The Best Spy Novels
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The best spy novels as compiled by James Marinero, presenting a spectrum of this entertaining thriller novel sub-genre. What are the best and can they be set at any time. Espionage has been prevalent through the eons of man's existence.
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 the best spy novels my selection best spy novels if you are looking for great spy novels, then i&rsquo ve compiled my list here as a guide for you my starting point is with the author &ndash in this genre, some authors just have to be represented then, there are spy novels which focus on different aspects of spycraft for example &ndash the recruitment and running of an agent or the details of the craft itself others may focus on the battle between the spymasters themselves, or technology some may be very cerebral in nature &ndash such as john le carré&rsquo s character smiley pitting his wits against karla over three thrillers others may focus on the different approaches to intelligence gathering in the latter case, a good example is the battle against the taliban and al quaeda it is well known in intel circles that in the decades leading up to the twin towers attack, the us put the bulk of its middle east efforts into &lsquo elint&rsquo &ndash electronic intelligence gathering, neglecting the humint aspects this had been spotlighted when, during the gulf war, they realised that their satellites had been fooled by ranks of plywood tanks which saddam had deployed in contrast, the uk excelled at humint though britain had a long history of involvement in the middle east, with long standing networks to rely on &ndash perhaps because it didn&rsquo t have the budgets and technology to deploy and manage huge nets of satellites when the crunch came with asymmetric warfare, the satellites and listening posts were of limited value and the us&rsquo s humint assets had to be built up, painstakingly finally, there are those spy novels which develop their story around specific events in history such as the berlin airlift or the conflict in northern ireland so, here&rsquo s my list of favourite spy novels it is a reading list and not ranked that would be impossible for me tinker tailor soldier spy john le carré the ipcress file len deighton the spy who came in from the cold john le carré harry&rsquo s game gerald seymour the devil&rsquo s alternative frederick forsyth spies of the balkans alan furst berlin game len deighton restless william boyd from russia with love ian fleming riddle of the sands erskine childers the thirty nine steps john buchan the last two on the list helped define the modern spy novels genre there are thrillers such as the bourne ultimatum which others might inlcude on the list, but i don t consider to be a spy novel in the classic sense others might include the man who was thursday by g k chesterton it is a story about spying and secret agents, but not in the typical sense, generally being categorised as a metaphysical thriller a note on some authors both fleming and le carré had worked with british intelligence services &ndash sis/mi6 and their background adds a special frisson to their writing, whilst deighton spent his national service time as a photographer for the raf special investigations branch