![]() On the one hand, it's seen as a glamorous, adventurous spectacle, a vision emerging largely from author Ian Fleming and his most famous creation, James Bond, who first appeared in the 1953 novel Casino Royale. The best spy novel so far this year, however, is set in the rarely used locale of China and signals the start of what should be a very promising career in fictional spying.Espionage has a split personality in British culture. Disgraced British spy Thomas Kell is sent by the Chief of the Secret Service to investigate and finds himself caught up in a complex web of deception. ![]() His latest, A Colder War (Harper Collins, $29.99), opens in the Middle East with the death of MI6’s Head of Station in Turkey. ![]() He has written several impressive Cold War inspired thrillers as well as more contemporary tales. The writing is a little flat and uninvolving, but Rimmington’s ability to create credible, yet surprising, stories is unrivalled.Ĭharles Cumming has tended to bridge the gap between the old British spy writers and the newer generation. Her latest, Close Call (Bloomsbury, $29.99), deals with the growing problem of the international arms trade and the arming of those involved in the Arab Revolt. Consequently her novels abound with persuasive detail and realistic plots. Rimmington had a long career in the British Security Service and in 1992 was the first woman to be appointed the Director General of MI5. Steinhauer’s shifting viewpoint and intricate, unsentimental plotting keeps the suspense at a high level and delivers plenty of surprises.Īuthenticity has always been an important part of espionage fiction and it is something that Stella Rimmington provides plenty of in her novels about MI5 agent Liz Carlyle. His latest, The Cairo Affair (Corvus, $29.99), is a stellar piece of writing that twists and turns its way around a complex CIA plot involving the "Day of Revolt" in Libya in 2011. Similarly, Steinhauer has deserted his historical spy fiction for more contemporary tales. In recent years British authors, such as Jon Stock and Simon Conway, have intelligently dealt with plot lines around long-term sleeper agents embedded in Al Qaeda and the consequences for the West of the forces unleashed by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Other authors responded to the "war on terrorism" by producing xenophobic, action novels in which tough, rogue CIA agents invariably prevent another terrorist outrage.įortunately, a new generation of spy novelists has emerged who are more interested in moulding the genre into fresh forms that embrace the challenges of terrorism and modern geopolitics in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner. The most recent of which, The Bourne Ascendancy (Orion, $32.99), is the 12th book in this over-worked series. Of course, some writers merely stuck to tried and true formulas, such as the regular James Bond novels and the continuation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, under the authorship of Eric van Lustbader. For instance, Jeremy Duns created a highly regarded trilogy set in the 1960s where the central character is a Russian mole who has infiltrated the British Secret Service, and popular American writer Olen Steinhauer also fashioned a powerful series featuring an agent of a fictional Eastern European country during the Cold War years. Other authors decided to provide different perspectives to the spy novel by adopting new viewpoints and, in effect, giving the reader the other side of the story. A complexly plotted and smoothly written story it totally enmeshes the reader in Furst’s recreation of Europe in 1937. His latest, Midnight In Europe(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $29.99), focuses on the Spanish Civil War and follows Christian Ferrar, a Spanish émigré lawyer living in Paris who becomes caught up in the cause of the Spanish Republicans and the machinations of Europe’s intelligence agencies. His books conjure up the romanticism of Casablanca, along with a sense of brooding as the reader knows the dark historical events that are often ahead of his characters. ![]() During the course of some 13 beautifully written thrillers Furst has provided a virtual Grand Tour of European espionage in the 1930s and '40s. The most successful writer of historical spy novels to emerge, however, was the literate and compelling Alan Furst. Espionage games: Fans of spy fiction can rejoice, the spies of old are coming back and there are plenty of double crossing tales to choose from.
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