Bourdin’s motives and target were unclear, but it appears that he intended to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. In 1894, a revolutionary French anarchist named Martial Bourdin attempted to carry out a bombing in London, but his explosives went off prematurely, killing him. Others, like Michaelis (who may have been based on the Russian philosopher Peter Kropotkin) reject violent measures, instead focusing on helping society evolve to adopt an economic system based on mutual cooperation and aid. A range of anarchist perspectives is reflected in The Secret Agent: some, like The Professor, favor violent revolutionary tactics. The Miernik Dossier was his first book and has inspired many aspiring spy novelists both inside and outside at the Agency, I suspect.Anarchism is an umbrella term for political philosophies and movements that reject hierarchical authority and typically seek to abolish the state it is also associated with anti-capitalist and libertarian socialist thought. You’d expect no less from a former presidential speechwriter. His underlying themes are often the same-the spy’s sneaking suspicion that his morality is being chipped away, that he may be serving bad men with bad intentions-but his writing was painstakingly beautiful, poetic, lush. McCarry, who had been in CIA’s clandestine service, could be called the American le Carré except for one thing: he never made it look easy. And The Moscow Club predicted the coup d’etat that triggered the fall of the Soviet Union two years before it happened.
Finder slips a lot of inside knowledge into his books, whether they’re overtly about the spy business or not. He tells me he didn’t but I’m not sure I believe him. Cleveland occupies a unique spot among spy writers for her ability to show that spies are people, too, like Weisberg’s acclaimed series, The Americans.įinder is known as a writer of superb breakneck thrillers and if you’ve read his early books, you would swear he spent a few years as a CIA analyst. We worry about beating the insane DC-area traffic in order to have dinner with our children. But guess what: all spies have an inside life. Most spy novels feature male protagonists with a typically single-track focus. An Ordinary Spy perfectly captures what happens in the beginning, when your James Bond dreams crash into reality.Ĭleveland was a CIA analyst for years before leaving and going on to write Need to Know. Without fail, when asked what it’s like to work at the Agency, this is the book I recommend. There was a tussle with CIA’s pre-publication review board that resulted in redactions, which the publisher cheekily decided to leave in. Before his transition to television, he wrote this absolutely true-to-life novel.
#Books about secret agents series
That’s right, the mind behind the brilliant TV series The Americans put a few years in with one of the three-letter agencies.
#Books about secret agents professional
The best make it look easy, and he tempted many an intelligence professional into thinking they’d write a book after they’d retired, only to find out it’s much, much harder than it appears. His Cold War books are probably the best at capturing the spy-vs-spy gamesmanship of the time, but he answered the critics who said he was a one-trick pony by writing standalone novels like The Night Manager that dealt with intrigues in other parts of the world and emerging transnational issues. A life in intelligence is tricky you’re often asked to do things that leave a bad taste in your mouth, and no one was able to capture the spy’s internal moral struggle better. The genre lost a giant when le Carré passed away on December 12, 2020. Which is the common thread, you’ll find, in the list below. Because-like Spiderman-spies have great power, and with great power comes great responsibility. You’re constantly asking yourself, am I doing the right thing? Do the ends justify the means? If I do this questionable thing, what does it mean about me as a person? The best spies-like the best people in general-question themselves. In a nutshell, that is the spy business, particularly on the clandestine side.
The heart of a good spy novel is not the caper but the personal or moral issue facing the protagonist.
Surely, the only authentic spy books are the ones written by people on the inside, right?Īs a retired intelligence professional and a published novelist, and now the author of a spy novel, I’m here to set the record straight: Even when you’ve been in the espionage business, it’s hard to write a good spy novel. It’s a perennial question: do spies write the best spy novels? It’s the business of secrets, after all you can’t help but wonder how much authors get right.
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