David McCloskey's “Damascus Station” and Olen Steinhauer's “All the Old Knives.” They were both incredibly good and I'm hard-pressed to pick between them.

Chris LueloffI have not read any spy books published in 2002 but I have to say the best book I have read this year is “To the Lions” by Holly Watt (2019).

Jeff Popple1. Best spy books of 2022 – Very tricky to answer – I thought that Fesperman's Winter Works; Vidich's The Matchmaker and Bradby's Yesterday's Spy were all great, but I think that Mick Herron's Bad Actors was my favourite

  1. Best espionage novels published before 2022 is also hard as I have been reading/ re-reading a number of old spy novels this year: McCarry's The Miernik Dossier, Greg Rucka's The Last Run (great), Porter's A Spy's Life, some of the early Deightons and others. On balance I think it was Deighton's Yesterday's Spy. I also re-read the 3 Nick Maasten quasi spy novels by Owen Sela and really enjoyed them

Matthew Bradford (Double O Section Blog and Spybrary Contributor)Hm… I could be forgetting something crucial, but off the top of my head, my favorite 2022 spy novel (among quite a few good ones!) was Kanon’s THE BERLIN EXCHANGE. I think it was my favorite Kanon book, in fact. (Though I haven’t read them all.)

Older books… again, I read a lot of great ones this year! (Many thanks to Tim’s top 125 spy authors list.) But I think my favorite was probably QUILLER SOLITAIRE. I’ve been stretching out this wonderful series for I think 16 years now, savoring it and not wanting it to end, going in order, but slowly, even re-reading some of my favorite ones multiple times along the way. (I am not a binger when it comes to book series I love.) In my forward momentum, I finally entered the Final Three with this one… and it’s the best in quite a while! Overall I prefer the initial ten books to what I think of as “the second series” that started in the mid-Eighties and put “Quiller” in all the titles. Those ones are all still great, just mostly not AS great as the original run. But SOLITAIRE was a real corker, up there with Hall’s best!

That leaves one orphan, though, that doesn’t quite fit into either category: Charles Cummings’ BOX 88 was published in 2021, but didn’t come out in America until January of this year. So I’m not sure which it counts as, but I loved it. I’m a big Cumming fan, and this was my favorite one since A FOREIGN COUNTRY. Can’t wait to read the sequel, which just came out here!

Bob GabouryThe best spy books I have read in 2022 are Damascus Station by David McCloskey and The Mercenary by Paul Vidich

Timothy HardyFor best spy books published this year, it’s a tough choice between “The Matchmaker” by Paul Vidich and “Bad Actors” by Mick Herron. Loved the plot and exquisite writing in the former but at this point in the Slough House series, I’m so invested in Herron’s characters and humor that Bad Actors get the slightest edge.

For the pre-2022 book, Damascus Station by David McCloskey is an easy win. Hands down, one of the most exciting books I’ve read (ever). Greatly anticipating McCloskey’s next book.

Lachlan Page1. Best spy books of 2022 – Kingdom of Spies — Bevan Roberts

  1. Best spy book pre 2022 – Box 88 — Charles Cumming

Yogi HuhSierra Six by Mark Greaney
Mexico Set by Len Deighton

Karl Gunnar Oen1. Almost impossible to choose the best spy book in a year that’s seen the publication of Matchmaker, JUDAS 62, With a Mind to Kill, Berlin Exchange and Winter Work -which I have read- and with The Lunar Housewife and Bad Actors, still in the TBR-pile. For one who fancies Berlin as the location, it’s been like Christmas all year around. Cumming and Fesperman are neck on neck in this round for me, but if the Berlin-factor comes into play, the prize goes to Dan Fesperman's Winter Work.

  1. The last one I read was Gerald Seymour’s The Crocodile Hunter, but that was a 2021 publication, so not overtly old…

Adam JamesThe best spy books I read this year: Damascus station, the Spanish Game by Charles Cumming, Slow Horses by Mick Heroon and Len Deighton's Berlin Game (2022 was a big intro to the genre for me)

Talk more about spy books and spy movies in our Spybrary discussion groupTodd WilkinsThe Handler from MP Woodward

James StejskalTwo spy books each by Furst and Kanon — Foreign Correspondent, World at Night; Istanbul passage, Leaving Berlin. Of course, I didn't read Shane's instructions… none were published in 2022, I just read them in 2022. Published in 2022… Damascus Station.

Samson Deighton1. Tough call between Winter Work, The Matchmaker, Judas 62 (I’m 1/2 way through and it’s fantastic) and Berlin Exchange. But a very slight edge to Kanon’s Berlin Exchange. My 2nd favorite Kanon book behind The Defectors.

  1. 2022 was the year I was introduced to Bernard Samson. What a wonderful year it was. I flew through the 3 trilogies and it was glorious. Samson is my favorite all time spy…Len Deighton is my favorite author. Since I have to pick one, it has to be the first book, Berlin Game.

Even though not really a spy thriller, my favorite non Len Deighton book I read in 2022 was Five Decembers by James Kestrel.

Martin ReynoldsIn a year when I actually got a decent amount of reading done…1. Judas 62 by Charles Cumming. Hadn't read any Cumming before this. Thoroughly enjoyed the book which I'll admit at the time of purchase was an impulse buy rather Spybrary guided.

  1. The Stone Roses by Sarah Gainham. Much inspired by the discussions in the build up of classic authors discussed in Tim Shipman's top 125 spy writers list and it's subsequent drip feed I probably overpaid owing to the scarcity of the book in the UK. Finances aside it's a great little thriller and was well worth the search.

Murali Murti1. I read only two espionage novels published in 2022, both absolutely not from mainstream authors, and honestly don't know whether “best” is a rating I would give to either. However, both were certainly Out-of-the-Box and Unusual:

– Undermoney , by Jay Newman

– Ace of Shadows , by Balkrishna Kamath.

Must relate an anecdote from the New Yorker feature on Undermoney. It seems that the publishers sniffed and told Newman “Needs more sex”. So he added a couple of sex scenes. The publisher said “More spice”. So Newman added a threesome scene. Newman's son went like “Dad, stop it !”. Then the publisher said “Hmmm, maybe there's too much sex”. That's when Newman told them “FO, it publishes as is now”.

  1. Pre-2022 : Have started on Slow Horses, and am enjoying it hugely. I'm experiencing a strange sensation – I'm finding it a little difficult to stop thinking like one of the elite a la JLC, and to start thinking like one of the proles, although that's not the best description I guess.

And of course, re-read (very carefully this time) the entire Karla trilogy. As some may have noticed, my recent comments reflect that.

Andy Ways Laska# 1 – The Cassandra Complex (Frazer Douglas) I am still reading this but it is such a great Cold War setting/story so far.

2 – Box 88 (Charles Cumming) in audiobook, a fun listen contemporary take.

Highly recommend both!

Chris RawlingsFor 1. Best spy books of 2022 – Winter Work by Dan Fesperman probably edges it just over Berlin exchange. I liked that Marcus Wolf was in it.

  1. Well I finally got around to reading the first 3 Bernard Sampson books and yes, they are something special. I may now be more in the Deighton rather than Le Carre camp, just. Will be continuing soon with the rest of them.

Ian Douglashttp://www.spybrary.com/1821. Best spy books of 2022 – Berlin Exchange – it’s the only new book that I’ve read this year but enjoyed it immensely. Cold War Berlin always interests me and this was a well-plotted, engaging story.

  1. From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

One of Fleming’s best. A tight story with strong, often dislikeable characters. Close to the classic film too.

David HardmanLen Deighton's Berlin Game – Book Club Edition on the Spybrary Spy Podcast1. The only 2022 ‘spy' novel I've read this year is ‘The Partisan' by Patrick Worrall. It's more of an assassin story really. It was alright, I wasn't especially bowled over.

  1. ‘Berlin Game' by Len Deighton; although selecting the first novel is really a tribute to the entire series. You go “Oh my God” at the end and know that you've been well set-up for more intrigue to follow.

David Clark1. The only spy fiction published in 2022 that I managed to read is The Partisan by Patrick Worrall, which I enjoyed a lot. It’s a very well-written and accomplished debut novel. Although it lost me a little in the middle, I will definitely look out for future releases by the same author.

  1. Like many, I spent a lot of time reading the soy classics recommended on Spybrary. I particularly liked Big Bear, Little Bear by David Brierley, and Charlie Muffin by Brian Freemantle, which I’ve just finished.

The pick of the year for me, however, is The Double Game by Dan Fesperman. It’s something of a love letter to the genre and has such an engaging, innovative plot. I rate it a must-read.

Simon ChapmanThe best spy books published this year: The Survivor – Simon Conway, is a superb finale to a carefully described trilogy (look at the top of the back cover). There’s so much to love about this: strongly-drawn characters, male and female; a clear sense of “now” – modern; exposing the fragilities of the complex networks we all depend on every day; nuanced characters (eg Lee Chapeau would have been caricatured by JLC or Henry Porter – the latter is always worth reading, especially Firefly); a couple of fabulous cooking scenes – I get the sense Mr Conway is pretty good in a kitchen too); an unforgettable villain. Looking forward to what he does next.

Honorable mention to Judas 62 (Cumming).

Of yesteryear, Tim Shipman has, as he has for so many, broadened my horizons and reduced my bank account. Dan Fesperman is my favourite of the authors I hadn’t come across before. Safe Houses is excellent.

Tim didn’t mention Murray Smith, who wrote some fantastic thrillers in the 90s – do look out for his David Jardine books.

PS – I quite and astoundingly forgot that this was the year I met Modesty Blaise – thank you Tim for introducing us!

Richard SambrookThe best spy book of 2022 for me would be Joseph Kanon's Berlin Exchange. I'm a sucker for cold war Berlin! About to start Damascus Station based on Spybrary recommendation!

Otherwise I enjoyed going back to Graham Greene's The Human Factor – I hadn't read it in 30 years….

Ahmed Siddiqi#1 Damascus Station, David McCloskey. Or The Matchmaker, Paul Vidich.

2 Atomsk, Carmichael Smith AKA Cordwainer Smith. Recommended on here in 2021 and finally got round to it earlier in spring. Like very little else I've read- bizarre, occasionally beautiful and brilliant in its own way.

Raj BasuOnly Pre 2022 , “Moonraker” , “Smiley's People” , “The Ipcress File” …all of'em are my favourites, hard to decide so I mentioned all three.

Shane Whaley (Spybrary Host)As Tim Shipman writes, we have been spoiled this year with top-drawer spy writing. Regular listeners know that I love Cold War espionage novels set in Berlin/East Germany. This year we were treated to three thrillers set in the German Democratic Republic with Joseph Kanon's Berlin Exchange, Paul Vidich's The Matchmaker, and Dan Fesperman's Winter Work. These are all excellent reads and if I had to pick one it would be Fesperman's Winter Work for his excellent portrayal of Markus Wolf who he weaves into the story and his research of the compounds where head of the Stasi Erich Mielke lived and the holiday dacha of Wolf and Co.

But ask me next week and you may get a different answer because Vidich and Kanon's spy books of 2022 are books that join that august list of Cold War spy novels that I will re-read.

Tim Shipman's top 125 spy authors list has kept me busy tracking down and reading spy novels of yesteryear. The highlight for me is David Brierley's Big Bear Little Bear set in 1948 revolutionary Czechoslovakia, London and then, you guessed it, Berlin. I have much to say on BBLB (watch out for an upcoming review) which was also a Mike Ripley and Len Deighton recommendation. If you are a fan of the more realistic cold war spy story then you are in for a treat. In fact Big Bear Little Bear may well have crept into my top five best spy novels ever written. Stay tuned for an interview with author David Brierley coming to soon the Spies and Books, Spybrary Podcast.

What do you reckon were the best spy books you read in 2022?Let us know over in our Spybrary communityTalk more about spy books and spy movies in our Spybrary discussion groupThe post The Best Spy Books of 2022, According to Spybrary Listeners appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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The James Bond Book ClubJoin us as we discuss the latest Ian Fleming James Bond novel, Dr No. We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, Jamaica, the femme fatale, the allies, and the glamour. Today it's the turn of Quarrel, Strangeways, HoneyChile Rider, and a fiend called Dr No!

All that and much more on the latest edition of the James Bond Book Club, available on all good podcast apps and at the link in the first comment. Will you join us in 1958?

What is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club exactly and what makes it different from other 007 book clubs?On the James Bond Book Club, we get in our time machine and go back to the year of publication. We dissect each of the Ian Fleming 007 novels in order and include themes such as :

1) Discuss the timing of each book. The year in which it was written. The zeitgeist of that time. Key historical and cultural events.
2) Background to the plot and any links to Fleming’s personal experiences.
3) The U.K.'s first edition cover art.
4) The plot.
5) Locations
6) Bond’s character development.
7) The Villain.
8) La femme fatale.
9) The supporting cast.
10) The branding.
11) Key set pieces and the best chapters.
12) Critical reception

We will not be referring to or discussing the 007 movies.

We will only be referencing previous books rather than those published in the future – as if we are experiencing the work of Fleming for the first time.

Check out our previous Ian Fleming James Bond Book Club podcast episodes.

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Our Man in Alabama Matthew Kresal gives us the lowdown on the 2005 video game of From Russia With Love starring Sean Connery in this Spybrary Brush Pass.

‘From Russia with Love is notable in that it is the only video game to use Sean Connery's younger likeness as James Bond and the first to include all new voice work by the actor.'

‘The game was the last James Bond video game released by Electronic Arts before they lost the rights to Activision in 2006, as well as Sean Connery's last role before retirement and death.' James Bond Wiki

Come and let us know your thoughts on the Spybrary fans community.

More About From Russia With Love Video GameJames Bond 007: From Russia with Love is a 2005 third-person shooter video game developed by EA Redwood Shores and published by Electronic Arts. The game is based on the 1963 film of the same name, but with several changes, including additional characters, locations, and a different villainous organisation. Additionally, it features elements of later Bond films such as the Aston Martin DB5 that debuted in Goldfinger (1964) and the jet pack from Thunderball (1965).

From Russia with Love is notable in that it is the only video game to use Sean Connery‘s younger likeness as James Bond and the first to include all new voice work by the actor after twenty-two years away from the role,[1] marking his eighth and final performance as Bond across any medium before his death in 2020. From Russia with Love is also the last James Bond video game developed or published by Electronic Arts before they lost the rights to Activision in 2006.

From Russia with Love was released in late 2005, for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. A PlayStation Portable version was released in April 2006. The game received “mixed or average” reviews according to Metacritic.

Further Reading

From Russia With Love Video Game – Wikipedia with screenshots

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Smiley is suspicious Percy! Today we kick off the John le Carre movie club series on the Spybrary Podcast. Once a month, our panel will take a deep dive into a John le Carre movie.

To start the series, a full debriefing of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Jeff Quest of the Le Carre Cast, Double O Section's Matthew Bradford and Spybrary commentator Martin Reynolds.

That and more in this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast



Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 Cold War spy thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke supporting. It is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service.

The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film also received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and for Oldman, Best Actor.

The novel had previously been adapted into the award-winning 1979 BBC television series of the same name, with Alec Guinness playing the lead role of Smiley.

Books and Resources Mentioned on this Episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on IMDB
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on Rotten Tomatoes
Buy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 4k

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Book by John le Carre
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy TV series with Alec Guinness
The Le Carre Cast
Double O Section
Join the Spybrary Community for spy fans by spy fans.

