I recently finished The Pigeon Tunnel, the ‘autobiography’ of David Cornwell, aka John Le Carré, the well known writer of espionage novels. While The Pigeon Tunnel is billed as an “autobiography”, it’s more akin to an intimate dinner with the …
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Espionage
The Last Supper, by Charles McCarry
Charles McCarry might be the true heir to John Le Carré. His spy novels have plenty of thrills, but focus on the human aspects of espionage, the betrayals, the inability to trust anyone, the costs of being “in the business”. …
Mata Hari’s Last Dance, by Michelle Moran
James Bond. Kim Philby. George Smiley. In the popular imagination, when one thinks of spies, one thinks of Bond, or more recently, perhaps Claire Danes of Homeland. But almost no spy looms larger in popular culture than Mata Hari, the …
Books about female spies
Inspired by my reading The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, the first espionage book I’ve read with a female protagonist, I did some research on books with female spies in them. Literary star Ian McEwan weighs in with Sweet …
The Girl Who Fell from The Sky
I’ve read some of all the espionage masters — Le Carré, Greene, Littell — but don’t remember ever reading a book with a female spy as the lead. When I encountered The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, with a cover blurb from Alan …
The Travelers, by Chris Pavone
For a long time, I’ve wondered about how to characterize the difference between a spy novel and and a spy thriller. After reading a review copy of Chris Pavone’s The Travelers, I think I can now express it precisely. Both …
Our Man in Havana
After finishing Adam Sisman’s gripping biography of John Le Carre, as a seasoned reader of espionage fiction I realized I had a big gap — I’d not read Graham Greene. I decided to start with “Our Man in Havana”, a light-hearted (or …
Scoundrel, by Bernard Cornwell
As part of my continuing experiment with Scribd’s ebook subscription service, I stumbled upon Scoundrel, by one of my favorite authors, Bernard Cornwell. I know him from his great historical fiction – some of my favorites are the Saxon Chronicles, …
Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst
Alan Furst is the master of the historical spy novel, particularly the era just before World War II erupts. In Spies of the Balkans, he takes on, well, the Balkans. Costa Zannis is a Greek policeman, with his finger on …
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Tl/DR: If you liked Gorky Park or anything by Martin Cruz Smith, read Child 44. Leo Demidov is an idealistic state security officer in 1950s Stalinist Russia. He dotes on his wife, (mostly) believes his work supporting the State is …