Cover image of "The Best of Our Spies," one of the top-notch spy novels by Alex Gerlis

When you think of espionage fiction, only a handful of names come quickly to mind. John le Carré, of course. Ian Fleming, unfortunately. You might also name Alan Furst, Joseph Kanon, possibly Charles Cumming. And if you’ve been reading books in the genre for a long time, as I have, you’ll think of Frederick Forsyth, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, and Eric Ambler, among others. The name Alex Gerlis isn’t likely to roll off the tongue. But if he keeps writing at the level he displays in his first four spy novels, that’s going to change. Even the fifth, though not as good, is promising.

This post was updated on August 2, 2022.

Four top-notch spy novels from Alex Gerlis

The Best of Our Spies—An extraordinary World War II spy story grounded in historical fact

The XX Committee—otherwise, the Twenty Committee or the Double Cross Committee—was a high-level body in the British government charged with mounting a number of secret operations to deceive the Germans about the location of the Normandy Invasion. Their work, code-named Operation Fortitude and kept secret for decades, was spectacularly successful. It may have made the difference between the success or failure of the all-important invasion. Naturally, a historical event so rich in detail and possibilities has also given rise to many spy novels as well. The most satisfying of those I’ve read is The Best of Our Spies.

The Swiss Spy—World War II spies in Switzerland

The role that Switzerland played in World War II is reasonably well known. Swiss banks laundered the equivalent of billions of dollars in funds seized from Jews and others by the Nazi regime in neighboring Germany. Because the country was officially neutral in the war, Zurich, Geneva, Bern, and other Swiss cities housed spies from every major power in the conflict. In his novel, The Swiss Spy, Alex Gerlis artfully brings together both factors in a gripping novel of espionage.

Vienna Spies—A stirring tale of spies in wartime Vienna

Gerlis’ tale revolves six principal characters. Rolf Eder, who is Viennese, and Katharina Hoch, a German, are matched by British intelligence for a sensitive mission in Vienna, masquerading as a married couple. To assist them, they are to locate and meet with Sister Ursula, an Austrian nun who has been helping the British since the war started. Viktor Krasotkin, one of Moscow’s top spies, is dispatched to Vienna, in part to undermine their mission. His handler is Ilia Brodsky, a senior Soviet official who has “the ear of Stalin.” Above all, the spies from both nations must elude capture by the sadistic Kriminaldirektor Karl Strobel, the Gestapo’s top investigator of Communists and resistance fighters.

The Berlin Spies—The best spy novelist you’ve never read

The Berlin Spies is the fourth novel Gerlis has written since he left his job teaching journalism at the BBC in 2011. Like his first three books, The Berlin Spies is solidly rooted in historical reality, cleverly plotted, and features characters whose interactions are invariably plausible. Unlike the first three, this novel is extraordinarily complicated. The cast of “main characters” is four pages long. I was more than one-quarter of the way through the book before I figured out what was going on. But I’m glad I stuck it out. The story is richly rewarding.

The second spy series from Alex Gerlis

Prince of Spies (Richard Prince #1)—British spies and the Nazi V-2 rocket

In 2020, Gerlis launched a new series featuring Richard Prince, an English cop pressed into the Special Operations Executive for a mission behind enemy lines in Denmark and Germany. It’s September 1942. Like nearly all of Europe, Denmark is occupied by Nazi Germany. And a businessman there has gotten word to London that he has access to top-secret information about the Nazis’ miracle weapons, the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket. They’re under development at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast in Germany near the Danish border. Prince is to infiltrate into Denmark, make contact with the businessman, retrieve the information, and hightail it back to London. But of course it’s nowhere nearly as simple as that.

Gerlis’ third spy series

Agent in Berlin (Wolf Pack #1)—A new series about British spies in Nazi Germany

The novel opens on December 7, 1941, as Japanese aircraft rain death and terror on the US Navy gathered at Pearl Harbor. Following this prologue, the story begins in England in 1935 as the minority in His Majesty’s Government who fear the rise of fascism maneuver behind the scenes. Newly recruited MI6 officer Barnaby (Barney) Allen joins the anti-Nazi faction and soon departs for Germany, intent on recruiting agents who can supply the information and insight to inform the British about Hitler’s true intentions. The story of the “wolf pack” of spies he recruits unfolds over the six years that elapse until the United States and Nazi Germany mutually declare war.

About the author

Photo of Alex Gerlis, author of top-notch spy novels
Alex Gerlis. Image: Curtis Brown

Alex Gerlis is frequently asked if he’s ever worked for an intelligence agency but always declines to answer the question in the hope that someone may believe he actually has. In fact, he was a BBC journalist for nearly thirty years but left in 2011 to concentrate on his writing. He has published nine Second World War espionage thrillers to date. Gerlis was born in 1955 in Lincolnshire, UK. He now lives in west London with his wife. They have two daughters and two grandsons.

The author is one of The best spy novelists writing today.

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