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This week we welcome the former Home Secretary and best-selling author Alan Johnson to the Spybrary Podcast. In this informative and fun chat, Spybrary host Shane Whaley asks Alan Johnson how his background as Home Secretary helped him to write his fiction books Late Train to Gipsy Hill and One of Our Ministers is Missing. […]

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This week we welcome Benjamin Cunningham to the show. Cunningham wrote the recently released book The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man a book that the publisher calls “the Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties […]

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Intelligence Historian and Author Nigel West joins Spybrary Spy Podcast host Shane Whaley to share more about his latest book Spies Who Changed History plus, he answers your questions on the Wilson Coup, the Steele Dossier, meeting Anthony Blunt, and many more! So what is Spies Who Changed History by Nigel West all about? Spies […]

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Sunday Times Chief Political Commentator and spy book fan Tim Shipman talks with Ben Macintyre about his latest work based on Colditz, Prisoners of the Castle. So what is Prisoners of the Castle by Ben Macintyre all about? The “entertaining yet objective and often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of one of history’s most notorious prisons—and […]

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Spybrary's man in Station L (Northern Sector) author Andy Onyx slipped us this brush pass review of Javier Marias‘s thriller Your Face Tomorrow: Fever And Spear He shares why spy book readers will enjoy this modern spy novel. “Your Face Tomorrow by the Spanish novelist of note, Javier Maras. I say novelist of note because […]

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Spy Thriller Review by Shane ‘C' Whaley Former Cabinet Minister Alan Johnson has turned his hand to fiction. The Late Train to Gipsy Hill (2021) is Alan Johnson’s first foray into fiction writing following the success of his political memoirs. I was intrigued to see how a former cabinet minister and Home Secretary would go […]

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What's life like working as a spy? Spy author Bevan G Roberts chats with former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and MI6 trained agent handler Warren Reed to find out. Most of us are fascinated by the craft of human intelligence. It's a trade as old as time, involving betrayal, secrecy, and most of all, […]

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Spybrary field agent Chris Lueloff slipped us this brush pass review of Bill Granger's spy thriller November Man series Lueloff shares why spy book readers will enjoy Granger's work and boldly declares that Peter Devereaux is an American Quiller. Agree, disagree? Come and let us know your thoughts in the Spybrary fans community. More About […]

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Spy Book Review by Shane ‘C' Whaley – Station V Fesperman not only riffs off this operation, which was dubbed one of the CIA’s greatest triumphs, but he also peppers the book with expertly researched elements of East German life to give it that air of authenticity. It is worth noting that Dan Fesperman worked […]

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Join Spies and Books, Spybrary host Shane Whaley as he finds outs more about the traitor Robert Hanssen in this interview with author Lis Wiehl Watch the interview on YouTube on our relaunched Spies and Books – the Spybrary YouTube Channel So what is A Spy in Plain Sight all about? New York Times bestselling […]

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In this conversation with Spybrary host, Shane Whaley, award-winning spy author Dan Fesperman reveals more about the real-life espionage events that inspired his latest novel, set in Berlin in 1990, Winter Work. Watch the interview on YouTube on our relaunched Spies and Books – the Spybrary YouTube Channel So what is Winter Work all about? […]

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A few months ago, spy fan and journalist Tim Shipman published his list of the best spy authors of all time. This was no top ten list though; Tim revealed his favorite 125 spy writers and ranked them! He also gave us the lowdown on each spy author along with reading recommendations and where to […]

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Spybrary is more than a podcast, we are a global community of spy book and movie fans from around the world. Personnel File of Spy Fan and Cold War Podcast Host Ian Sanders – If you are a fan of Cold War History do check out Ian's Podcast at Cold War Conversations. It's Spybrary Approved. […]

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Spy Book Review by James McShane – Station D. While there is plenty of action in The Other Side of Trust, these setpieces are not the be-all-and-all-and-all of Robinson’s book. There is a deeply political feel to his characters and overall plot. It’s these elements that drew me in as I read. James McShane Of […]

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So you have heard that Simon Conway‘s books are worth a read but don't know where to start. Let us help you pick the right one with our Spybrary Firsts spy book recommendations. Active: 1998-Key works: The Stranger, The Saboteur, A Loyal Spy, The Agent Runner, Rock Creek Park Simon Conway has penned seven books and is a firm favorite […]

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Spybrary is more than a podcast, we are a global community of spy book and movie fans from around the world. Personnel File of Spy Fan Ian Douglas – If you are a fan of all things 007 do check out the thinking persons 007 Facebook community – Hildebrand. It's Spybrary Approved. Follow Ian on […]

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Spybrary field agent Erich Wagner slipped us this brush pass review of the nonfiction spy book The Spy Who Changed History by Svetlana Lokhova Erich tells us that the book will especially appeal to those of us ‘with an interest in pre cold war Soviet deep cover espionage.' Brush Pass Spy Book Review The Spy […]

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Personnel File of Jason King – My favourite spy author is…. Leonard Cyril Deighton. During the ‘60s, the untimely demise of my father saw me incarcerated at a charity school in the south of England. It was a dark place and the faculty would have made Jimmy S*ville look like a stand up guy ! […]

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Station LPersonnel File of Spy Fan And Author Andy Onyx – Recently DeClassified. My favourite spy author is…. Ian Fleming, for the overall cultural impact of his creation of the James Bond novels. All are massively progressive in their themes and characters. Sheer entertainment and escapism on the page, taking in luxurious living, travel, sexuality, […]

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Station OPersonnel File of Karl Gunnar Øen – DeClassified. The Oslo Connection My favourite spy author is…. I have several favourites and several favourite books, too. And I’ve had different favourites at different times. I started out as a thriller fan, Alastair Maclean, Desmond Bagley, Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins were all early favourites. I […]

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James Bond fan and Spybrary's Head of Station SA, Matt Raubenheimer gives us his spoiler-free thoughts on the latest James Bond 007 novel With A Mind To A Kill written by Anthony Horowitz. Brush Pass Spy Book Review With a Mind To A Kill by Antony Horowitz. It is M's funeral. One man is missing […]

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Spybrary Spy Podcast host Shane Whaley gives us his thoughts on the spy novel Agent in Berlin by Alex Gerlis Brush Pass Spy Book Review Agent in Berlin Synopsis (Waterstones) We can’t have agents who are shrinking violets, can we? Look, Barney, when you’ve been around spies for as long as I have you’ll appreciate […]

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So you want to read your first John le Carré novel but don't know where to start We understand, that it can be overwhelming to see shelves full of John le Carré books and not know which one you should read first. Allow us to help you pick the right one with our Spybrary Firsts […]

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Welcome to Episode 183 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. This week, Spywrite‘s Jeff Quest welcomes Otto Penzler to the show. Otto shares stories from his many years of collecting books and meeting spy fiction authors. You’ll hear stories about Eric Ambler, Charles McCarry, John le Carré and many more. ,  Plus, hear about his […]

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Join us as we discuss the latest Ian Fleming James Bond novel, From Russia With Love. We discuss the artwork, the plot, the villains, the femme fatale, the allies, the glamour and we learn more about Bond the person, including what happened to Tiffany Case and we learn of the only newspaper Bond reads. All […]

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Guest Post by James Stejskal – James Stejskal is a retired Special Forces door-kicker who was recruited by the CIA as a spook. He spent 35 years in interesting places around the world before he decided to call it quits and became a historian, conflict archaeologist, and storyteller.    What is it that attracts a […]

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On April 8th, Amazon releases the movie adaptation of Olen Steinhauer's All the Old Knives. In today's episode, two of our most knowledgable spy movie experts and Spybrary agents Matthew Bradford and Jack Lescamela chat with author and screenwriter Olen Steinhauer and the director of All The Old Knives, Janus Metz. Hello, and welcome to […]

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Spybrary joins forces with the Barbican Station podcast to discuss Apple TV's Slow Horses series starring Gary Oldman which airs today. The first half of this episode is spoiler-free. Today is the day many of us have been waiting for, the Apple TV's Slow Horses series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb is now airing. […]

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Welcome to Episode 179 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. Today, we bring you a spy author interview. Spybrary hosts Shane Whaley and Peter Newman find out more about Charlotte Philby's latest novel, Edith and Kim. Charlotte also shares memories of her grandfather, Kim Philby, and reveals some interesting responses in the world-famous Spybrary Quickfire […]

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It is 1956 and we review the latest Ian Fleming James Bond 007 novel, Diamonds Are Forever. With David Craggs, author Andy Onyx and Spybrary Host Shane Whaley. If you enjoyed this episode do check out our deep-dive discussions about other Ian Fleming James Bond Books at The James Bond Book Club section. Diamonds Are […]

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Our good friend Professor Penny Fielding and her colleague Simon Cooke of the University of Edinburgh bring us 5 spy lit podcast episodes which are recorded by students of their Fiction and Espionage course. On today's episode Penny and Simon give us the briefing and then over the next 5 weeks, Spybrary will transmit the […]

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Jump to… The Other 170 must-read spy authors by Tim Shipman. Let’s just call this project the Top 300 spy writers. As promised, I’ve now augmented the main list of 125 best spy writers I have enjoyed with what follows: more than 170 new spy writers who should be read… WILD CARDS To add to […]

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And now for something completely different. We just decoded a brush pass from, author Clarke Mayer who shares his thoughts on a spy video game called Metal Gear Solid. Brush Pass Review Metal Gear is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, Metal Gear, […]

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Welcome to Episode 176 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast.

Spywrite's Jeff Quest speaks to author Alma Katsu, formerly with the NSA and CIA. Katsu’s latest book, Red Widow, follows a CIA mole hunt. It’s been optioned for television and is out in paperback on March 1st.

They discuss switching from NSA to CIA and back again, the explosive growth of social media and its effect on espionage, and the unique challenges women face in government bureaucracies. Plus, we talk a bit about some of the things Hollywood gets wrong about spies. All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

Red Widow is*An exhilarating spy thriller about two women CIA agents who become intertwined around a threat to the Russia Division–one that’s coming from inside the agency.***‘

More about Red Widow by Alma Katsu Lyndsey Duncan worries her career with the CIA might be over. After lines are crossed with another intelligence agent during her most recent assignment, she is sent home to Washington on administrative leave. So when a former colleague, now Chief of the Russia Division, recruits her for an internal investigation, she jumps at the chance to prove herself once more. Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station, known as the “human lie detector” and praised for recruiting some of the most senior Russian officials. But now, three Russian assets have been discovered–including one of her own–and the CIA is convinced there’s a mole in the department. With years of work in question, and lives on the line, Lyndsey is thrown back into life at the agency, only this time tracing the steps of those closest to her.

Meanwhile, fellow agent Theresa Warner can’t avoid the spotlight. She is the infamous “Red Widow,” the wife of a former director killed in the field under mysterious circumstances. With her husband’s legacy shadowing her every move, Theresa is a fixture of the Russia Division, and as she and Lyndsey strike up an unusual friendship, her knowledge proves invaluable. But as Lyndsey uncovers a surprising connection to Theresa that could answer all of her questions, she exposes a terrifying web of secrets within the department, if only she is willing to unravel it…

  • Red Widow by Alma Katsu
  • Alma Katsu Official Website
  • Red Widow reviews on Goodreads
  • More books written by Alma Katsu

The Fervor (Out in April) –

The Fervor

Spies, Lies and Nukes Conference (hosted by Valerie Plame) –

https://www.spiesliesnukes.com/

Alma’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/almakatsu?lang=en

Alma’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/AlmaKatsuBooks/

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

  • The Spybrary Online Community

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Welcome to Episode 175 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. Today, we bring you a spy author interview. Spybrary hosts Shane Whaley and David Craggs find out more aboutThe Matchmaker – A Spy in Berlin with author Paul Vidich.

In the vein of Graham Greene and John le Carré, The Matchmaker deliversa chilling Cold War spy story set in West Berlin, where an American woman targeted by the Stasi must confront the truth behind her German husband's mysterious disappearance.

More about The Matchmaker – A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich Berlin, 1989. Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe.

Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door.

Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker—a high level East German counterintelligence officer—who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his “Romeos” who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.

The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face – from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office – and she is the CIA’s best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany.

But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

  • The Matchmaker – A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich
  • Author Paul Vidich Website
  • New York Times Review of The Matchmaker by Paul Vidich
  • Best Spy Authors, 125 spy writers ranked by Tim Shipman
  • Paul Vidich Interview on Crime Time FM
  • The Man Without A Face – Markus Wolf
  • Turkish Garden blooms in shadow of the Berlin Wall – Reuters
  • The Spybrary Online Community

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In this episode of Spy Rewind, our hosts Matthew and Jeff take a look at the episode “Enemy of the State” of the 60’s tv show The Baron.

They discuss some reasons why The Baron was a misfire upon its release in the US, Steve Forest’s living up to his name with some wooden acting, and marvel at the head-scratching decision to switch the character from an actual Baron into an American oil baron. Plus they discuss important considerations to remember before arranging your border spy swap! All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

Mentioned on the show –

Matthew’s review of The Baron – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2011/11/dvd-review-baron-complete-series.html

Jeff’s Bad Baron Photo Covers –

Broken Covers – John Creasey, The Baron edition

Streaming on Britbox in the US.

Matthew’s Website – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/

Matthew’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/DoubleOSection

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

http://www.spybrary.com/172

Check out an earlier episode of Spy Rewind on the Spybrary Podcast – by spy fans for spy fans.

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Welcome to Episode 173 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. Today, we bring you a spy author interview. Spybrary hosts Shane Whaley and David Craggs find out more about Damascus Station with spy writer, author, and former CIA analyst David McCloskey

I have never seen a debut spy book so well received and recommended by our listeners as Damascus Station.‘ Spybrary Host Shane Whaley

More about Damascus Station by David McCloskey

*“Damascus Station* is the best spy novel I have ever read.”**

*—General David Petraeus, former director of the CIA*

A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer in this page-turner that offers the “most authentic depiction of modern-day tradecraft in print.” (Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr).

CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy.

But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

  • Damascus Station by David McCloskey
  • Author David McCloskey on Twitter
  • The Spybrary Online Community

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In this episode of Spy Rewind Matthew and Jeff take a look at the episode “I Spy Apocalypse” of the early 2000’s tv show called Spooks in the UK and MI5 in the US.

They discuss how the show helped revive the tv spy, why VX gas is so nasty and you should avoid being trapped in with your officemates at the end of the world. Plus Jeff reveals what he thinks is a hidden connection between the show and HBO’s Succession! All that and more in this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast.

Mentioned on the show –

Spooks/MI5 wiki page – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooks_(TV_series)

Streaming on Britbox in the US or BBC iPlayer in the UK.

An oral history on Spooks – https://www.empireonline.com/spooks/part1.html

The two Mr. Darcy’s spy movie – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat_(film)

Matthew’s Website – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/

Matthew’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/DoubleOSection

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

Check out an earlier episode of Spy Rewind on the Spybrary Podcast – by spy fans for spy fans.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group Support Spybrary Spy Podcast on Patreon. Become a Spybrary Supportere The post Spooks/MI5 Spy TV Show Review – Spy Rewind appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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If like me, you are a big fan of audiobooks then it is highly likely that you have listened to today's guest Scott Brick narrating one of your favorite thriller audiobooks.

In this conversation, Shane finds out more about life behind the mic with Scott Brick. We learn how he got started in the business plus some of his tips and tricks for delivering engaging audio and top drawer storytelling.

Scott Brick also took time to answer Spybrary listener questions such as:

  • You recorded an excellent new version of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to go with you previous Clancy recordings. I was hoping you’d finish off the initial run of Clancy originals with new versions of THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. Why didn’t they have you do those ones? Any chance you still will?
  • You did an excellent job on so many original Robert Ludlum titles. Are there any more in your future? It would be great to hear you read the MATARESE novels, and they’re overdue for new versions!
  • You took over the Jack Reacher series from Dick Hill, who had a very distinctive delivery style. How conscious were you of following in someone else’s footsteps? Did you do anything differently because of that?
  • Are there any spy series or characters you HAVEN’T recorded that you’d really like a crack at?

Grab an Audible free trial and give Scott Brick's a go and hear what we are all raving about! Every Sign up supports the Spybrary Podcast.

More about Scott Brick, the popular and award-winning narrator of more than 900 audiobooks. Actor, writer and award-winning audiobook narrator Scott Brick certainly knows how to tell a story, in a way that keeps publishers, best-selling and award-winning authors, critics and the public at large begging for more. Hailed by Audible in 2012 as their most prolific narrator, Brick has narrated almost 900 audiobooks including titles such as: Jurassic Park, the Jack Reacher series, Alexander Hamilton, the Hunt For Red October, The Passage trilogy, In Cold Blood, the Bourne trilogy, Atlas Shrugged, Helter Skelter, Fahrenheit 451 and the Dune series.

As you will hear in this wide-ranging conversation, Scott Brick also narrated one of my favorite audiobooks, The Company by Robert Littel (coming in at just over 44 hours and Scott kept me engaged throughout.)

  • Scott Brick Official Website
  • Scott Brick Audiobook Portfolio
  • Try Audible for free and help support Spybrary
  • The Company by Robert Littell
  • Who is Orphan X? Greg Hurwitz
  • Orphan X Series on Audible

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Jason King returns to the Spybrary Podcast for his annual appearance to share his best espionage novels of 2021. This is the most requested feature of Spybrary, requested by spouses, friends, and relatives who purchase Birthday and Holiday presents for loved ones based on the Jason King picks. (I kid you not!)

Jason is joined on the podcast by author Andy Onyx and Spybrary Host Shane Whaley

Stop reading now if you have not listened to the episode..if you are coming here to read more about the best espionage novels of 2021 picks then read on.

