Recommend Some Good Spy Literature

Although you're looking for Cold War era, I can highly recommend the pre WW2 works of Eric Ambler. The Mask Of Dimitrios is a classic.

Yeah, I'm interested in this too.

Rath, if you don't mind a little paranormal being mixed in:

"Declare" by Tim Powers (This book is so great. GDT or PJ could make an amazing film from the material). It mainly ranges from WW2 to the Cold War era.

"The Atrocity Archives"* and "The Jennifer Morgue" by Charles Stross.

*This is a short story/novella collection, mostly sci-fi. The stories are all pretty great but the "Laundry-verse" title story is what you're looking for. HP Lovecraft + Bond + the "I.T. guy accidentally becomes a spy" thing that Chuck has (but predates Chuck by quite a bit, and is different in important ways).

Hell yes. Both these books are priceless.

The Company by Robert Littell is pretty good. Mostly Cold War through 70's and 80's Middle Eastern shenanigans.

More than a little paranormal, I would say, but that's no criticism. I love these stories, love this universe, can't wait for The Fuller Memorandum.

But I popped in to say that if you like Stross' Laundry tales you might want to seek out Len Deighton's spy books, as Stross was greatly inspired by them. The Laundry stories are Lovecraft + Deighton + British humor.

I wouldn't rank Charles Cumming in the uppermost tier, but he's a pretty solid, well-researched, and entertaining British spy writer.

Len Deighton is a little underrated in my book.

The former head of MI5, Stella Rimington, has written a couple of fairly well-received novels; haven't read them myself but the word is generally good.

You need to read James Grady's Six Days of the Condor, which is often credited as the first CIA novel.

Olen Steinhauer's series about a fictional Soviet Bloc is great. Highly recommended.

Dan Fesperman is amazing.

The Amateur American(Google it, I forgot the author's name) from last year was great.

Charles McCarry is undeservedly obscure. The Tears of Autumn is a really trippy novel about the JFK assassination.

The Company by Littell is fantastic.

Ross Thomas is essential reading. They're a lot like the Coens Burn After Reading, but slightly more serious. Everyone should read Ross Thomas.

I picked up Good News Bad News by David Wolstencroft recently and loved it. It's a modern day, British Spy vs. Spy story but with a few tricks thrown in by the author. It really moves too.

The author also created the BBC spy drama, Spooks.

Let me know what you think. He's great.

Le Carre is a brilliant writer, with a beautiful flowing style and expressive idiom. He threw much needed light on the shady shenanigans of the British in places like East Germany - as well as the near total destruction of the British counter-espionage service by the so called "Cambridge_Five" (Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross), all of whom were Soviet double agents, during the fifties and sixties.

I can't think of any other writer who has explored the schizophrenia and human toll of spying as intelligently. Some say his best book is THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. Far more point to TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY & SMILEY'S PEOPLE. All three are excellent pieces of work that should be present on the shelves of anyone who considers himself a fan of not just the spy genre, but literature full stop.

But THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY (the less well known middle book in the SMILEY series) & THE PERFECT SPY are better. The problem with the books mentioned above is that they tend to deal almost exclusively with the Spymaster Gods on Mount Olympus - intelligent & ruthless they sacrifice people like they would sacrifice a chess piece.

THS & TPS aren't similarly inhibited because they include the people who get sent to do the dirty work, or get caught in the crossfire - or just plain butchered by the Olympians' merciless pawns. It's in THS that we discover the amiable George Smiley is just as "fanatical" as the Karla he's chasing and certainly every bit as cold-blooded. Both find justification behind equally faulty ideologies.

Since The Perfect Spy I've found Le Carre increasingly unreadable. The problem is that like a mosquito fossilised within Cretaceous amber, he seems to be trapped within the world of espionage that existed between the 50s and late 70s. But the spooks of today are a long way from that world. As Roy Bland says to Smiley in Tinker Tailor:



Smiley is horrified by Bland's ideological nonchalance - but Bland sees the future far better than he (and even his creator) does.

When today's spooks (or at least the ones I've read about) are asked whether they, like their predecessors, are motivated by "politcal ideology", the response almost always flips between patronising and humour. As if any could CARE about that! And yet Le Carre keeps churning out the novels like he's living in the 60s.

^ I don't know about that. The Night Manager provides a glimpse into the New World Order of mercenaries and arms dealers while Single & Single provides a brutal expose of the New Russia after the Soviet Union broke up.

I'd recommend them both.

Constant Gardner et al, not so much

I don't know if you want to count books labeled "Non-Fiction" but I'd recommend The Falcon and the Snowman, book and movie. A great story about two American "Traitors" and their convoluted rationale for selling secrets to the Russians.

I really like Constant Gardener and love The Tailor of Panama

Hey man, he's like 80 years old, isn't he? Gotta cut him some slack.

Almost all of his books are set during WWII, but Alan Furst is a tremendous writer - The Polish Officer is probably my favorite.

I'll second Len Deighton - particularly SS/GB. Along the same alternate-historical lines, Fatherland by Harris is a great read.

I'd call Deighton more than a little underrated, actually. He's a little rougher around the edges than LeCarré in his prose, but by the same token more economical. His pacing is great and he's a hell of a lot more fun to read without ever lapsing into Bondian nonsense. City of Gold and Funeral in Berlin in particular are fantastic, the latter containing my single favourite line from any book ever written. Can't recommend him enough.

Not a book about spies but, as mentioned in another thread, Deighton's BOMBER is an astonishing piece of work. Definitely his best novel.

Bumping this because I've pretty much exhausted all the books already recommended. Is there any more recent spy stuff that I should be looking into? Or just good stuff that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet?

Grady's Mad Dogs and Barry Eisler's John Rain series is essential. Mad Dogs is a blast and has a brain. Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn is a great read.

Second the Barry Eisler stuff. Really fun reads.

 

Nice to see you Cameron. Everything good?

I've been fine, just busy.

 

Ken Follet's The Key To Rebecca is deservedly a classic. Why it hasn't been adapted into a big movie is beyond me. It's a big novel, but adaptable.

Good to hear. I figure 2012 I need to get through Scudder, but I also want to read the Smiley works as well. That will be my Spy Lit for the year.

This is probably all fair enough.  I haven't read much of his recent stuff to say.  Although I'd extend his period of stylistic relevance to the late eighties.

Still, you don't think he was tapped into the zeitgeist with Taylor of Panama? Osnard's only in the game for one thing.  Not a new way for spies to be, but he manages to use the lingering patriotism of his superiors for his own ends.  The guy'd be just as at home in sales and advertising or finance.  It's like the old world colliding with the new.

I read that rather late, but I felt like I'd been dropped into the exact same sort of world of swirling BS that landed the US in Iraq.

 

So I know this is for books, but I wanted to recommend some comics if you really are into spy literature. First off check out Greg Rucka's Queen & Country which is heavily influenced by the Sandbaggers TV show.

 

Next, check out the work of Nathan Edmondsen. His first series Who Is Jake Ellis is a quick solid read about a spy on the run who may or may not be insane.

 

He has a new series called The Activity about a special military unit. Looks like it will be a solid ongoing spy/military series.

 

Looks like he is going to have another spy book out soon called Dancer as well.

 

I would also recommend Pigs, a new series out about a sleeper cell of KGB agents' kids who come to America to do who knows what. Probably one of the best endings to a first issue in a long while.

Edited by Casey Moore - 1/14/12 at 8:36am