When the world’s best spy agencies come to mind, it’s rare that the Mossad isn’t among them. Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, known domestically as “the Institute” (Hebrew: Mossad), has gained a reputation internationally as fearsome...
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At the conclusion of Secret Service, the first novel in Tom Bradby’s new thriller series, Kate Henderson’s life lay shattered. Her loving husband, Stuart, had surfaced as an agent for the SVR, the KGB’s successor, and defected to Moscow. Now, in the opening of the sequel, Double...
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At the conclusion of Secret Service, the first novel in Tom Bradby’s new thriller series, Kate Henderson’s life lay shattered. Her loving husband, Stuart, had surfaced as an agent for the SVR, the KGB’s successor, and defected to Moscow. Now, in the opening of the sequel, Double...
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At the time, few if any inside the Agency would have called him a “mole.” That term didn’t enter wide use until the publication in 1974 of John le Carré’s novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. But for a decade in the 1960s and 70s, the CIA’s counterintelligence chief,...
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Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg are the best known of the 28,000 Righteous Among the Nations. All were non-Jews from fifty-one countries recognized by Israel’s holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. The Irish priest Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty is much less well known, and joined the list...
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Americans are sometimes surprised to learn just how many Russian oligarchs have gravitated to the UK. A March 2022 article in The New Yorker is entitled, “How Putin’s Oligarchs Bought London,” and it’s not too wide off the mark. As a local London newspaper noted the same...
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Spy novels are full of stories about the hunt for moles in the CIA, MI6, and other intelligence agencies. It’s less common to come across a tale in which the mole is embedded in the uppermost reaches of the political establishment. And perhaps that’s no coincidence. Authors of spy...
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Joseph Kanon’s historical spy novels reek of authenticity. Set in the years immediately following World War II, they conjure up the fear and desperation that hung over Europe in the early days of the Cold War. Then, it seemed as though open war might well break out between the two erstwhile...
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On Christmas Day, 1989, Romania’s long-time Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, were summarily executed by a firing squad after a two-hour sham trial. Thus came to an end forty-two years of Communist rule in the country. But, unlike the transfer of power in other East...
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Even if you’re a fan of espionage fiction, you may not yet be familiar with the name Paul Vidich. You should be. Vidich writes great spy novels in the grand tradition of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. His historical espionage tales rank with those of his better-known...
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Spy stories set in Berlin during the Cold War are one of the staples of espionage fiction. In fact, they may account for a major share of the books published about spies and spying in the English language. Most explore the behind-the-scenes war between the West and the Eastern Bloc before November...
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On August 19, 1953, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d’etat jointly planned by the United States and Great Britain and led on the ground by the CIA. With the support of the country’s leading mullah, Abol-Ghasem Kashani, Americans under the command of...
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Woodrow Cain is a fugitive from disappointment in a small North Carolina town. “Wife gone, daughter abandoned. He’d forsaken all he held dear for a fresh start, only to be greeted by symptoms of mass hysteria.” Because Cain, a senior detective back home, has arrived for a job as...
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In 2012, former BBC journalist Alex Gerlis brought out the first of four outstanding spy novels set during World War II. That book, The Best of Our Spies, is now in development as a television series. He followed these first four novels with a second and less successful four-book series featuring...
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Few Americans know anything about Central Asia. Yet a quick glance at the map shows that the region is nestled among Russia to the north, China to the east, Pakistan and India to the south, and Iran to the southwest. In short, the “Stans” of Central Asia are the playground where a new...
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When books are adapted for film or television, something is invariably lost. All too often, that means the screenwriter has ignored or butchered every shred of value in the writing. We rejoice when the characters a novelist has created emerge full-bodied on the screen. And there is, indeed, much...
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The first espionage novels appeared early in the 19th century with the publication of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy in 1821 and The Bravo in 1831. A few other notable titles were published in the ensuing decades, and Sherlock Holmes got into the act around the turn of the...
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Assume that the people who call the shots at MI6 and the CIA had grown so frustrated by the 1980s at the restrictions imposed on them by politicians that they decided to work around them. The two agencies then came together in a “special alliance” to create an off-the-books Anglo...
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The two decades following World War II brought a rush of unwelcome revelations to Great Britain and the United States. One by one, spies working for the Soviet Union surfaced. The FBI and MI5 uncovered some, including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the US and Klaus Fuchs in the UK. Others—most...
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Radar played as big a role in the Allied victory in World War II as the atomic bomb. Once the technology was fully developed, British and American bombers managed to wreak havoc on Nazi forces on land and sea alike. But early in the war, when Britain fought the Germans alone, Nazi radar technology...
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Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.