Jason Kings Best Espionage Novels of 2021 are:

Slough House by Mick Herron Best Espionage Novels of 2021 -Slough House by Mick Herron London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore.

Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

If you enjoy the work of Mick Herron do check out the Barbican Station Podcast hosted by Jeff Quest

The Saboteur by Simon Conway (Book 2 of the Jude Lyon series.) Best Espionage Novels of 2021 – The Saboteur by Simon Conway ‘There's a healthy crop of younger spy writers just now, and Simon Conway is among the pick of the bunch. His military background renders the action scenes bloodily and the novel's apocalyptic scenario all too plausibly . . . Fire in the hole‘ – The Times

The most brilliant spy thriller‘ – Charlotte Philby, author of A Double Life

The terrorist Guy Fowle has escaped from prison.

Jude Lyon of MI-6 has been saved from a Syrian ambush by his lover – and enemy? – Julia Ermolaeva.

A mysterious Russian has been murdered in London and his thumb cut off.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made an unfortunate social connection at a party, which he hopes he can keep secret.

And suddenly, the world is literally going up in flames.

Jude needs to start putting together the pieces of this jigsaw and quickly, because someone is putting into play a terrifying Russian plan to disable and destroy the UK. Once it has begun, it is designed to be impossible to stop.

Bad enough if that someone is the Russian government. Worse if it is the psychopathic genius Fowle, otherwise known as The Stranger.

Packed with stunning action, political intrigue, authentic tradecraft, emotion, shocks and nail-biting suspense, The Saboteur takes the spy thriller to new heights.

The Mercenary by Paul Vidich Best Espionage Novels of 2021 – The Mercenary by Paul Vidich “Evoking without imitating classic le Carré . . . Vidich supplements the world-weariness we expect from cold warriors in the game too long by giving Garin a satisfyingly contrarian ‘contempt for Agency puppetteers.'”
Booklist

“[Vidich's] rare talent for repopulating history with complex and credible characters is fully on display in his fourth novel, The Mercenary.”
Mal Warwick's Blog on Books

“Set in the mid-1980s, Vidich’s intriguing fourth CIA novel opens in Moscow. Vidich writes knowledgeably about the politics of the period, notably the impending changes to the U.S.S.R. with the rise of Gorbachev, and the spycraft rings true. Fans of Cold War–era spy fiction will be rewarded.”
Publishers Weekly

“Deft action and a solid historical setting.”
Kirkus Reviews

From acclaimed spy novelist Paul Vidich comes a taut new thriller following the attempted exfiltration of a KGB officer from the ever-changing—and always dangerous—USSR in the mid-1980s.

Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world—and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer—code name GAMBIT—has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side.

The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War.

Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self-interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT’s exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian woman and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group Judas 62 by Charles Cumming Best Espionage Novels of 2021 – Judas 62 by Charles Cumming ‘Judas 62 has all you could want from a tense, topical and intelligent spy thriller‘ The Times Books of the Year

The second book in Charles Cumming's gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 – a covert intelligence organization that operates below the radar.

A spy in one of the most dangerous places on Earth…

1993: Student Lachlan Kite is sent to post-Soviet Russia in the guise of a language teacher. In reality, he is there as a spy. Top secret intelligence agency BOX 88 has ordered Kite to extract a chemical weapons scientist before his groundbreaking research falls into the wrong hands. But Kite's mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded in a hostile city with a former KGB officer on his trail.

An old enemy looking for revenge…

Damascus Station by David McCloskey Best Espionage Novels of 2021 – Damascus Station by David McCloskey A CIA asset disappears on the streets of Damascus.

His handler is kidnapped from a safe house.

Both vanish into a Syrian prison.

The CIA vows revenge.

Before his tour in Damascus, CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Palace official Mariam Haddad. The mission soon transforms into a forbidden love, supercharging her recruitment and creating unspeakable danger as they enter war-ravaged Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearances.

The search soon leads to the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime and brings the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Asad’s spycatcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of Asad’s feared Republican Guard. As the action careens between France, Italy, Syria, and Langley, the predators become prey and loyalties are tested as Sam and Mariam race to stop an apocalypse before the Hassans can hunt them down…

Damascus Station is a spy thriller set in the heart of the Syrian Civil War. Drawing on real events and authentic CIA tradecraft, the novel is a spy vs. spy, cat-and-mouse that takes place on the covert battlefield of clandestine surveillance, mole hunts, and targeted assassinations.

The novel traces the historical swell in violence in Syria, the ubiquitous surveillance of a police state, the proxy fighting between America and Russia, and the darkening promise of freedom in the Middle East. At the frontlines, a CIA case officer, his new recruit, and Asad's spycatcher find themselves locked in a world of violence, betrayal, and hidden loyalties.

And a bonus 6th choice because what self-respecting Spy Book fan can only pick five best espionage novels.

The Old Enemy by Henry Porter

‘A timeless ripping espionage yarn'
‘An up-to-the-minute political novel'
‘Characters who become richer with every appearance'
Sunday Times Thriller of the Month

Heart-stopping international spy thriller from ‘An espionage master' (Charles Cumming) starring ex-MI6 officer Paul Samson for fans of Mick Herron, Lee Child and John le Carre

Ex-MI6 officer Paul Samson has been tasked with secretly guarding a gifted young woman, Zoe Freemantle. He is just beginning to tire of the job when he is attacked in the street by a freakish looking knifeman. It's clear the target is on his back not hers. What he doesn't know is who put it there.

At that moment, his mentor, the MI6 legend Robert Harland lies dead on a remote stretch of the Baltic coastline. Who needed to end the old spy's life when he was, in any case, dying from a terminal illness? And what or who is Berlin Blue, the name scratched in the sketchbook beside his body?

A few hours later, Samson watches footage from the US Congress where billionaire philanthropist Denis Hisami is poisoned with a nerve agent while testifying – an attack that is as spectacular as it is lethal, but spares Anastasia Hisami, the love of Samson's life.

Two things become clear. One, it was a big mistake to lose the mysterious Zoe Freemantle. And two, Robert Harland is making a final play from beyond the grave.

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In this New Year’s Eve episode of Spy Rewind Matthew and Jeff welcome a special guest. Oscar winner and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. superfan Robert Short join them to take a look at “The Adriatic Express Affair” a New Year’s Eve-themed episode of the classic 60’s spy show.

They discuss how Bob would explore the sets of U.N.C.L.E. as a kid, his family connection to the show, and some of the ways U.N.C.L.E. broke new spy tv ground. Plus we talk about terrible double entendres, questionable spy gadgets and why you should probably avoid starting a cognac-based fire in your jail cell! All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

Mentioned on the show –

The episode via DailyMotion – https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x810alr

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E.

Morgan Richter’s U.N.C.L.E recaps – https://preppiesoftheapocalypse.blogspot.com/p/uncle.html

Bob’s U.N.C.L.E. Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/369560823208688/

Matthew’s Website – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/

Matthew’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/DoubleOSection

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

Check out an earlier episode of Spy Rewind on the Spybrary Podcast – by spy fans for spy fans.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group Support Spybrary Spy Podcast on Patreon. Become a Spybrary Supporter The post Spy TV Show Review – The Man from U.N.C.L.E with Robert Short appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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In this episode of Spybrary, Le Carre Cast host Jeff Quest dives into some of the most serious and silly questions faced by spy fans. He is joined by an all-star panel of guests – Jeremy Duns, Hannah Cooper and Spybrary Host Shane Whaley. They tackle a wide range of espionage enigmas.

Some of the questions covered are –

From now on either every spy novel must be set in Berlin or no spy novels can ever be set in Berlin again. Which do you choose?

Would you use your kid as camouflage while doing spy activity?

Volcano lair vs underwater lair vs moonbase lair?

All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

So settle in by the fire, pour yourself a drink of your favorite beverage, and prepare to come to your own conclusions and share them with us as you listen! Tweet @spybrary with your opinion as we tackle these questions or hop on the discussion thread on the Spybrary Discussion group.

Check out Tim Shipman's top 125 Spy Authors Ranked!

Mentioned on the show –

What is Water Polo? – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_polo

Blood in the Water match – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match

Hannah’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/MrsSimonTemplar

Hannah’s Website – https://backintimefortv.co.uk/

Jeremy’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/JeremyDuns

Jeremy’s Website – https://www.jeremy-duns.com/

Shane’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/spybrary

Shane’s Website – https://spybrary.com/

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

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Welcome to Episode 167 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. Today, we bring you a spy author interview. Spybrary host Shane Whaley finds out more about How to Betray Your Country with spy writer, author James Wolff

Something I want to address with you all before we get into the conversation, the elephant in the room, James Wolff is not the author's real name. James reveals he has worked for the British government but does not share which branch nor where he was based…..

As a Spybrarian, naturally, I'm wondering, am I speaking with a George Smiley, a Bernard Samson, maybe it's a Dickie Cruyer or 007, or maybe he was the janitor at GCHQ? He's not going to talk about his past today, but I tell you something I can share with you. The boy can write!

More about How to Betray Your Country by James Wolff

An authentic thriller about the thin line between following your conscience and following orders. James Wolff is the pseudonym of a young English novelist who “has been working for the British government for the last ten years”.

Things are looking bad for disgraced spy August Drummond. In emotional free fall after the death of his wife, fired for a series of unprecedented security breaches that saw him labeled a traitor…and now his neighbour on the flight to Istanbul won’t stop talking.

The only thing keeping him sane is the hunch that there’s something not quite right about the nervous young man several rows ahead – a hunch that is confirmed when August watches him throw away directions to an old European cemetery seconds before being detained by Turkish police. And when a reckless August decides to go in his place, little does he know that he is setting in motion a series of events that will test his ingenuity and resourcefulness to the limit, and bring him face to face with a terrifying figure from the dark heart of the Islamic State.

The second novel in a trilogy about loyalty and betrayal in the modern age, How to Betray Your Country is an authentic thriller about walking the line between following your conscience and following orders.

  • How to Betray Your Country – Bitter Lemon Press
  • Beside the Syrian Sea by James Wolff
  • The Spybrary Facebook Group – tell us what you thought of today's interview with spy writer James Wolff

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Tim Shipman is sharing his 120 top spy writers in ranking order, for Spybrary. He shared the following message as he begins the countdown from 100.

Before we get into the Top 100, I want to mention a few spy authors who likely won’t be appearing, primarily because I have not read them, or read enough by them.

Some of them are very near the start of my to-be-read (TBR) pile (this is a metaphysical pile, it exists in my head, not on my bedside table. It’s possible I’ll get around to them during the next month, and I’m going to give myself a few wild cards to drop people into the list If I’m blown away.

Top of that TBR list at the moment is newcomer David McCloskey’s book Damascus Station, which is getting rave reviews and promises tradecraft on a level not seen since Red Sparrow. Not far behind are The Frenchman by Jack Beaumont and American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson.

Other contemporary authors, I really want to read include James Wolff, whose first two books look right up my street, Alex Gerlis (who has penned two successful series – one of my worst admissions), Chris Pavone, Oliver Harris, Rory Clements and Peter Hanington.

Two others, Joe Weisberg (An Ordinary Spy) and Karen Cleveland (Need to Know) are both former Spooks and have had good reviews.

I also want to try, Charlotte Philby, Kate Atkinson, Lara Prescott, Mara Timon and Kate Quinn, all of whom have done a lot to popularise the “spychological” thriller aimed at women readers. And yes, I hope I’ve just invented that term. I’ve read of one by Pam Jenoff but she didn’t quite make the cut.

While I’ve read most of the classic spy authors, there are a whole load of classic spy books I have not read, which I am confident would make it into this list on merit. My greatest shame is that I have still not read The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad or Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham, both of which are cornerstones of the genre.

Many of the others are one hit wonders. Top of this list is undoubtedly The Kremlin Letter by Noel Behn with A Dandy in Aspic by Derek Marlowe, A Peregrine Spy by Edmund P. Murray and Checkpoint by Charles W. Thayer close behind.

Other authors from times past I would like to try to include George Markstein (who was also script editor of The Prisoner as well as writing a truck load of spy thrillers), Brian Cleeve, Francis Bennett (who wrote a trilogy of intelligent spy novels which get strong reviews on GoodReads), Desmond Skirrow, Alexander Wilson and George MacBeth. Richard Llewellyn, best known for How Green Was My Valley, is another literary novelist who has dabbled and his The End of the Rug is well regarded by people like Mike Ripley, perhaps the best read of thriller reviewers in the UK.

The recent release of The House of Fear by Ibn-e Safi, an Indian writer who has penned more than 100 spy thrillers, is exciting. I also need to try works by Bernard Besson, a French spy writer which has also been translated. The presence on a very good list by Jeremy Duns of forgotten spy novels of Mills, by Irish author Manning O’Brine, convinces me I would enjoy that too.

My other biggest gap, classics wise, is Dennis Wheatley, who wrote a series of wartime espionage pot boilers about Gregory Sallust and the Roger Brook series set during the French revolutionary period. I guess I’ve been a bit put off by the way the supernatural creeps into some of these books.

The recent TV series has convinced me that not reading Luke Jennings’ Codename Villanelle novels is a mistake. Jennings also helped out Stella Rimington with her successful series of spy thrillers based on her inside knowledge as the former director general of MI5.

For similar reasons I would like to try books (particularly Ultimatum) by Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security editor. Among fellow Spybrarians, I’m intrigued to try works by Merle Nygate, David Holman, August Thomas, Steven England, CG Faulkner, Andy Onyx, Rossa McPhillips, James Stejskal, CP Bennison and Antony Johnston.

As I’ve said, the US special forces action hero genre is underrepresented here, so you won’t find Lee Child, Brad Thor, and Mark Greaney.

Growing up I was a huge fan of Clive Cussler, but his books really aren’t spy novels in any meaningful sense, so he’s given up his potential top 40 slot here for someone who is properly part of the genre. There are a few marginal calls, but in truth I couldn’t justify him. But if you just want a fun, exciting thriller, it doesn’t get much better than Raise the Titanic. Like many films of books, the movie was a disaster (“It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic,” said producer Lew Grade).

From the world of Bond, it embarrasses me to say that I have never read any of our own Raymond Benson’s continuation novels, which receive plaudits for a return to a grittier style after the high camp of John Gardner’s later efforts. In my defence I’ve collected all the first editions, I just need to sit down with them. The same goes for Jeffrey Deaver’s Carte Blanche.

Kate Westbrook’s three Moneypenny books are also high on my list of omissions that need to be rectified soon. Some think them the best of all the continuation novels. There are many Bond knockoffs and spoofs which it is incumbent on Bondistas to read, including Alligator by the writers of the Harvard Lampoon and Sol Weinstein’s quartet of “Israel Bond” books featuring Agent Oy-Oy-Seven: Loxfinger, Matzohball In the Secret Service of His Majesty the Queen, and You Only Live Until You Die.

Then there are 20 novels featuring the character Trevor Anderson, codenamed “0008”, which author William Knoles published under the pseudonym Clyde Allison. Donald Westlake, the hugely accomplished crime writer also penned a spoof spy novel, A Spy in the Ointment.

For Bond collectors, the holy grail in this regard is to find the English translation paperback of Avakoum Zahov vs. 07 in which the Bulgarian author Andrei Gulyashki got his own back for the entire Eastern bloc as the communist hero outwits the British spy, unnamed after a legal threat from the Fleming estate. Expect to pay £300 if you can find even a tattered copy.

Others just didn’t make it on definitions. Don Winslow’s border trilogy set around the Mexican drug trade is one of the greatest achievements in thriller writing of modern times, but even though the main character is with the FBI, it’s just not really a spy vibe as we know and love it.

Similarly, Michael Dobbs, best known for his political thrillers, also penned four books featuring Harry Jones, which have some spy elements. The first of them, The Lords’ Day, which sees terrorists seize parliament on the day of the state opening, is crying out to be a film. But again, he’s not really a spy writer.

I also enjoyed Luke McCallin’s thrillers, starting with The Man From Berlin, but they are wartime detective novels, rather than spy books (forgive me when I take the opposite view about Philip Kerr!)

So that’s another 62 names just there who have something to offer and there are hundreds more who are worth delving into. I’d be really glad if you could all make other suggestions so we can get this nearer to 80 here, to make a top 200 in total.

Anyway, here goes with the Top 100 as it now stands:

The post Spy authors you probably won’t see in my top 120 spy writers ranked list. appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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London Station has fizzed into action, Sunday Times journalist and Spybrary contributor Tim Shipman chats with spy author Matthew Richardson. They discuss Matthew's spy novels, his writing style, his literary influences plus they pay tribute to the new generation of spy writers.

