10 Gripping Spy Books to Read
From espionage classics by Len Deighton and John le Carré to modern day standouts from Mick Herron and David McCloskey, we’ve selected 10 Gripping Spy Books to Read. Enjoy!
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10 Gripping Spy Books to Read
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country.
The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause.
A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
- An unassuming English engineer has travelled to Turkey on business. And somebody wants him dead.
It all began when Graham was taken to a nightclub in Istanbul and noticed a man in a crumpled suit, watching him. Then he narrowly missed being killed by gunfire on returning to his hotel room. Now, terrified, he has been helped to escape in secret on a passenger steamer home. But although Graham may try to run, he cannot hide from his pursuers forever, and soon he is caught up in a nightmare beyond his control.
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.
Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.
Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of this country’s most exceptional writers.
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s Saigon comes CIA agent Alden Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious ‘Third Force’.
As Pyle’s naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as Fowler intervenes he wonders why: for the greater good, or something altogether more complicated?
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz and years of war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth.
They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women with a shared history, all of whom seem determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be?
A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all he didn’t know or understand in that time, and it is this journey – through reality, recollection, and imagination – that is told in this magnificent novel.
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré
Alex Leamas is tired. It’s the 1960s, he’s been out in the cold for years, spying in the shadow of the Berlin Wall for his British masters. He has seen too many good agents murdered for their troubles. Now Control wants to bring him in at last – but only after one final assignment.
He must travel deep into the heart of Communist Germany and betray his country, a job that he will do with his usual cynical professionalism. But when George Smiley tries to help a young woman Leamas has befriended, Leamas’s mission may prove to be the worst thing he could ever have done.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is one of the most popular and influential spy novels in literary history, and its success upon publication in 1963 earned John Le Carré acclaim rivalled only by Ian Fleming.
The Untouchable by John Banville
Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons and the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his disgrace is public, his knighthood revoked, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated. There are questions to be answered. For whom has he been sacrificed? To what has he sacrificed his life?
The Untouchable is beautifully crafted novel inspired by the famous Cambridge Spies by John Banville, the author of the Booker prize-winning The Sea.
Berlin Game by Len Deighton
Embattled agent Bernard Samson is used to being passed over for promotion as his younger, more ambitious colleagues – including his own wife Fiona – rise up the ranks of MI6. When a valued agent in East Berlin warns the British of a mole at the heart of the Service, Samson must return to the field and the city he loves to uncover the traitor’s identity. This is the first novel in Len Deighton’s acclaimed, Game, Set and Match trilogy.
Damascus Station by David McCloskey
CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy.
But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard.
Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
Welcome to Slough House, Regent’s Park, a graveyard for members of the intelligence service no longer in the game – the slow horses. A motley crew of criminals, abusers and troubled souls, banished for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal – they all belong to Jackson Lamb.
Jackson Lamb’s misfits may be highly trained but they don’t run ops, they push paper. When a boy is kidnapped and held hostage and his attackers promise to behead him, live on the net, a chance opens up for the slow horses to redeem themselves and whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren’t going to just sit quiet and watch.
Yet, as they begin to investigate, a more complex web of deceit and double agency begins to opens up. Is the victim who they claim to be? What is the connection with a disgraced journalist? Who else has something to hide?
As the clock ticks, everyone, it seems, is in the game, with dangerous pieces at play.
If you enjoyed 10 Gripping Spy Books to Read, check out 12 Great WW2 Historical Fiction Books to Read
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