In the years following World War II, the emerging Cold War took on global dimensions. Then Britain, still clung on to its far-flung empire,. And the conflict with the Soviet Union played itself out not just at home and in Eastern Europe but throughout its possessions in Africa, Asia, and Latin...
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Pick up a spy novel in English at random, and chances are it’s about the CIA, the KGB, British intelligence, or some combination of them. But here’s one from former CIA analyst David McCloskey that’s entirely different. The espionage agents in his 2022 novel, The Persian, work...
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Claire Saylor is doing time in Langley hoping for a new field posting. But she hasn’t bargained on the assignment that’s just come her way. “You’re due for congratulations,” her boss says. “You’re to be married. Effective immediately. Care to see the lucky husband?” Who turns out...
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Alan Furst writes deeply engrossing novels of suspense about espionage in Europe in the years leading up to and during World War II. Mission to Paris, the 12th of these books, is good enough to satisfy the most exacting fans of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. It’s difficult to accept the...
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Some readers compare Mick Herron to John le Carré. But the similarity is puzzling. The 14 books to date in the Slough House series satirize British intelligence rather than celebrate or lament its excesses, as the work of Le Carré has done so ably. Diana Taverner, who is First Desk in...
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Dan Fesperman’s new spy novel, Pariah, might begin, “A comedian walks into a bar.” Except that the comedian, a popular movie star, is already drinking himself into a stupor in a bar on the Caribbean hideaway of Vieques Island. Then three officers of the Central Intelligence...
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When we first meet Alex Matthews, he is on an errand for his old friend, the CIA Director. Matthews had once served as Moscow Station Chief. Now, having left the Agency nine years earlier, he is in Moscow running an investment firm. But this night he is on his way to meet BYRON, a spy he’d...
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Ex-spies have written a lot of the very best espionage novels. John le Carré, of course. John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps). Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal). Jason Matthews (Red Sparrow). Charles McCarry (The Miernik Dossier). Alma Katsu (Red Widow). David McCloskey (Damascus Station)....
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She was Graham Greene and Eric Ambler’s contemporary, and all her nearly two dozen spy novels were bestsellers. (Four were adapted to film: Above Suspicion, Assignment in Brittany, The Venetian Affair, and The Salzburg Connection.) In books that appeared from 1941 to 1984, Helen MacInnes...
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Murder mysteries predominate among the countless novels of suspense that crowd the shelves in bookstores and libraries. The stakes are obvious when a murder takes place. Someone has snuffed out a human life. By contrast, a crime such as counterfeiting represents a lower order of threat—or at...
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After 17 years as an officer in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, Amanda Cole chafes under diplomatic cover in Rome as the economic attaché. She’s bored. And her boss, three decades her senior, frustrates her every attempt to take the initiative. Then a nervous Russian walk-in describes a...
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Henry VIII and his daughter, Elizabeth I, ruled England for nearly a century (1509-1603). Together, they and the ambitious men and women surrounding them have furnished historians and novelists alike with unmatched opportunities for dramatic stories of passion, intrigue, and betrayal. The Matthew...
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Many of the popular thrillers published in the U.S. tend to revolve around the CIA, the KGB, or Nazis. High Crimes is a notable exception. It centers on the neglected topic of U.S. military intervention in Central America under the Reagan Administration. And author Joseph Finder shows no love for...
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Many novels of Cold War espionage, especially those that make their way to television or film—feature hard-boiled spies on dangerous assignments east of the Berlin Wall. But William Boyd’s outstanding new novel of Cold War intrigue is nothing like that. His protagonist, Gabriel Dax, is a...
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Journalist Harry Brett had visited Spain in 1931 with a schoolmate, Bernie Piper, and returned six years later. Then, Bernie had gone missing while fighting along with Communist volunteers against Franco’s nationalist forces. It’s now another three years later, 1940-41, and the civil war is...
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Offices on the building’s seventh floor feature plush carpets, wood paneling, and other signs of their elite occupants. Because the best appointed of these offices accommodate Finn Gosford, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Deborah Sweet, known as Debs, the agency’s...
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In the dramatic conclusion to John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, British intelligence officer Alec Leamas and the idealistic American Communist Liz Gold die as they climb the Wall toward freedom in the West, machine-gunned on the orders of the British agent they had entered...
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Since 1987, David Ignatius has written a total of a dozen outstanding spy novels. At the Washington Post, where he writes about foreign affairs, he has gained an immense store of knowledge about US activity abroad, both aboveground and below. It shows in every one of his novels. Here, I’m...
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Over the past decade, I’ve read and reviewed nearly 200 espionage novels (not counting a great many more I never finished). My 15 favorites—well, make that 16: I couldn’t choose—are listed immediately below. Though my preliminary list included multiple titles by several of the authors...
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Does a farce need to be funny? Wikipedia defines farce as “comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable.” To me, it seems doubtful that Alex Gerlis set out to create a farce when he wrote...
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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.
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.