And much more!!

More about spy writer Matthew Richardson Matthew Richardson graduated with a First in English from Durham University, where he was a Vice-Chancellor’s academic scholar and edited the student newspaper Palatinate. He then went on to postgraduate research at Merton College, Oxford, specialising in intellectual history.

After a brief spell as a freelance journalist, Matthew began working as a speechwriter and researcher in Westminster while also starting work on his debut novel. At the age of 24, he was signed by Penguin in a six-figure pre-empt deal. My Name is Nobody was published in the UK and around the world in 2017. His second novel, The Insider was published in November 2021.

As a screenwriter, Matthew has worked with companies including Hartswood Films, The Forge, Tall Story Pictures, Cornelia Street Productions, Playground Entertainment, Firebird Pictures, Alchemy Entertainment and Silverprint Pictures.

From the archive, listen to Tim Shipman's chat with spy author Ben Macintyre.

  • Matthew Richardson author official website
  • Follow Matthew Richardson on Twitter
  • Matthew Richardson author page on Amazon
  • Tim Shipman Website
  • The Spybrary Facebook Group – tell us what you thought of today's interview with spy writer Matthew Richardson

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Jump to…

125 – 110 109-96 95 – 80 79 – 66 65-50 50-45


Do we have a treat in store for you spy book fans! Many of you will know Tim Shipman as the Chief Political Commentator at the Sunday Times or maybe you know him as the author of All Out War? But did you know that Tim is also a huge fan of spy books and boasts his own very impressive Spybrary? In this exclusive Spybrary feature Tim is going to share with us his top 125 spy authors ranked!
Last Updated January 27th – Rankings from 125-50

I blush when I think back to the early days of the Spybrary project. I worshipped at the altar of Len Deighton, John le Carre, and Ian Fleming. I had no idea that there was such a wide universe in the spy book genre with so many talented spy authors that I had yet to discover. Buckle up and get that credit card ready as Tim takes us on a journey highlighting and showcasing his top spy authors.

Before we dive in, four items for you to consider.

1 – We are not all going to agree with Tim's top spy authors and that is fine. We hope this feature will help you discover new spy novels or revisit the work of spy authors of yesteryear. Do come and share your views in our friendly Spybrary community. Tim welcomes and encourages constructive debate and discussion.

2– I will update this blog post as often as I can but definitely weekly, sadly that East German desk is rammed at the moment, what with Dicky Cruyer never writing his own reports but it pays for my spy books.

3– Please please if you can buy any of the spy books listed directly from an independent bookstore/shop that would be epic. I am using Amazon links on this page because Spybrary is a global community. Use it for reference, price checking, reviews, etc and try and buy locally or at least independently if you can.

4. We are very lucky that Tim is giving up his time to write this for us. He interviews Prime Ministers and Presidents for a living, so please consider sharing this feature with friends and peers.

Take it away Tim!

With Spybrary Founder Shane Whaley‘s permission, I’m going to commence a new list : a countdown of my top 125 spy authors. This is my third such list hereafter ranking the John le Carre novels and the James Bond films (coming soon.)

This list has been a long while in gestation and brings together everything I know and love about spy fiction.

The idea is to introduce some of you to authors you may not be familiar with and to provoke a discussion about their relative merits.

Spy fiction is a broad church, of course.

You will find here, full-time spy novelists, detective writers who dabble in spy fiction on the side, literary authors who have tried their hands, career intelligence officers, cerebral leading men and women, action man adventure thrillers with a spying element, some classics of the genre and a few one-hit wonders.

The main focus is the Cold War, but it also includes a lot of wartime espionage and a very small flicker of American blockbuster fiction, which my friend David Craggs refers to as “the Kalashnikov kids”.

As you will see, my taste leans heavily towards the more cerebral spies (I’ve never read Brad Thor, Lee Child, or Mark Greaney), but I’m also a fan of excitement, suspense, and tension.

Clever doesn’t have to be boring.

I like great writing, characters you care about, snappy dialogue, and a moody sense of time and space as well as plots that twist and turn, that surprise and shock. (Nearly) everyone here has some of these attributes.

In compiling my top spy author rankings, I have tried to judge people based on a body of work, but those with a few great works stand shoulder to shoulder with people who churned out far more. But, generally, if you published a full series at a high level, you’re going to rank higher than someone who turned their hand to a couple of spy books.

There are authors here (Philip Kerr and Ross Thomas to name two) who perform well but would be much higher for their overall body of work. They deserve a place here, but they are better known for their non-spy work and fall here behind some who devoted their entire canon to espionage.

Are there 125 spy authors worth the trouble?

Randall Masteller’s brilliant site, Spy Guys + Gals, currently lists nearly 2,000 different spy series, from many hundreds of authors.

He currently gives 149 of them a grade of A or better. Of these, not all are pure spy fiction, but his site is a great resource and it has helped me find many great books. I haven’t read nearly as much as Randall, or even the great Mr. Craggs.

The only rule for inclusion here is that I have to have read an author for them to appear, and to get high I must have read a good number of their books. A final note: this is not an attempt to quantify the greatest authors, it is MY list of 125 spy writers I like in the order I like them.

There are many more spy authors I need to read. I will soon add to this the 30 spy authors I most want to read to make up a full list of 150 and to cover some people who may be unjustly excluded. I would hugely value all your opinions about what follows, particularly where you strongly disagree.

I’m going to be updating this post every day and will send it to Spybrary weekly, culminating in the top 10 in the run-up to the new year. Some entries will be quite short, others will be much more detailed. You might think you can guess a lot of what will follow, but I hope you find some of it, including several top 10 entries, surprising.

A NOTE ON SOURCES I've been crediting a lot of people along the way, but several reference works have been invaluable in checking details and jogging my memory about these authors. The two most important are Randall Masteller's brilliant website, Spy Guys & Gals, which is an absolute treasure trove of information.

At the British end, the expert is Michael Ripley, whose book Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, the boom in British thrillers is absolutely essential for Spybrarians. After that the website Good Reads has a lot of reviews that are worth reading (and a lot that are not), Fantastic Fiction fills in some gaps and Wikipedia does most of the rest.

Without Randall and Mike particularly I would not have come across a lot of the writers here. I'm hugely grateful. I'd also like to give a shoutout to the blog Existential Ennui, which has a lot of brilliant material on spy fiction and collecting first editions, though the guy behind it has spent several years focusing on other genres like science fiction. The other key source, of course, is Spybrary, which includes the greatest group of thriller fans I know. We all owe Shane Whaley a huge debt of gratitude for bringing us together. In terms of reading advice, I'm grateful to Jason King, Matthew Bradford, and Jeff Quest in particular.

Talk more about spy books and spy movies in our Spybrary discussion group Tim would love to hear your thoughts on his top spy author list, either leave a comment here or better still why not join us on the Spybrary Facebook group and read observations on Tim's list written by your fellow spy fans.

125. WILLIAM LE QUEUX Active: 1891-1931

Key works: The Invasion of 1910, Spies of the Kaiser

Let’s be frank if this was a list of 1,500 spy writers William Le Queux would probably be 1,500th on the list. By modern standards his propagandist penny dreadfuls from the early part of the 20th century are fairly unreadable, focusing as they do on paranoia about French and German spies under the bed.

But these are arguably the first popular spy novels in England and Le Queux joined forces with newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe to publish pulp fiction for the credulous masses.

As such they are a fascinating insight into the mindset of the times, particularly in the run-up to the First World War. (Le Queux himself demanded protection by the police from German agents at the start of the war – a demand that seems to have been met with hilarity by the Metropolitan police).

The Invasion of 1910, serialized in the Daily Mail in 1906 sold a million copies in book form and was translated into 27 languages. All spy fans should try a bit of Le Queux.

Spybrary suggested further reading: Le Queux: How One Crazy Spy Novelist Created MI5 and MI6

124. FRANCINE MATHEWS Active: 1994-

Key works: The Secret Agent, The Cut Out, The Alibi Club

Francine Mathews spent four years as an intelligence analyst at the CIA, including work on the Counterterrorism Center's investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie in 1988.

She has since penned more than 15 books, most of them detective thrillers set in her native Nantucket. But she has also put her intelligence background to good use in a handful of pacy spy thrillers. They skip along and have enough of a ring of authenticity to lift them above the run of the mill.

123. GÉRARD DE VILLIERS Active: 1964-2013

Key works: The Madmen of Benghazi, Revenge of the Kremlin

France’s most prolific spy writer penned 200 books about his hero Malko Linge at the rate of four or five a year and sold 120 million copies. Curiously, France’s answer to James Bond is actually an Austrian prince who works for the CIA and the series is known there as the SAS books (equivalent to HRH in English).

The writing is more slapdash than Fleming and they are not for the faint of heart since de Villiers revels in fairly explicit sex scenes every few pages. Nonetheless, there is actually a perverse realism to some of it.

Gerard De Villiers was known to hang out with French intelligence officers and wrote several prophetic books about real life events. Very few of these are available in English, but I’ve tried the Madmen of Benghazi and Chaos in Kabul, the first two translated after his death and there are three others with a Russian theme. They’re salacious fun.

122. CHRISTOPHER WOOD Active: 1977-79

Key Works: James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me, James Bond and Moonraker

Wood was a screenwriter responsible for two of Roger Moore’s best-known Bond films, including The Spy Who Loved Me, which for me is one of the all-time greats and Moonraker, arguably one of the worst. He also penned two novelizations of the films and became the first Bond continuation author since Kingsley Amis.

These books are surprisingly decent, particularly the first and have acquired greater kudos in the Bond collector community because most of the hardback first impressions found their way to libraries and are almost impossible to find in good condition. Even a library copy will set you back £200 while a clean non-library version is £500+.

121. JOSEPH FINDER Active: 1991-

Key works: The Moscow Club

Finder is best known for the Jack Reacher-style series featuring his character Nick Heller and he has also written books featuring industrial espionage, which has a lot of similar themes to the ones we Spybrarians enjoy. However, he’s primarily here because he began authorial life knocking out a couple of decent spy thrillers. The Moscow Club features a KGB coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Extraordinary Powers recounts the discovery of a Soviet mole in the CIA. He’s a highly professional writer, who understands tension.

120. GAYLE LYNDS Active: 1996-2015

Key works: The Last Spymaster, Masquerade

Known as the Queen of Espionage Fiction (at least in America where she founded the group International Thriller Writers with David Morrell (author of the Rambo books). Gayle Lynds also spent time at a government think tank where she earned a top secret security clearance. Her first book, Masquerade, in 1996 became the first spy bestseller by a woman. Like Mathews, she writes for the pacy airport end of the market, but there is enough insider knowledge to reward die hard spy fans.

119. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. Active: 1976-2005

Key works: Saving the Queen, Stained Glass, Who’s On First

Bill Buckley was arguably the most celebrated Conservative political writer in America in the latter half of the 20th century, a serious public intellectual and founder of National Review, a magazine that did much to incubate debate on the right.

He was also the author of 11 rather less serious, but undeniably fun, spy thrillers featuring Blackford Oakes, a charming but rebellious spook. These books, of which I’ve read a couple, are escapist but contain a clear world view where the CIA are the good guys and the KGB are the bad guys.

Buckley, who had little time for the moral ambiguity of Le Carre, was inspired to write the first by reading Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal. If his mission to entertain was successful the result is perhaps too consciously lightweight to be enduring but they are an amusing diversion.

118. PALMA HARCOURT Active: 1974-96

Key works: Dance for Diplomats, Climate for Conspiracy, Shadows of Doubt

Another female spy writer who has been largely lost to the mists of time. What got me trying her was a cover quote from Desmond Bagley proclaiming: “Palma Harcourt’s novels are splendid”, which is measured enough to be accurate praise, rather than the hyperbole that passes for advertising on many books these days. The paperbacks of her espionage thrillers market her as a new Helen MacInnes.

Harcourt’s books tend to be set in the diplomatic milieu, of which she clearly has personal experience, making them a little different from agency-focused spy fiction.

Low key but rewarding reads.

117. TERRY HAYES Active: 2013-

Key works: I am Pilgrim

Terry Hayes is a man of many parts, but so far the author of only one novel. Hayes is a highly successful screenwriter whose credits include two Mad Max movies, From Hell, Payback and Dead Calm.

When his book, I am Pilgrim, was released in 2013 it was hailed by publishers as “the only thriller you need to read this year”. Perhaps that was because, at 700 pages, it would be the only thriller some people had time to read that year. But that’s a cheap shot.

There are very few thrillers that seem to divide opinion like this one. Some reviewers declare it the best thing they’ve ever read. For me, there are some brilliant set-piece passages that, had he had a stricter editor, could have placed this in the stratosphere, but too much padding and implausibility between them to make the whole hang together very satisfactorily.

A sequel, The Year of the Locust, was planned for release in 2016, but has yet to see the light of day. Wikipedia wryly notes: “Publish dates vary from 2020 to 2045”.

If he nails that one Terry will be moving up, if it’s just as flabby he may be moving out.

116. HENRY S. MAXFIELD Active: 1958-1960s

Key works: Legacy of a Spy

Henry S Maxfield did a few years on the Berlin desk of the CIA before leaving the agency. In 1958, his first book, Legacy of a Spy, was published and was made into the 1967 movie, The Double Man, starring Yul Brynner and Britt Ekland. I haven’t seen the film.

The book is fairly hard to come by but has a premise that is well explored. As GoodReads puts it: “Montague was a steel-nerved, quietly brilliant counterespionage agent. Carmichael was Comrade Slazov's next assignment for killing. The shadowy Ilse loved a man who called himself Slater. One of the three would probably have to kill Ilse. Neither Slasov nor Ilse suspected that the three were one man.”

Cue a tense and absorbing novel with some interesting tradecraft and multiple swapping of outfits and identities. Maxfield wrote a few other books, but so far as I’m aware only one other spy novel: A Dangerous Man, which I haven’t yet found.

115. ANTHONY TREW Active: 1963-89

Key works: Two Hours to Darkness, The Zhukov Briefing

Anthony Trew served with the Royal Navy and the South African navy in the Second World War, gaining experience in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and on the Arctic convoys. He commanded the escort destroyer HMS Walker and won the Distinguished Service Cross. All of which means, as you would expect, that he writes very well about the sea. Unlike a lot of maritime thriller writers, his plots, while not pure espionage, contain a spying element. They also tend to have characters that have a little more depth and drive the plot, rather than bob like flotsam atop it. This is certainly the case in Two Hours to Darkness, written just a year after the Cuban missile crisis, which features the commander of a nuclear submarine coming a tad unhinged. I also enjoyed The Zhukov Briefing, where a Russian sub runs aground in Norway and the world’s intelligence agencies descend to try to steal its secrets.

114. ANDREW GARVE Active: 1965-71

Key works: The Ascent of D13, The Ashes of Loda, The Late Bill Smith

Andrew Garve was the pseudonym of journalist and crime writer Paul Latimer, who penned more than 40 books, a handful of which were espionage thrillers. His best known and the one that gets him in here was The Ascent of D13, a thrilling mountain climbing thriller, where agents from East and West second on the mountain where a hijacked plane carrying a super weapon has come down. It’s not just gripping, but the denouement is ingenious.

  1. Colin Forbes Active: 1969-2006

Key works: The Heights of Zervos, Double Jeopardy, Avalanche Express, The Stockholm Syndicate

Colin Forbes

A pseudonym of Raymond Harold Sawkins, it is a curiosity that anyone seeking to write thrillers should choose to call themselves “Colin” but we must put that aside. Forbes is one of the most difficult “spy” writers to evaluate. Some of his early stuff is really quite good (The Heights of Zervos stands out as a wartime adventure thriller) and he created a durable spy chief series featuring a British intelligence boss called Tweed (beginning with Double Jeopardy), which ran for years at a time when most people were writing standalone thrillers.

For awhile in the 1980s he was spoken of by some in the same breath as Freddie Forsyth. Forbes’ schtick was that he visited everywhere he wrote about (at a time when cheap air travel was impossible) so his books have what some see as an air of verisimilitude. Critics might say that too often they descend into an arid version of the Baedeker guide. Mid period Forbes is merely formulaic, late period Forbes is to be avoided. Serious people think he kept publishing after he had become senile and things don’t hang together well. Avoid the dreadful Lee Marvin film of Avalanche Express.

