Historical accounts of real spies in real wars beside fictional tales and made-up characters and even a little humor. A curated mix of fictional and documentary tales of spy-craft, daring do that both educates, entertains and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
1 & 2 The Anatomy of a Spy by Michael Smith. Why do people put their lives at risk to collect intelligence? How do intelligence services ensure that the agents they recruit do their bidding and don’t betray them? What makes the perfect spy? Drawing upon interviews with active and former British, American, Russian, European and Asian intelligence officers, Michael Smith creates a layered portrait of why spies spy, what motivates them, and what makes them effective.
3 & 4 Our Man in Havana by Graham Green, 1958. MI6’s man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. It is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government intelligence that still resonates today.
5 & 6 Japan's Spy at Pearl Harbor by Takeo Yoshikawa, 2020. Takeo Yoshikawa was an ensign in the Imperial Japanese Navy and a naval intelligence officer assigned the task of spying on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. His reporting during the nine months preceding the outbreak of the Pacific War would help pave the way for Japan’s surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. Yoshikawa’s memoirs—offer a gripping spy story, personal confessions, and a Japanese eyewitness view of the war in the Pacific.
7 & 8 A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre. Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time.
9 & 10 Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre. This book is a 1974 spy novel by the author and former spy John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of the taciturn, ageing spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary—and, at the time, relevance, following the defection of Kim Philby.
11 & 12 The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius. The race to build the first quantum computer heats up in the newest high-tech spy thriller from best-selling author David Ignatius. A hyper-fast quantum computer is the digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb: whoever possesses one will be able to shred any encryption in existence, effectively owning the digital world. The question is: Who will build it first, the United States or China? This is an thought provoking novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius who is the author of 5 first rate espionage novels.
13 Summation & Conclusion
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