The Odessa File


Frederick Forsyth - 1972
    The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution."

The Miernik Dossier


Charles McCarry - 1973
    It was up to Christopher to discover who was who in this sticky international mess.

Safe Houses


Dan Fesperman - 2018
    Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. Helen's world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sightlines of the most ruthless and powerful man at the agency. Her attempts to expose the dark truths about what she has witnessed will bring about repercussions that reach across decades and continents into the present day, when, in a farm town in Maryland, a young man is arrested for the double murder of his parents, and his sister takes it upon herself to find out why he did it.

The Little Drummer Girl


John le Carré - 1983
    Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist.

Into Darkness


Anton Gill - 2014
    The Führer has just survived another assassination attempt. But Germany is losing the war. Stauffenberg's attempted assassination and coup originated from inside the government and military. Is the Nazi Party about to turn on itself? Order must be restored and the High Command is calling for blood. Max Hoffmann is enlisted, under Hitler’s instruction, to carry out an investigation. The disillusioned detective has a problem though; he knows that as soon as the investigation starts, his own treason against the Party might be uncovered. As it becomes clear that Hoffman has not been a "good Nazi" he decides to go on the run, mere hours ahead of the SS Agents who are sent to arrest him. As a fugitive, Hoffman only has one objective: to fight one last battle against the people that turned against him, his friends and his family - and against one man in particular. ‘Into Darkness’ is a superb historical thriller, which sheds light not only upon the end days of the Third Reich but also upon one man, trying to serve his country and conscience.

Istanbul Passage


Joseph Kanon - 2012
    Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion.Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon's attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to make? Istanbul Passage is the story of a man swept up in the aftermath of war, an unexpected love affair, and a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Joseph Kanon's latest novel flawlessly blends fact and fiction into a haunting thriller about the dawn of the Cold War, once again proving why Kanon has been hailed as the "heir apparent to Graham Greene" (The Boston Globe).

The Unlikely Spy


Daniel Silva - 1996
    The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent: Catherine Blake, a beautiful widow of a war hero, a hospital volunteer - and a Nazi spy under direct orders from Hitler to uncover the Allied plans for D-Day...

Casino Royale


Ian Fleming - 1953
    007, is sent to France to play in a high-stakes baccarat game in an effort to take down Le Chiffre, a financier for the villainous SMERSH. Things get more complicated when he is partnered with Vesper Lynd, a beautiful and smart MI6 employee with a dark secret. Bond is one of the most iconic characters in 20th-century literature. In addition to the 12 novels and 9 short stories written by Ian Fleming, there have been over 40 novels and short stories written about the spy by other authors, and over 25 blockbuster films starring such actors as Sean Connery and Daniel Craig.Here's the first.

The Crossing


Ted Allbeury - 1987
    The identities of several Russian agents become known to the West.The chase is on to gather the evidence needed to incriminate them.One of the leaders of the hunt is the brilliant British spycatcher Joe Shapiro, who persuades the Americans into exchanging a notorious and high-ranking KGB spy for the seemingly unimportant American spy-pilot Gary Powers.Joe Shapiro has more than a professional interest in the case, and the intricate web of lies and deception behind the exchange of spies hides secrets that must never be revealed.Inspired by historical events surrounding the infamous 1960 U-2 incident, THE CROSSING is a tense and compelling thriller by one of the genre's master storytellers.

You Know What's Going On


Olen Steinhauer - 2011
    I also wanted to deal with something I've kept at arm's length--Muslim extremism. Add to this Somali pirates, self-loathing Western agents, and a disastrous stop-over in Rome before heading on to Nairobi, and you have...well, you have the makings for some explosions.I hope you enjoy it. If you do, then of course don't resist the impulse to run out and purchase my back catalog, but I'd also suggest picking up a copy of Agents of Treachery--it's an excellent collection for any fan of spy fiction. For fans of the genre, I'd call it required reading.

Assignment: Casablanca


Peter J. Azzole - 2019
    Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting.An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies. Tony is diverted from Casablanca on a brief classified fact-finding mission to a neutral country's island. That mission gets complicated and ultimately results in spy catching and another death. Returning to Casablanca, events result in Tony meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.Between "Casablanca's" covers are communications intelligence, counter-intelligence, military politics, diplomatic tension, WWII history, family dynamics, and in the final analysis, a very exciting, twisting and fast moving story.

Assignment in Brittany


Helen MacInnes - 1941
    Three hours ago he had joked with the red-haired pilot over a last cup of hot chocolate. Three hours ago he had stood on English earth. Three hours ago he had been Martin Hearne with 27 years of his life behind him.Now he was Bertrand Corlay, with 26 years of another man's life reduced to headings and sub-headings in his memory. He looked down at the faded uniform which had been Corlay's, felt once more for the papers in the inside pocket.All set. He patted the pocked of the tunic with his earth-stained hand, and smiled grimly. From now on, he would not only have to speak, but think, in French ...

The Charm School


Nelson DeMille - 1988
    In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA. The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected. When an unsuspecting American tourist stumbles upon this secret, he sets in motion a CIA investigation that will reveal horrifying police state savagery and superpower treachery.

The Envoy


Edward Wilson - 2008
    The setting is 1950s London, at the height of the Cold War. Kit Fournier is ostensibly a senior diplomat at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, but is also CIA Chief of Station. This job and its secrets prove deadly and Kit faces a crisis of the soul as the threat of the H-bomb looms.

A Gathering of Spies


John Altman - 2000
    Now Germany's greatest weapon - a woman with special talents, both for tradecraft and for death - is headed home with critical information about the still-developing atomic bomb, and the Allies chief hope for stopping her is a British agent with agendas of his own. Originally recruited into MI5 to pose as a double agent, he's been telling Germans that he'd do anything to free his wife, a prisoner of a German concentration camp in occupied Poland. This happens to be true. The question is: how much would he really do to set her free? Where are his loyalties exactly?As the two spies play cat-and-mouse across three countries, the ambiguities deepen, each figure showing new sides, each action providing new twists, until at last both agents are swept into a series of climaxes as breathtakingly unpredictable as they are inevitable.