112. VINCE FLYNN Active: 1999-

Key works: Transfer of Power, American Assassin, Term Limits, Memorial Day

Ok, here’s my one concession to Kalashnikov kiddery. Mitch Rapp is one of the landmark shoot ‘em up spies of the age. I have little to compare him to, since I haven’t tried Jack Reacher, Court Gentry and the others. Randall Masteller, who has read more spy books than anyone else alive says Reacher is the gold standard, but Flynn writes with a fairly gripping exuberance and when I lived stateside he was one of my go-to airport novelists when I needed an amuse bouche for the brain. Flynn’s first, Transfer of Power, is almost absurdly gripping tale of terrorists seizing control of the White House. Go on Craggsy, give it a try…

111. TIM SEBASTIAN Active: 1988-1997

Key works: The Spy in Question, Spy Shadow

Tim Sebastian was one of the foremost foreign correspondents of his era and his credentials for this sort of thing include being expelled as the BBC’s Moscow correspondent in 1985 accused of spying… He penned a series of moderately successful spy thrillers. None is spectacularly good but they all have a realism and documentary grittiness which you would expect of someone who knows the mean streets of Moscow and Warsaw and crossed paths with people in this world.

110. JAMES NAUGHTIE Active: 2014-16

Key works: Paris Spring, The Madness of July

Another BBC man, James Naughtie is best known for his two decades presenting Radio 4’s flagship current affairs breakfast show Today, and a series of non fiction books on political subjects. In his dotage he has penned two rather good thrillers.

Where Sebastian is a shoe-leather reporter, Naughtie is an ideas man, a more elegant writer and someone good at conjuring a sense of time and place. The Madness of July features a spy on the hunt for family secrets in 1970s London and Washington. When I met Naughtie at the Borders book festival a few years ago, he asked if I had read his second, Paris Spring (set in the revolutionary fervour of 1968), then frogmarched me to a till and signed the paperback. “This one is better,” he said. He was right.

109. DEREK LAMBERT Active: 1969-97

Key works: I Said the Spy, The Yermakov Transfer, Red Dove, The Man Who Was Saturday

Derek Lambert was a foreign correspondent for the Daily Express and knocked out very serviceable thrillers throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly with Cold War themes and sometimes touching on the Cold War space race. His best known is probably The Yermakov Transfer, which features a plot to kidnap the Soviet premier on the Trans Siberian Express. My favourite is I, Said the Spy, a tale of double-crosses and paranoia set around the mysterious Bilderberg conference of world leaders.

Are you enjoying Tim's spy author rankings? Then why not check out Tim Shipman's favorite John le Carre novels ranked!

108. E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM Active: 1888-1943

Key works: The Great Impersonation, General Besserley’s Puzzle Box, General Besserley’s Second Puzzle Book, The Spy Paramount, Miss Brown of XYO

One of the pioneers of the spy novel from the first golden age of thriller writing, Oppenheim’s career took off in 1898 with the publication of mysterious Mr Sabin, an invasion threat fantasy worthy of Le Queux. However, unlike most Le Queux, some of his later 100-plus novels are actually still very readable and several of his best known works have been reissued in paperback in recent years. These include The Spy Paramount, which features an American sent undercover by a spy chief from fascist Italy, with lovely bold cover art in the 2014 reissue. His best known book is The Great Impersonation (1920), which has a classic doppelgänger plot and doesn’t end up being quite what you expect. I haven’t read them yet but connoisseurs are also fans of Oppenheim’s two volumes of short stories featuring spy chief General Besserley. Miss Brown of the XYO, another spy yarn, was unusual for the time in featuring a female lead.

107. VLADIMIR VOLKOFF Active: 1979

Key works: The Turn-Around

A French writer of Russian extraction, most of Volkoff’s oeuvre, which features several historical novels about Russia, is not available in English. The one book which is, The Turn-Around, is a very unusual and interesting spy novel. Volkoff is a literary writer and his take on the turning of a double agent is interesting because it explores the inner world of the Russian target and how his discovery of a faith in something other than the communist system helps and hinders the operation. It’s not a thrill a minute but as a character study in the psychology of betrayal it ranks quite highly.

106. SIMON MAWER Active: 2012-15

Key works: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, Tightrope

Simon Mawer is a novelist who has tried his hand at espionage. Mawer has 13 books under his belt but the two which interest us here are The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and its direct sequel Tightrope. They feature a very strong female lead Marian Sutro, who is recruited by SOE and parachuted into France as a resistance courier. Her real mission is to contact an old boyfriend in Paris who is a nuclear physicist. Tightrope picks up Marian’s story in the Cold War of the 1950s. These a very well crafted books, where plot is driven by a character

105. BRYAN FORBES Active: 1986-89

Key works: The Endless Game

Forbes is another of those Renaissance men who obviously love spy fiction and then dabble alongside other career paths. Forbes was a film director, who made The Stepford Wives and Whistle Down the Wind.

He was also the screenwriter for The League of Gentlemen, one of the top heist movies of the 1960s and won a BAFTA for the screenplay of The Angry Silence. So writing thrillers was only the third string to his bow but in the late 80s he penned a few pretty decent spy thrillers (though they’re less well known than his book International Velvet). The Endless Game is a classic Cold War plot with moles and femme fatales and high government politics. It became a fairly lacklustre film, which Forbes also wrote and directed. A Song at Twilight and is a politics-espionage crossover, and Quicksand use the same main character.

Now we're getting serious…

Tim shares the spy writers who will likely not make his top 125 ranking of spy authors 104. DAVID WOLSTENCROFT Active: 2004-06

Key works: Good News Bad News, Contact Zero

David Wolstencroft is the creator of Spooks, the BBC series about the British Security Service, which was renamed MI5 in America. He also penned two decent spy thrillers, which have good characters and highly cinematic and pacy. The first – Good News, Bad News – has one of those arresting concept openings, where you quickly learn that two guys working in a phot processing booth are both spies targeting each other. It gallops along with endless twists, which even the author admits become too much, but it’s exciting and different from a lot of spy fiction. Contact Zero has another good premise, a bunch of burned young spies, who have seen most of their colleagues killed, seek out the eponymous organisation, which is supposed to help agents who are burned. It’s less breakneck but a more mature book.

103. DOV ALFON Active: 2019
Key works: A Long Night in Paris

An Israeli journalist, who once edited Haaretz, a respected paper, Dov Alfon took the spy writing world by storm in 2019 with his debut novel, A Long Night in Paris. It’s a multi-perspective thriller that canters along at a good pace and has some interesting top-level political betrayal as well as espionage action. It won the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger that year and the Marianne award for the top thriller published in France that year. Most importantly, he made Spybrary’s best spy novels of the year, compiled by Craggs/King. He’s now working at Liberation in Paris. I just hope he writes some more.

102. MANDA SCOTT Active: 2019

Key works: A Treachery of Spies

Another spy breakthrough novel of 2019 was Manda Scott’s A Treachery of Spies, one of the best thrillers I’ve read about the French resistance. It also made the Craggs/King list and was a Sunday Times thriller of the month.

Scott is the author of a series featuring a spy in Roman times and another series about Boudicca, so she knows how to write and how to structure and what you get here is a mature book with strong characters and a dual timeline after a modern murder is committed that resembles the way traitors to the resistance were executed. It’s good on themes of betrayal and memory and how collective history shapes us all. It’s also pretty gripping. If she wrote half a dozen more like this in our genre she’d be climbing 60 or 70 places.

101. NICHOLAS LUARD Active: 1975-79

Key works: The Dirty Area (aka A Shadow Spy), The Robespierre Serial, The Orion Line, Travelling Horseman

The great joy of this project is that many of the authors turn out to have very interesting back stories. Nicholas Luard co-founded the Establishment club in the London of the Swinging Sixties with the legendary comedian Peter Cook. For a few years this was the beating heart of coolest city on earth, home to groundbreaking comedy and cabaret. As if that were not enough he became one of those who kept Private Eye, Britain’s leading satirical magazine, afloat.

In 1975 he penned The Robespierre Serial, one of those thrillers that was hailed as one of the best of its year, but it’s assassination/manhunt plot owes more than a little to a better-known thriller. Better is The Dirty Area, also known as A Shadow Spy, a title under which it has been republished both in the Colliers Spymasters series, and more recently by Top Notch Thrillers, the imprint Mike Ripley uses to revive great thrillers which have fallen out of print.

The premise is a good one: a disgraced British officer is blackmailed into going to Tangier to impersonate playboy and agent provocateur Ross Callum only to learn that an assassin is targeting Callum. Luard had contacts in the CIA and the word is they bought up copies of several of his books (Robespierre and Travelling Horseman, which takes the reader inside the Black September terror group) for revealing too much about botched field operations.

100. EDWARD S. AARONS Active: 1955-75

Key works: Assignment Tokyo, Assignment Budapest, Assignment to Disaster, Assignment Suicide

Edward S Aarons wrote more than 80 pulp fiction thrillers, 42 of which featured CIA operative Sam Durrell. Every one of them starts with the word Assignment. The first was Assignment to Disaster. Aarons sold 23 million copies and cemented his place as author of one of the great US action paperback series. Durrell is resourceful, his creator the master of the short sharp sentence. The locations are exotic, the action fast and often violent. These aren’t great literature but they are great fun.

99. TREVANIAN Active: 1972-79

Key works: Shibumi, The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction

Best known to the outside world for the book of The Eiger Sanction, a middling Clint Eastwood movie, Trevanian is the pseudonym of an American film historian named Rodney William Whitaker, who in the 1970s sold more than a million copies of five consecutive books.

That book is rather tenser than the film and its successor the Loo Sanction also has its merits, but they have to be read understanding that Trevanian was trying to both spoof the genre and do it better than many of its authors. Shibumi, which followed in 1979, is regarded as his masterpiece and certainly, it’s a must-read for Spybrarians. On the positive side, the central character, assassin Nicolai Hel, is as compellingly drawn and eccentric as any spy in popular fiction – capable of turning any object into a murder weapon or taking on Japanese experts at the deep mind game Go.

On the downside, the book is all over the place with an absurd digression into a spelunking scene in the Basque country, which lasts for what seems like a geological age. It’s a cult classic and beloved of our man Craggs, but I’m more intrigued to see what Don Winslow did with a prequel novel featuring Hel, Satori, which the Whitaker estate gave its approval to in 2011.

98. MATTHEW RICHARDSON Active: 2017-

Key works: The Insider, My Name is Nobody

One of the youngest writers in the successful new wave of British spy writing, Matthew Richardson has published two accomplished thrillers and just finished a third, which will hopefully come out next year.

My Name is Nobody came out in 2017 and features his spook Solomon Vine on the hunt for his oldest friend, who has been abducted from the British embassy in Istanbul. It manages to use modern technology and touch on modern themes like terrorism, whilst maintaining an old school feel. Richardson has read a lot in the genre and it shows. It’s not perfect, but Gregg Hurwitz, the author of Orphan X said of it: “I dare you to find a first novel as self-assured, impeccably researched and beautifully rendered.”

The Insider, which I preferred, is Richardson’s modern take on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The greatest Russian defector of the age is dead and the suspects include his handlers, who all have top jobs in the security apparatus of the government. Vine is brought in to find the traitor. There’s an even more old school feel to this one. In a recent podcast interview, which you can find on the Spybrary website, Richardson talks up this third, The Scarlet Papers, as his best. He says it’s a much bigger book in scope and length, with multiple time frames building a saga of British intelligence from the war to the modern age.

Listen to Tim Shipman interview spy author Matthew Richardson 97. ALEX BERENSON Active: 2006-18

Key works: The Faithful Spy, the Ghost War

Alex Berenson was a reporter for the New York Times before he began a series of 12 novels featuring John Wells, billed in the opener, The Faithful Spy, as the only American ever to penetrate al Qaeda. That won the Edgar Award for a best first novel.

There followed thrillers which touch on Iran and Russia as well as a return to Afghanistan. But the reason Berenson is here is that he writes about the war on Islamist terror with a subtlety that is not often found elsewhere. I think that period was generally bad for spy thrillers as the enemy was much more difficult to humanise and empathise with than during the Cold War. Many big-name writers tried it and to my mind failed badly. Berenson has done it as well as anyone, frankly.

96. JIMMY SANGSTER Active: 1967-8

Key works: Private I (aka The Spy Killer), Foreign Exchange

Jimmy Sangster penned nine books, of which two were espionage novels featuring John Smith, a former spook working as a private eye, who is sucked back into the spy business. In Private I Smith does a simple job for his ex-wife and becomes embroiled in a three-way dice between British, Russian, and Chinese intelligence. In Foreign Exchange, he is forced to pretend to defect to Russia to send them duff intelligence, a book which ends with a twist on the last page. These are gritty, hard-boiled books, but also wryly funny.

95. TOM BRADBY Active: 1998-

Key works: Shadow Dancer, Secret Service, Double Agent, Triple Cross, The Master of Rain

Tom Bradby, now the main anchorman for ITV’s News at 10 is a man of many parts: a journalist who covered politics, the royals, Northern Ireland and the far east, experience he then put to good use in a series of successful thrillers. Shadow Dancer, his first, was praised as one of the best thrillers about the Troubles since Harry’s Game and Bradby adapted it himself for the 2012 film of the same name, which is even better.

The Master of Rain is more detective than espionage but is a brilliant evocation of Shanghai when it was a crossroads for international espionage. More recently he has turned his hand to a trilogy where spying is more central, which begins with the premise that the incoming British prime minister is a Russian mole. Bradby says his next book, Yesterday’s Spy, which features an aging spook whose son has disappeared, which is published in May 2022, is his favourite of all his books.

94. STEPHEN COULTER AKA JAMES MAYO Active: 1964-77

Key works: The Soyuz Affair, Threshold, Hammerhead, Let Sleeping Girls Lie, Shamelady.

It was perhaps inevitable that Stephen Coulter would create a spy series. He served in naval intelligence during the Second World War, then became a reporter for Reuters and then The Sunday Times. Remind you of anyone? Coulter was, in fact, friends with Ian Fleming and helped him with some background for Casino Royale. Coulter’s character, a transparent Bond clone, was Charles Hood, an art connoisseur and British spy who first appeared in 1964 as the Bond film boom led publishers to seek out anyone with an action man agent. One reviewer described the books as “James Bond with the volume turned up to 11”. These are a decent diversion, but the experts, Mike Ripley among them, think his “outstanding” spy thriller The Soyuz Affair (1977) is his best work and once I’ve read it he might move higher up this list.

93. GEOFFREY OSBORNE Active: 1968-74

Key works: The Power Bug, Balance of Fear, Checkmate For China, Traitor’s Gate, Death’s No Antidote, A Time for Vengeance.

Osborne’s series of six thrillers about British agents Dingle and Jones were another discovery via Spy Guys & Gals, where Randall gives the series an A minus. These are towards the action end of the espionage spectrum, though their appeal comes from two strong characters, who meet in the first book and a degree of ingenuity in solving problems, which include climbing a Himalayan mountain, seizing a ship from hijackers, plus missions deep behind the lines in Siberia, China and Berlin.

92. GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD Active: 1939-82

Key works: Rogue Male

How far up this list can you get with just one book? Certainly this far when the book is a 24 carat classic like Rogue Male, the story of a British sniper on the run after a botched assassination attempt on a unnamed European dictator, whose name presumably rhymes with Mad golf Pitler. It’s one of the great suspense books, though not strictly espionage, Rogue Male came out in 1939. Household followed it up with Rogue Justice, which pitches the sniper into the French resistance, a sequel which came a staggering 43 years later. There are other thrillers – Watcher in the Shadows, which pitches two hunters from intelligence against each other in the 1950s, plus two books featuring a character called Roger Taine – but Household is really only famous for his first outing.

91. ERSKINE CHILDERS **Active: 1903

Key works: The Riddle of the Sands

How far does one book take you? Fair** enough. If you haven’t read The Riddle of the Sands, you are missing one of the very first spy fiction classics. It is the story of two young Brits on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea who uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Like much of William Le Queux’s output it was written as a wake-up call to the British government about the threat from the Kaiser. Unlike Le Queux it is well written and understated. Childers served in the Royal Navy during the First World War, winning a DSC at Gallipoli, and his knowledge of the sea shows. The nautical detail on the shifting sandbanks the heroes have to navigate is highly praised by sailors. The author didn’t long appreciate what he had achieved. Childers became a supporter of Irish Republicanism and smuggled guns into Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard. He was executed in 1922 by the authorities of the Irish Free State during the civil war.

90. HOLLY WATT Active: 2019-

Key works: To the Lions, The Dead Line, The Hunt and the Kill.

Are these spy fiction? Not, strictly. But there is much in common between undercover journalists operating with subterfuge on their wits and a secret agent in the field in hostile surroundings. Holly Watt has conjured three diamond sharp thrillers and is fast becoming one of the most acclaimed young writers in Britain.

Her first, To the Lions, won the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, which many successful novelists never win and the follow-up was long-listed. The reason for the success of these books is that Holly has written one of the best female leads in contemporary thrillers.

Casey Benedict is an investigative hack, who specialises in exposing the worst characters. To the Lions featured a hunt with humans as prey, The Dead Line looked at sweat shops and The Hunt and the Kill took on pharma. These books are sweat to the palms tense and the journalistic tradecraft is totally authentic as Holly was for years one of the leading investigative journalists in the land. She spent a few months covering Westminster politics, my stomping ground, and we became pals. I think she was a bit mystified by why I got such a kick out of the personality politics of SW1. She was always pretty secretive about what she was up to outside of the House of Commons and guarded her image closely since she was risking her safety undercover a lot.

The principal pleasure for me in these books is in learning about her skillset and the nerves of steel missions like this take. All I needed was a plausible manner and an ability to handle myself on half a bottle of wine over lunch. If you love the tension of espionage, these books will truly tickle the same adrenaline ducts. And one day, if Casey Benedict is ever hired by MI6, she might give us a traditional spy book.

89. DAVID DOWNING Active: 2007-

Key works: Zoo Station, Silesian Station, Lehrter Station, Jack of Spies

David Downing has a strong following with his seven book saga on journalist John Russell before, during and after the Second World War. Each of them is named after a station. Fans like the period detail and the story of a man thrust into the mess of great events just trying to survive, along with his son and his girlfriend. Russell finds himself frequently playing off the NKVD against the OSS/CIA and the Gestapo in order to survive. They are literate but have a decent narrative force. I’ve only read two or three of them but Downing has contributed a great deal to the spy world. In 2013 he began a second series, with Jack of Spies, about the early days of British intelligence around the time of the First World War. I’ve never felt Downing quite rises to the heights of the greats, but there is a substantial body of work here which is well worth seeking out.

88. JOHN TRENHAILE Active: 1981-94

Key works: The Man Called Kyril, A View From the Square, Nocturne for the General, Krysalis, The Mahjong Spies

Trenhaile was a big noise in 1980s spy fiction, though he seems somewhat unjustly forgotten these days. He wrote two trilogies, the Kyril saga and another set in the far east, of which The Mahjong Spies is the first. The three Kyril books are a satisfyingly labyrinthine tale of double and triple agents. Kyril is the codename for a Soviet agent assigned to identify a British mole in the KGB. To do so, he must convince the British that he is a double agent. Meanwhile, a member of MI6 is really a double himself. You get the picture. The series is sufficiently ambiguous that it is never quite clear who is playing who. Trenhaile’s fame derived from a really very good TV adaptation of the books, screened in 1988, which featured a top notch cast of some of the best British character actors of the day: Edward Woodward, Denholm Elliott, Ian Charleson and Joss Ackland. Be warned, the four part series was edited down to a two hour film in the US.

87. DUNCAN KYLE Active: 1971-93

Key works: A Cage of Ice, A Raft of Swords (aka The Suvarov Adventure), Terror’s Cradle, In Deep (aka Whiteout)

Kyle is one of those authors who would be much higher if this was a list of general thriller writers. He is up there with Maclean, Bagley, Innes and Lyall as an adventure writer of the first rank despite having been largely forgotten. Inevitably, some of his characters find themselves embroiled in espionage, including the protagonist of his first book, A Cage of Ice, who ends up joining a CIA rescue mission in the Soviet-controlled Arctic, Terror’s Cradle where the hero’s girlfriend has become mixed up in the smuggling of microfilm desired by both the KGB and the CIA and Raft of Swords, which features half the world’s spies swarming around a peace conference.

86. FRANCIS BEEDING Active: 1928-46

Key works: One Sane Man, The Four Armourers, The League of Discontent,

“Francis Beeding” is the pseudonym used by John Leslie Palmer and Hilary St George Saunders, chosen because Palmer always wanted to be called Francis and Saunders had once owned a house in the Sussex village of Beeding.

They worked together at the League of Nations and began to write detective stories in the late 1920s. In 1928 they created the character of intelligence chief Alastair Granby, who starts as an agent and rises to run the secret service. Experts say these have aged better than Dennis Wheatley’s output, though they are a product of their time, warning about the danger to peace in the run up to the war from all sorts of dictators, arms manufacturers and plotters across Europe. Granby works for stability and peace (as the authors doubtless saw themselves doing), trying to stop plots to overthrow governments abroad.

During the war Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s protege, who took over the Ministry of Information, hired Palmer and Sauders to write for the government. One of my favourite first editions is a copy of Eleven Were Brave, which was written in 1940 and deals with fifth columnists in France as the Nazis approached Paris, inscribed to Bracken and signed by both authors and their pseudonym. Well worth a try and if you like them (Randall Masteller gives the series an A+) there are 17 of them. Certainly they should be better known.

85. JACK HIGGINS Active: 1962-2014

Key works: The Eagle Has Landed, Touch the Devil, A Prayer for the Dying,

Higgins (whose real name was Harry Patterson and who also wrote under the pseudonym James Graham) sold far more books than most people on this list and for a while he was part of a wave of powerhouse British thriller writers including Frederick Forsyth and Ken Follett who took the fight to the Americans with novels pitched somewhere between the classic British actioneers of the 1960s post-Bond boom and the modern US special forces books.

The Eagle Has Landed (1975) is a classic story, well told and a very good film. It has sold more than 50 million copies in 43 languages. One week after it was published Higgins’ accountant phoned him to say it had already made him £1 million.

The Night of the Fox, a twisty tale with an interesting premise, but a pretty poor mini series also had elements of deception and espionage, though they are principally war stories, not spy stories. The same character, Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland in the film) appears in Touch the Devil and Confessional, both of which feature the Irish nationalist sent into an intelligence battle with the KGB. Sean Dillon, another Irish gun for hire, is the hero of another 20-odd books which primarily features terrorism and assassination plots.

84. ANDREW WILLIAMS Active: 2009-

Key works: Witchfinder, The Interrogator, The Poison Tide, To Kill a Tsar

Williams was for 20 years a maker of history and current affairs documentaries for the BBC but, after knocking out a couple of well received non-fiction books on the Second World War, he is now making quite a name for himself in the thriller world.

His first historical novel, The Interrogator, is an interesting take on the intelligence battle in the Atlantic war and was shortlisted for both the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Ellis Peters Historical Award. His second, To Kill A Tsar got another Ellis Peters nomination and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. I found The Interrogator pretty gripping, the latter disappointingly episodic.

His masterpiece so far, though, is Witchfinder, which brilliantly captures the paranoia inside British intelligence after Kim Philby’s defection and the mad rabbit hole Peter Wright and his ilk descended, turning on their own like Roger Hollis. It’s wonderfully atmospheric, with beautifully drawn characters. It’s a must for all Spybrarians.

83. ADAM DIMENT Active: 1968-71

Key works: The Dolly Dolly Spy, The Great Spy Race, The Bang Bang Birds, Think Inc

Philip McAlpine is brilliantly described by someone on GoodReads as “the spy Austin Powers wanted to be”. He is the hipster hero of four books by Adam Diment, who for four short years was the coolest dude in spy fiction. Diment’s books combine the wry humour of early Deighton with the sexual cynicism of Bond, with added drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

The plots are somewhat implausible but the writing, for what it is, is clever. These are time capsule pieces, the perfect encapsulation of swinging London, but the attitudes are of their moment. Many will find the overt racism offputting. McAlpine would have been in trouble from MeToo as well. But if you’re looking for a light-hearted but enjoyable amuse-bouche between meaty books, these are perfect.

David Hemmings was supposed to play McAlpine but the film never got made. To add to their allure, Diment led the life himself, driving an Aston Martin DB5 and dressed like Jason King, before disappearing to become a recluse in the 1970s and, depending on which internet rumour you believe, lived quietly in Kent, blew his mind on drugs, or secretly kept writing.

Further Reading:

Esquire article on Adam Diment – The Extraordinary Case Of The Missing Spy Novelist

82. OWEN MATTHEWS Active: 2019-

Key works: Black Sun, Red Traitor

I’ve read both of Matthews’ thrillers in the last month. They are of considerable quality, with an interesting, flawed KGB operative hero, who wrestles with a deliciously sinister boss, his libertine wife and his own demons. Both books are highly original riffs on real events.

Black Sun sends Alexander Vasin on a hugely atmospheric mission to the closed city where Russia’s hydrogen bombs were developed and features a physicist modeled on Andrei Sakharov. It’s a murder mystery but leavened with enough internal KGB-GRU intrigue to justify its place in this list.

Red Traitor is a gripping foray into the Cuban Missile Crisis, which combines an imaginative reworking of the Penkovsky case and a chilling insight into real-life events on a Russian submarine armed with a nuclear torpedo that was sent to challenge the American blockade with orders to fire. The writing is assured and reminiscent of other historic espionage authors like Paul Vidich and Joseph Kanon. Matthews is half Russian, speaks the language like a native, and was Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek so his drab Russian streets are pitch-perfect. If he keeps at it Matthews has the potential to trouble the top 40 of this list. If that is not enough he is also the author of the definitive English language work on Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Second World War master spy.

81. KINGSLEY AMIS Active: 1965-68

Key works: Colonel Sun, The James Bond Dossier, Man With the Golden Gun, The Book of Bond

Amis is one of the greatest writers on this list though clearly not one of the greatest spy writers. But he has several claims to inclusion. As an admirer of Ian Fleming, he was probably the first serious figure to take Bond seriously. Amis wrote the James Bond Dossier under his own name and The Book of Bond, or, Every Man His Own 007, a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym “Lt Col. William (‘Bill') Tanner”, who was M's Chief of Staff in many of Fleming's novels.

When Fleming died just as he was finishing The Man With the Golden Gun, it is said that Amis helped to give it a pre-publication polish. This culminated in 1968 when Amis, under the pseudonym “Robert Markham” published Colonel Sun, the first – and for my money, the very best – Bond continuation novel. It’s got a nasty villain, a sexy girl, and a hero who is at the crueler darker end of Fleming’s spectrum. Where others have left their own imprint on Bond, Amis was the most successful at emulating Fleming’s Bond, indeed I would rank it ahead of pushing half of Fleming’s books.

80. Robert Wilson

Active: 1995-2015

Key works: The Company of Strangers, A Small Death in Lisbon

Wilson is a very talented crime novelist. His Bruce Medway series, set in Africa, is reminiscent of Gavin Lyall. His Javier Falcon detective series, set in Seville, has won numerous awards and became a TV series. But he’s here because of two very accomplished, split time historical thrillers. A Small Death in Lisbon won the CWA gold dagger in 1999. It’s a murder mystery, with the timeline switching between Lisbon in 1941, when the city was awash with spies and the SS were in town trying to buy up vital supplies of Tungsten, and Lisbon in 1999 where a murder is linked to old events as the country emerges from the Salazar dictatorship.

Even better, and definitely, a spy novel (one of my favourites to boot) is The Company of Strangers, which pitches a Portuguese woman into the maelstrom of wartime spying, alongside a Nazi double agent, and then follows her into the Cold War. It’s really good and ought to be much better known.

79. Desmond Cory

Active: 1951-71
Key works: Undertow, Hammerhead aka Shockwave, Feramontov, Timelock, Sunburst

Cory was the pen name of the prolific Shaun Lloyd McCarthy, who wrote 45 novels and gave the world Johnny Fedora, a superspy with a license to kill who pre-dated James Bond by two years. One critic described him as “a much more violent, sexy, and lucky agent than James Bond”. The first three all involve Fedora thwarting neo-Nazi movements and there is a sense among the critics that early Fedora has not aged well. However, Cory’s final five books, which form a spy symphony called the Feramontov Quintet, are of higher quality and that’s where I’ve focused my reading energies. Feramontov, a stunted Russian, is a worthy adversary and the books are more stylistically close to the intelligent thrillers Spybrarians enjoy than the brisk adventures of the early years.

78. James Grady

Active: 1974-2015
Key works: Six Days of the Condor

Grady has written 15 novels, but I must confess I’ve only read one of them: Six Days of the Condor. But it’s a belter and gets him this high on its own. It tells the suspenseful story of a minor CIA operative who goes out one lunchtime and returns to find his workmates slaughtered. When he tries to seek help from an emergency number there is an attempt on his life. It’s a real nerve shredder.

The book became a film, Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford, which is one of the cornerstones of 1970s post-Watergate paranoid thrillers. Two sequels followed, Shadow of the Condor (1976) and Last Days of the Condor (2015) but I haven’t read either of them yet. If you’ve only watched the film, give the book a go, it’s rightly a classic.

77. Ian McEwan

Active: 1990-2012
Key works: Sweet Tooth, The Innocent

Another literary novelist who has tried his hand at espionage. Unlike Sebastian Faulks, an author I usually like, but whose attempt at a Bond novel reads like a literary novelist who thinks writing a thriller is easy and somewhat beneath him, McEwan has twice come up with a winner, perhaps because he treated the subject matter like any other subject for literary examination.

The Innocent is a twisty gripper of a book, which embroils a naive telecoms worker in the 1950s tunnel the allies built under the Russian sector of Berlin to tap their communications. He falls for a German woman and his two worlds collide. Sweet Tooth, which came two decades later, pitches a female lead recruited by MI5 in 1972 to penetrate the circle of a rising young writer as part of the intelligence effort to shape the cultural conversation. Then she falls for him. Again, it’s high-quality stuff. If he’d written four like this he’d be way higher.

76. Anthony Horowitz

Active: 2000-
Key works: Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day, Stormbreaker

Like Amis, Horowitz is here primarily because he is the keeper of the Fleming flame. His two, soon to be three, Bond novels are, for my money, the best and certainly the most faithful homages/additions to the Fleming canon since Colonel Sun. He gets extra points for inserting his works into the existing timeline. There’s no Daniel Craig’s separate cinematic universe here.

Horowitz has two other major strings to his bow. He created the TV drama Foyle’s War which, after Morse had finished, was the best detective drama on British television and included a heap load of espionage plots as well. And Horowitz is also a talented writer for children and his Alex Rider series, about a boy recruited by MI6, runs to 12 books in 20 years. I haven’t read them yet but look forward to doing so when my children are old enough.

75. William Boyd

Active: 2006-

Key works: Restless, Solo, Spy City, Waiting For Sunrise

Like McEwan, Boyd is a “proper” novelist, unlike McEwan he has begun to do a little more than dabble in espionage fiction, finding in it some of the human drama, romance and betrayal that is the stock of literary writers, but perhaps too some pretty decent book sales.

This process began with Restless in 2006 and continued with Waiting for Sunrise. These books impressed the Fleming estate enough that he was commissioned to write Solo, which came out in 2013, sending Bond into a fictionalized version of the 1960s war in Biafra. Some love it, some hate it.

Boyd is also a talented screenwriter, penning the script to the film of Restless and he created the 2020 espionage TV series Spy City, which tells of a molehunt in the British embassy in Berlin in 1961 just as the Berlin wall was about to go up. Let’s hope he has another crack at an espionage thriller since he seems to like and respect our genre.

74. Martin Cruz Smith

Active: 1981-2019

Key works: Gorky Park, Polar Star, Wolves Eat Dogs, Stallion Gate

Another author who is hard to rank, since he is essentially a crime writer, but his main character, Arkady Renko, one of the greatest and best drawn in modern detective fiction is a Russian, who has more than a few run-ins with the KGB and whose work crosses genres.

If I were ranking him as a crime series he would be much higher, but this seems about right when compared to the specialist spy writers who follow. Gorky Park is a classic, which has the vibes of an espionage book though the resolution is not spy related. Polar Star, where Renko is exiled to an Arctic factory ship is even more thrilling. Cruz Smith wrote some stand alones, which have more explicit espionage links, including Stallion Gate, set in the run up to the Los Alamos atom bomb test, but it is not a patch on Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos.

73. Victor Canning

Active: 1934-85
Key works: The Rainbird Pattern, Firecrest, Birdcage, The Doomsday Carrier

Canning was a ludicrously prolific crime writer, some of whose best work is in the spy genre. In the 1960s he wrote a series of books about Rex Carver, a private investigator who does jobs on the side for the secret service. But Canning’s real purple patch began in 1971 with Firecrest, the first of eight books about Birdcage, a sinister subsection of the British intelligence community. There are a few recurring characters but the agency is the one looming presence, the plots usually about hunting down people going rogue or information coming out (or in one case a plague-carrying chimp).

Critics say his best is the Rainbird Pattern, which I enjoyed, and which won the CWA silver dagger (it was runner up to Ambler’s The Levanter). That book became Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s last film. These are not traditional linear spy thrillers but Canning was an experienced craftsman and they are worth seeking out.

72. Evelyn Anthony

Active: 1953-2005
Key works: The Defector, The Avenue of the Dead, Albatross, The Company of Saints

It is said that Evelyn Ward-Thomas took the pen name Anthony because she wanted to sound more masculine in order to get published, but her virtue actually is that she wrote credible female leads before that was popular in spy fiction. Her early output veered towards romance, with espionage links and she never quite lost that combination of romance and spying (The Tamarind Seed), But, like Helen MacInnes, she wrote effective wartime thrillers laced with spying (The Occupying Power, The Rendezvous).

The place to start, though, is her rather good four-part series about Davina Graham, a female spy sent to interrogate a Russian defector who then falls for him in The Defector, before the series escalates into classic mole hunt territory (The Avenue of the Dead, Albatross) before culminating in a terrorist plot with The Company of Saints.

71. Kenneth Benton

Active: 1969-75
Key works: A Spy in Chancery, Sole Agent, Craig and the Jaguar

Benton was recruited by MI6 in the 1930s and spent the war in Spain, where he was in charge of the counter-espionage unit tracking German spies. After the war, he stayed in Madrid under Kim Philby, an association that ended his career as a covert operative when Philby defected, though he stayed with SIS for some years afterward. Benton penned an enjoyable series about Peter Craig, a police liaison spook skilled in counter terrorism.

The first book, The 24th level, is not a spy book at all, dealing with Craig crossing swords with a diamond syndicate in a mine in South America. But the next two, Sole Agent and particularly A Spy in Chancery, which deals with a mole hunt in the British embassy in Rome, are core Spybrary. Further adventures followed, involving the kidnapping of the niece of the head of MI6 in Peru, Craig’s own capture by Tunisian revolutionaries, and a Saudi Arabian murder mystery. Another effort featuring the defection of a scientist and KGB assassins was published posthumously as an e-book in 2012 (Vengeance in Venice). Craig is an understated but impressive hero and Benton’s experience gives the books an authentic ring.

70. John R. Maxim

Active: 1989-2003

Key works: The Bannerman Solution, The Bannerman Effect, Bannerman's Law, Bannerman's Promise, Bannerman's Ghosts

Maxim is someone I discovered through Spy Guys and Gals, where Randall Masteller gives his series about Paul Bannerman, who runs a group of freelance secret agents, an A++ grade. There are five Bannerman books and four more spun off about other characters in his group, notably assassin Elizabeth Stride.

The first book starts with a great premise, that a bunch of retired spies, killers, and pavement artists all live together in a small town in America, quietly dealing with the local bad guys in their own way. Then the CIA’s head of operations decides to do something about it, which provokes battles of wits, wills, and guns.

Bannerman’s gang of misfits is hugely resourceful and the man himself is gifted with a great tactical brain that devises twisty and amusing ways to get the better of those the group runs up against. The best way to describe them really is that they are the best eccentric ensemble cast in spy fiction before Mick Herron created the Slow Horses. If I’d read more than a couple, I might well push him quite a bit higher on this list.

70. John R. Maxim

Active: 1989-2003

Key works: The Bannerman Solution, The Bannerman Effect, Bannerman's Law, Bannerman's Promise, Bannerman's Ghosts

Maxim is someone I discovered through Spy Guys and Gals, where Randall Masteller gives his series about Paul Bannerman, who runs a group of freelance secret agents, an A++ grade. There are five Bannerman books and four more spun off about other characters in his group, notably assassin Elizabeth Stride.

The first book starts with a great premise, that a bunch of retired spies, killers, and pavement artists all live together in a small town in America, quietly dealing with the local bad guys in their own way. Then the CIA’s head of operations decides to do something about it, which provokes battles of wits, wills, and guns. Bannerman’s gang of misfits is hugely resourceful and the man himself is gifted with a great tactical brain that devises twisty and amusing ways to get the better of those the group runs up against. The best way to describe them really is that they are the best eccentric ensemble cast in spy fiction before Mick Herron created the Slow Horses. If I’d read more than a couple, I might well push him quite a bit higher on this list.Right, people, the list is back…by popular demand

69. Nelson De Mille

Active: 1974-

Key works: The Charm School, The Lion’s Game

There are not many blockbuster, global spy/action US authors on this list and I want to fit in one more before the obvious big two. Nelson De Mille is not an espionage specialist but he has a few notable books which touch on our genre.

The Lions Game is overlong but a warning about the vulnerability of America to Arab terrorism before 9/11 ever happened and it is spooky to re-read now. The same lead character, the wisecracking John Corey, is also in Plum Island and Night Fall, which are nothing to do with spying but among his highest rated novels.

My two favourites are stand alones, though. By the Rivers of Babylon, where a bunch of Israelis who survive a plane crash, stage a Rorke’s Drift-like defence against a bunch of Palestinian commandos, is very exciting and rather moving. But the reason the author is here is The Charm School (1988), which is a genuinely very high quality spy yarn, which spins a thriller around the notion of a Russian facility that trains KGB operatives to think and behave like Americans to infiltrate the US. Anyone who has watched the TV series The Americans will be familiar with the idea, but this was original when written and is still highly recommended.

68. David McCloskey

Active: 2021-

Key works: Damascus Station

I’ve thought long and hard about whether it is right to place someone this high on the basis of one book, and a book I’ve only just read at that, where the passage of time has not tested how enduring the work is when memories fade. But Damascus Station, the debut of McCloskey, a former CIA man, is the best spy thriller I’ve read in the last year and as a modern debut only perhaps Red Sparrow gripped me in quite the same way.

This is a book that illuminates a complicated conflict in a humane way. It is riddled with authentic tradecraft and features a well-drawn female double agent, who is both intriguing and sexy as hell. Best of all, the really bad villains are vile while many of the others come with their own shades of grey, which illuminate a regime which traps as many of its members as its opponents in a cycle of miserable depravity.

It would be understandable if McCloskey fails to touch these heights again, and he may drift downwards in future, but if he nails a second of this quality he will be jumping considerably higher. Call this a holding slot, but the praise the book has been getting is justified and I can’t wait to read what he comes up with next. I’m putting him here because he represents something of a tier break. I’m excited about what follows because from here on in we really are entering the cream of the crop.

67. Yulian Semyonov

Active: 1966-90

Key works: TASS is Authorised to AnnounceA fair assessment of Semyonov, arguably Russia’s greatest spy/detective writer, is necessarily constrained by the few books of his which have been translated into English.

Best known, of course, is Seventeen Moments of Spring (1969), which features a Soviet agent (Stierlitz, an amalgam of real life agents) impersonating a Nazi inside Hitler’s inner circle at the end of the Second World War. The TV series (1973) is among the most beloved ever screened in Russia, an archetype of the underside of the Great Patriotic War – and it has huge admirers in the Spybrary community, particularly Clarissa Aykroyd.

There were 12 books in the series. The only other one of his I’ve read is a stand alone called TASS is Authorised to Announce (1977), the plot of which concerns the hunt for a CIA spy in Moscow in the 1970s. It is an interesting inversion of the usual memes of wicked Russians and virtuous Westerners. Some of it is a little crude, and i would argue less well-informed about Western society than Anglo-American writers are about the Russian world, but all Spybrarians should try a book like this to understand how “the other side” sees us.

66. Robert Ludlum

Active: 1971-2006

Key works: The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum

This ranking will annoy almost everyone, but particularly my friends Matthew Bradford, who would put the inventor of the globetrotting action/espionage thriller much higher, and Jason King, who believes Ludlum’s doorstoppers are best deployed as alternatives to firewood.

To me, Ludlum is a nice idea, the founder of an entire genre of sprawling seventies epics, but all too often the reality is cardboard characters, expository dialogue, repetitive language and forests of words that could be trimmed. I must admit I haven’t read a lot of what are regarded as his better works (Matthew recommends The Chancellor Manuscript and The Road to Gandolfo, which shows that Ludlum was capable of satirising himself, while The Matarese Circle seems well regarded too).

All that said, The Bourne Identity is a stone cold classic, with one of the great opening premises (man wakes up with amnesia and gradually begins to realise he is a trained killer). Some think the Bourne Supremacy even better. The films are also superior, for the most part, than their Bond contemporaries. Love him, hate him, you need an opinion on him. Try him.

65. Owen John

Active: 1966-76

Key works: 30 Days Hath September, A Beam of Black Light, Dead on Time, The Shadow in the Sea

John (Real name Leonard Owen-John) was a Welsh thriller writer who penned seven quality thrillers about Haggai Godin, a Russian-born spy for MI6, who is a mysterious tactical mastermind. Wikipedia describes him as both “hard boiled” and a “bon vivant”, which is right.

In these books, again unfairly forgotten (except by Randall Masteller who put me on to them) he joins forces with CIA man Colonel Charles Mason. John writes masterful and bloody action sequences and knows how to crank up the tension but these books are much more than that. The Goddin-Mason double act is excellent and there is a great deal of psychological tension.

The first book, 30 Days Hath September, features a chilling depiction of a captured American scientist going mad under torture by his Chinese captors before Goddin hoves into view. Quality tales of the old school which surprise pleasantly with their depth and characterisation.

64. Andrew York

Active: 1966-75

Key works: The Eliminator, The Deviator

York was one of many pseudonyms of the highly prolific Christopher Nicole, one of those thriller writers who ground out book after book (around 200 in total) every year in the heyday of British thriller writing but has been unjustly forgotten by many.

Under his own name, Nicole wrote four good wartime thrillers set in the Balkans (Partisan is the first) and four more on SOE and the French resistance, which veer more into our terrain (try Resistance). There are another nine books in the Angel series, which feature a Nazi sniper who is a double agent for the British (start with Angel From Hell).

As Andrew York he wrote four books about Tallant, the police commissioner from a Caribbean island, which are fun. But Nicole/York’s finest hour is the Jonas Wilde series, which features the titular assassin of the British government.

Their titles are descriptively muscular: The Eliminator, The Dominator, The Predator etc. For me, Wilde is the high point of the post-Bond solo spy-action hero, Bond-alternative genre. Wilde is more sardonic than Bond, the women are often better drawn and feistier, the locales exotic, the double-crosses plentiful. After the first book, my favourite (and the most Spybrary-friendly) is The Deviator, where Jonas crosses sniper rifles with the KGB. These are serious fun and really well crafted by an author who clearly understood the art of thriller writing.

63. David Brierley

Active: 1979-96

Key works: Big Bear Little Bear, Cold War, Czechmate, Blood Group O, One Lives One Dies, On Leaving a Prague Window, Shooting Star

Brierley created Cody, one of the very best female leads in spy fiction. She is a CIA trained agent who has gone freelance, who we first meet in Cold War, a 1979 novel set in the midst of a French election, which involves assassination, betrayal, and real tension (It scores 4.14 on GoodReads, which is much higher than a lot of books I love).

Cody is resourceful and Brierley was hailed on publication as “a new name joins the world’s greatest spy fiction writers”. Best of all his books are not long and written with a spare and unflashy style that nonetheless has real novelistic flair.

This is espionage for grown-ups. Blood Group O, Skorpion’s Death and Snowline followed. Between those Cody books, Brierley also became renowned for spy thrillers set in Eastern Europe, such as Czechmate.

His best book, though, is Big Bear Little Bear set in 1948 Berlin, before the airlift, where the sole survivor of a blown network works to expose a traitor in British intelligence. My paper, The Sunday Times, reviewed it thus: “ Has the rancid strength of a distillation of the best of Le Carré and Deighton: an authentic winner.” That this praise is only slightly excessive tells you what you need to know.

62. Warren Tute

Active: 1969-77

Key works: A Matter of Diplomacy, The Powder Train, The Tarnham Connection, The Resident, Next Saturday in Milan, The Cairo Sleeper

Tute served in the Royal Navy during the war and made a name for himself penning well-regarded non-fiction about aspects of the conflict afterward. His entry here comes from a six-part spy thriller cycle he penned in the 1970s, known as the Tarnham spy thrillers, since they revolve in part around Elissa Tarnham, the wife of a British defector to the Soviets.

The first book, A Matter of Diplomacy covers a visit she makes to Greece, where the intelligence agencies don’t know if she is about to defect too. The other five volumes build on the story but focus on George Mado, a hard fighting, hard drinking former MI6 man who is called into action to cross paths with moles, defectors, the mafia and the KGB. These are unflashy but extremely well put together.

They are mysteries and puzzles, with well drawn characters, rather than shoot-em-ups, weighing in at around 200 pages each, how books used to be.

61. William Haggard

Active: 1958-90

Key works: The Powder Train, The Power House, The Conspirators, The Hardliners, A Cool Day For Killing, Visa to Limbo, The Powder Barrel

Richard Henry Michael Clayton wrote using his mother’s maiden name, which also happened to be the name of his fifth cousin, H. Rider Haggard, he of King Solomon’s Mines fame. Like Tute, his stock in trade is the slow burn, serious, political espionage thriller. In three decades, Haggard turned out 25 books featuring his intelligence chief Charles Russell. A lot of the action here is in Whitehall, an environment Haggard knew well as a longtime civil servant, who appears to have spent at least part of his career in the secret world.

Existential Ennui informs us: “Haggard's own view of his books, which he shared in a letter to Donald McCormick for McCormick's 1977 survey Who's Who in Spy Fiction, was that they were ‘basically political novels with more action than in the straight novel’.

As the Independent put it in his obituary: “His grasp of plot, pace, suspense and set-piece action was, especially in his earlier days, pretty nearly without flaw. He was very good indeed at the labyrinthine, the plot that twists, turns, coils and convolutes, then doubles back upon itself and eventually vanishes up its own jumping-off point.” If the prospect of a Whitehall procedural sounds stuffy, that’s not really the vibe of this series. While Russell (like Haggard) is a bit of a political reactionary, several of the plots involve new scientific techniques and weapons (The first two involve a new form of nuclear energy and negative gravity) with Britain frequently caught in the rivalry between the Russians and the Americans.

Other books cover industrial espionage, defecting scientists, coups in the Middle East, hijackings, dodgy banks, the drug trade, and numerous plots involving politicians up to no good. These are period pieces but they are well done.

60. Anthony Hyde

Active: 1985-96

Key works: The Red Fox, Formosa Straits, China Lake

Anthony Hyde’s first novel, The Red Fox, is quite simply one of the best espionage/mystery thrillers I’ve ever read. It begins with the hero, journalist Robert Thorne, contemplating why his father committed suicide, before his ex gets in touch to say her father is missing. Thorne pursues the mystery and the missing man across time and continents, following clues that hark back to secrets of the Cold War, culminating in a denouement in the frozen wastes of the USSR. The first person narrative is beautifully judged, capturing Thorne’s articulate cynicism with regular revelations which drive the story forward. The Red Fox (1985) came out at the same time as The Little Drummer Girl and The Bourne Supremacy. It’s better than both of them. Hyde was swamped with critical praise.

The pressure of producing a follow up, that tricky second album, obviously told because it took seven years before he produced China Lake, which is not a patch on his first. Formosa Straits, four years later, was better but Hyde is essentially a one hit wonder. His brother Christopher Hyde also wrote a series of solid if unspectacular historical thrillers such as The Gathering of Saints and The House of Special Purpose.

59. David Quammen

Active: 1983-87

Key works: The Soul of Viktor Tronko, The Zolta Configuration

Quammen is better known as a writer on science and nature, where he has published more than a dozen books. However, he wrote one stylish and intelligent masterpiece that I would happily rank among my ten favourite spy thrillers, and just one other thriller (The Zolta Configuration) that doesn’t belong on the same shelf. In the same way that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is Le Carre’s response to Philby, Quammen’s The Soul of Viktor Tronko is the supreme response by an American author to one of the greatest mysteries in American intelligence history: the contradictory defections of Anatoly Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko in the 1960s.

In the book Bogdan Fedorenko (Golitsyn) convinces the CIA there is a Soviet spy in their midst. He also claims the KGB would send a false defector to undermine him. The other defector Viktor Tronko (based on Nosenko) insisted that Russia had not placed a mole inside the CIA, and that Lee Harvey Oswald had not been recruited to assassinate JFK. Counter-intelligence chief Claude Sparrow (based on the real-life James Jesus Angleton), believes Fedorenko-Golitsyn and embarks on a witchhunt which tears the agency apart. Others go in to bat for Tronko, who is treated appallingly but never changes his claims.

The book begins with a journalist being visited by a CIA veteran who says he can help him get to the bottom of what really happened. He then turns up dead. What follows is hugely dialogue heavy, interspersed with some action, as our hack hero interviews Sparrow and others and we read the transcripts of Tronko’s many interrogations. On one level it is dry, but it provides an immensely rich puzzle and one which imbues Tronko with great humanity. the ending is worth the wait. It won’t be for everyone and Quammen admitted the book “sank like a hot pistol tossed into the Potomac” on its first release in 1987. But that phrase alone should tell you the guy can write. It was re-released in 2014 and is rightly finding a new audience. It’s now available on Kindle Unlimited. Those who want to hear me enthusing about Tronko some more can tune in to my Dead Drop Five episode on the Spybrary podcast.

58. Tom Clancy

Active: 1984-2013

Key works: The Hunt For Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, Patriot Games, Red Storm Rising

As recent discussion on the Spybrary Facebook group has shown, few authors divide opinion quite like Clancy, the master of the bloated techno spy thriller. In his defence Clancy’s hero Jack Ryan is not quite the full blown Kalashnikov Kid and 100 million readers can’t all be wrong. It is not true that all he does is wallow in technical detail, there is craft here too, not all the dialogue is dire and at his best Clancy gives you both the big geopolitical overview from the Oval Office and exciting frontline action. Red October, his first and best known work, was a great film because it boiled the essence of a flawed but, for my money, effective work.

Clancy’s success led to ever longer word counts and not as much editing as he needed. It is not a coincidence that the best of his later Ryan books, Cardinal of the Kremlin, is (at 400 pages) also the shortest. Perhaps Clancy’s most intriguing book, which isn’t a spy thriller, is Red Storm Rising, his second. It explains how a war between the US and the USSR might have played out and for that reason is a fascinatingly well-researched period piece. This ranking will be too high for some, ludicrously low for others.

57. Michael Hartland

Active: 1982-91

Key works: Seven Steps to Treason, The Third Betrayal, Down Among the Dead Men, Frontier of Fear, The Year of the Scorpion

Hartland (real name Michael James) was another of those writers who was briefly hailed as the hottest new thing in spy fiction. With a background in nuclear proliferation and counter terrorism, he penned six authentic espionage thrillers, starting in the early 1980s, all of which are supposed to be good, three of which are regarded as notable.

Hartland’s debut, Down Among the Dead Men, was a rare spy thriller set in the far east, featuring power plays between China and Russia over Hong Kong. It was endorsed by Ted Allbeury who praised its “rich variety of credible characters, a plot that really hums along and descriptions of far away places that make you reach for the travel brochures. All the signs of a future winner.” Perhaps his best book, Seven Steps to Treason, came next (later a BBC Radio 4 play). It features an SIS man under the cosh when his daughter is kidnapped by the Soviets, with betrayals old and new. It’s a nicely paced and convincing, with real human emotion. One review hailed it as “a cross between le Carre without the longeurs and Adam Hall with intellect,” which is justly complimentary to Hartland, if a little rude about those two titans of the genre.

Hartland’s recurring male character, David Nairn, is a little bloodless, but his GRU protagonist, Maj-Gen Nadia Kirova, is a welcome female opponent. Indeed Hartland’s books were notable for female characters as spooks rather than eye candy. Perhaps his most interesting novel is The Third Betrayal, which features the hunt for the fifth man in the Cambridge spy ring. A central character is Ursula Kuczynski, a GRU double agent who fled Britain in the 1950s, now well known to Spybrarians as Agent Sonya from Ben Mcintyre’s recent non-fiction book. Hartland travelled to East Berlin to interview Kuczynski and then made a TV documentary about her. He later recorded a series of interviews with Oleg Gordievsky.

56. Lionel Davidson

Active: 1960-94

Key works: Kolymsky Heights, The Night of Wenceslas

Davidson is one of the most decorated but hardest to pigeon hole thriller writers, but he began and ended his career as a spy writer. First up was The Night of Wenceslas, an Ambleresque tale in which an innocent abroad becomes embroiled in espionage in Cold War Prague, home to the eponymous square. This earned him the first of three Gold Daggers from the crime writers’ association (Le Carre and Ambler both only won it twice). He then turned to adventure tales with The Rose of Tibet and Long Way to Shiloh (which won him a second dagger) and then a detective story, The Chelsea Murders (his third). Wenceslas is taut and short and rather good, but for my money not a patch on Ambler’s pre-war output.

Davidson’s best book, for me, was his last, Kolmysky Heights, which came out in 1994, 34 years after his first. The plot concerns a cry for help from the director of a secret research facility in the frozen wastes of Siberia. The CIA recruits a native from the Bering Straits area (historic cousins of Russia’s Kolyma district) to first infiltrate the base and, when he is uncovered, to escape. Philip Pullman, no less, called it “the best thriller I have ever read”. I wouldn’t go that far but it is original, well written and gripping.

55. John Bingham

Active: 1952-82

Key works: The Double Agent, Vulture in the Sun, God’s Defector aka Ministry of Death, Brock and the Defector

John Bingham has two claims to fame for inclusion in a list of notable spy authors. The first is that he was an MI5 contemporary of David Cornwell’s and his stolid mien and belief in what the intelligence agencies were doing, morally (a contrast with the tortured Cornwell) meant that when his friend began writing thrillers Bingham became the model for one George Smiley Esq. Eventually, Bingham came to rather resent Le Carre’s depiction of moral relativism between West and East.

His second claim to fame is that he was a skilled thriller writer, mostly of detective yarns (My Name is Michael Sibley, A Fragment of Fear), but there were also four first-class spy novels, featuring intelligence chief Ducane. His best is The Double Agent, which actually opens with a foreword bemoaning the depiction of the intelligence services as “staffed by murderous, powerful, double-crossing cynics” or “bumbling, broken-down layabouts” – an anonymized complaint about Le Carre, three years after Spy Who Came in From the Cold was released. Vulture in the Sun, is also a tense and well-written story about Greek and Turkish battles over Cyprus. I haven’t read the other two yet, both of which feature “defector” in the title.

54. Ken Follett

Active: 1974-

Key works: Storm Island aka Eye of the Needle, Triple, The Key to Rebecca

Follett has managed to be one of the best selling thriller writers in the world for three decades. He’s back in the charts with a World War III novel, Never, after years of coining it with doorstep-like tomes of his Kingsbridge and Century series. But back in the day, Follett was also part of the British spy boom and frankly I hope he feels like doing a Davidson and heading back to productive pastures at the end of his career. Storm Island, which was renamed Eye of the Needle when the film came out, is probably the best espionage thriller set in the early part of the war in Britain (though John Lawton and Daniel Silva might have something to say about that). It won the Edgar award in 1979. The Nazi villain, who kills with a stiletto knife, is a great creation and the book, essentially a chase, is suspense of the highest order.

The Key to Rebecca, set during the war in North Africa, is an exciting, sexy, fictionalisation of the real life German spy, Johannes Eppler (whose story is also the basis of The English Patient) and is stylistically of a piece with City of Gold by Len Deighton and The God of Chaos by Tom Bradby. Between those two books, Follett penned Triple, about an Israeli agent racing to steal uranium so the Jewish state can match the nuclear ambitions of Egypt. Quite quickly the Palestinians and the KGB are on his tail. The cosmopolitan ensemble cast, complete with some well drawn and alluring female support, makes for a grown up thriller, which is my favourite of Follett’s.

53. Brian Garfield

Active: 1976-81

Key works: Checkpoint Charlie, Hopscotch

Garfield wrote 70 books and sold 20 million copies, the best known of which was Death Wish, which was made into the Charles Bronson revenge movie. He was a Pulitzer prize finalist for a history book and at the end of his career penned a non-fiction biography of the controversial British intelligence officer Richard Meinertzhagen, who worked with General Allenby during the Palestine campaign in the First World War. But two creations bring him high on this list.

The first was Hopscotch, a splendid spy thriller which won him the 1976 Edgar from the mystery writers of America. It features a CIA field man, Miles Kendig, who is about to be forcibly confined to a desk who goes on the run, writes an exposé and begins mailing chapters to the world's intelligence agencies. The CIA quickly wants him dead for exposing their secrets, and there are similarities here with Six Days of the Condor. A 1980 film followed starring Walter Matthau and written by Garfield.

Five years after Hopscotch, Garfield returned to the world he had created but with a new and greater creation. Kendig is only mentioned in passing, but his loathsome boss Myerson is back, this time in charge of Charlie Dark, one of my favourite characters anywhere in spy fiction. Charlie abhors violence but has a brilliant mind and outthinks his enemies. His adventures, originally for Ellery Queen magazine, were collected in a 1981 anthology, Checkpoint Charlie. In 12 riveting stories, Charlie outwits assassins, kidnappers, double agents, KGB rivals and Myerson. These are exquisitely plotted vignettes with a tremendously lead, who you cheer on and want to re-read. It is one of the three best collections of espionage short stories I’ve ever read. I first discovered Charlie by listening to Randall Masteller’s Dead Drop Five podcast for Spybrary. You should too.

52. Philip Kerr

Active: 1989-2019

Key works: A Quiet Flame, A Man Without Breath, Prague Fatale, The Pale Criminal, If the Dead Rise Not

Let’s be clear, if this was a list of my favourite fictional characters of all time, Bernie Gunther would be in my top five, and I’m not totally sure who the other four would be. If this was a list of my favourite thriller or detective writers Kerr would be in the top 10. That propels a series of 14 brilliant books, following an everyman cop/private detective/soldier through the Nazi period and on to post war Argentina, Cuba and the Riviera, close to the top 50 here, despite not one of them being a true espionage novel (though Prague Fatale, where Bernie is sent on a spying murder mystery by Heydrich comes close). But when you’re in the Kripo and then the SD and crossing paths with Heydrich, Canaris, Nebe and the other grotesques of the period, along with the KGB and CIA much later, there are enough espionage elements here to just about justify inclusion (and Kerr dabbled a bit elsewhere with The Shot and other standalone).

There is not a bad book in the Gunther series, though my favourite remains A Quiet Flame, which brilliantly combines the compromised hero with a dual time narrative and a plot which is more satisfyingly constructed than most. So he should be higher, or not here at all. Even I don’t like this ranking. Live with it.

51. Desmond Bagley

Active: 1963-85

Key works: Running Blind, The Tightrope Men, The Freedom Trap, The Enemy, High Citadel

Bagley is another who is impossible to rank. As a general thriller writer he is in the first rank and if we are talking adventure stories, I would rank him ahead of Kyle, Lyall and Mather and just behind Maclean. The Spoilers and particularly High Citadel stand comparison with anything Maclean wrote. But of Bagley’s 17 books only two that I have read could really be described as primarily driven by espionage. That said, Running Blind is an absolute classic, which also became a highly successful BBC mini series. It features an ex MI6 spook who is sent to deliver a parcel in Iceland. He has barely begun when he has to kill a KGB man who tries to take it off him. Quickly it is clear he has been double crossed and embarks on a race across the barren landscape (you can feel the bone cold and the crunch of scree), pursued by the KGB, the CIA and SIS colleagues who now think he has turned traitor. It’s gripping first person narrator stuff with plenty of action and a twist in the tail.

The tragedy is that this excellent book did not persuade Bagley to move full time into Spybrary terrain. The sort-of-sequel The Freedom Trap has one character in common and is loosely based on the jailbreak of double agent George Blake. It became the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man. However, Bagley did write two more espionage based thrillers (which I have yet to read). The Tightrope Men, in which the central character wakes up with the face of another man, a scientist involved in the Cold War nuclear arms race, is regarded as one of his best. The Enemy also features an intelligence plot. That is enough to lift him to the very edge of the top 50.

Before I get started on the Top 50, a few notable statistics:

Between 125 and 51 there are 20 American spy authors (27%) In total there are 35 Americans (28%) In the Top 50 there are 15 American authors (30%)

Things are still moving around but I think it very unlikely there will be fewer than 3 in the Top 10 (also 30%)

When you take in the smattering of Russians, French and Israeli writers, that means more than 80 are British authors (over 65%). The Americans are weakened by my preference for the cerebral spy story over the lone special forces hero, but the higher numbers the higher you go does suggest that the better Americans are very able to compete with their British brethren in disproportionate numbers.

People are also wondering how the modern writers fare. There are at least 12 in the Top 50 (24%) who are fully live working authors who I would expect to see a book from in the next two years. By my count 28 in total (22%). There are a smattering more who are alive and kicking and who might yet also treat us to more.

I think this shows our genre is alive and well and that the next few years represent a new golden age of spy fiction.Now, on with the list.

Tim Shipman, January 27th, 2021

WILDCARD James Wolff

Active: 2018-

Key works: How to Betray Your Country, Beside the Syrian Sea

This is my first wildcard, noting authors I’ve read since I finalised the names on the list (the order changes every day!) I was very pleased recently to read James Wolff’s second book How to Betray Your Country.

Wolff is the pseudonym of someone who worked for the British government in a cloaked role for a decade and has clearly spent a lot of time in the Middle East. His main character, disgraced British spy August Drummond, is wonderfully drawn as he mourns his wife and allows himself to be drawn into intrigue in Istanbul involving Islamic State and Turkish and British intelligence. Nothing is quite as it first seems to Drummond.

Wolff’s skill is in giving the book insider credibility while depicting a professional spy whose decision to follow his conscience rather than his common sense makes him behave erratically. It’s deftly done, there is a good twist and the ending packs a punch. Wolff is certainly worthy of inclusion here in the Dov Alfon/Manda Scott sort of range and he could start climbing the Top 100 when I try his first book, Beside the Syrian Sea. This is a very welcome new voice in spy fiction. I hope he writes many more.

On Episode 167 of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, James Wolff chats with Spybrary Host, Shane Whaley. Available on all good podcast apps and at Spybrary.

50. James Mitchell aka James Munro

Active: 1964-75

Key works: Callan: A Magnum for Schneider, Russian Roulette, Death and Bright Water, Smear Job, Craig: The Man Who Sold Death, Die Rich Die Happy, The Money That Money Can’t Buy, The Innocent Bystanders

James Mitchell created not one but two excellent spy series. He is best known for coming up with Callan, the loner assassin for British intelligence, first as a TV series starring Edward Woodward and then in a series of four hard boiled books (much later extended to five).

The first, A Magnum for Schneider (Red File for Callan in the US) is among the most expensive and collectible first editions in the thriller market. Russian Roulette is probably my favourite. But before that Mitchell, using the pen name James Munro, had authored four books on a more Bond-esque hero John Craig, who is nonetheless at the realistic end of the Bond-imitators and, like Callan, a reluctant killer. These are also stylish, exciting and edgy reads.

The fourth book, The Innocent Bystanders, was also a film, for which Mitchell wrote the script. Mitchell didn’t stop there. He also has a string of stand alone thrillers to his name, among which I enjoyed KGB Kill, an espionage plot set in the motor racing world. Our own Michael Ripley collected two anthologies of short stories, entitled Callan Uncovered, in 2015 and 2016.

The post Top 125 Best Spy Authors Ranked by Tim Shipman for Spybrary appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.

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In this episode of Spy Rewind Matthew and Jeff take a look at the currently airing spy comedy starring David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed – Intelligence.

They discuss whether GCHQ is held in less esteem than MI5 or MI6, why spying is the perfect setting for a workplace comedy, and how Intelligence has more laughs than Ted Lasso. Plus, why Nick Mohammed was more interested in the GCHQ cafeteria than the eavesdropping and when the computer asks you to delete those files, think twice! All that and more in this episode of Spybrary.

Mentioned on the today's episode of Spybrary –

Intelligence on Peacock – https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/intelligence/6315047360232653112/seasons/1

Intelligence on Sky – https://www.skygroup.sky/title-intelligence

David Schwimmer’s #ThatsHarassment video – https://youtu.be/bieGkf2n8LQ

More on the anti-harassment campaign – https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/thatsharassment

Matthew’s review of Intelligence (2014) – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2014/01/tv-review-intelligence-2014.html

CBC’s InSecurity – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSecurity

Matthew’s Website – https://doubleosection.blogspot.com/

Matthew’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/DoubleOSection

Jeff’s Website – https://spywrite.com/

Jeff on Twitter – https://twitter.com/spywrite

Check out an earlier episode of Spy Rewind on the Spybrary Podcast – by spy fans for spy fans.

Talk more about spy books in our Spybrary discussion group Support Spybrary Spy Podcast on Patreon. Become a Spybrary Supporter The post Spy TV Show Review – Intelligence starring David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed appeared first on Spybrary - Spy Podcast.