Harlot’s Ghost by Norman Mailer. Read 4 383 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Your email address will not be published. If you haven’t read them before and like the Bourne films with Matt Damon, or even the new Daniel Craig-type James Bond films, they’re really that kind of thing – nail-biting, white-knuckle rides. Readers can look to the literary spy novel to glide beneath the noise of headlines and see a complex world through the knowing eyes of empathetic characters. Your email address will not be published. It was part of the Soviet government’s effort in the Cold War to rehabilitate the idea of the secret agent and to get recruitment. The resurgence of Cold War fiction coincides with the enormous popularity of Cold War movies, notably Bridge of Spies, and television series like The Americans. in the deadly seriousness of the contest, in its absurd thirst for the smallest scrap of intelligence, and in the humorlessness and fallibility of those who played it, it was rich in comic possibility. It’s clear Helm is intended as an American variation on Bond, bringing him back to his Mike Hammer roots; but Hamilton is a more realistic writer than either Spillane or Fleming. In an instance of perfect casting, Alec Guinness portrayed Wormhold in the 1959 film version.”, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy , John le Carré (1974), “Like Fleming, Le Carré (real name: David John Moore Cornwall) worked for British intelligence. Alone among such fun Bond-era spies as The Avengers and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Modesty enjoys an enviable body of quality prose fiction. In this 1949 novel, Stout’s overweight genius hero, the private detective Nero Wolfe, is asked by a client to demonstrate that the man who’s taking a tilt at his daughter is a Communist. Hammer springs back from a seven-year drunk when he learns his long-missing secretary/lover was recruited into a lengthy behind-the-Iron-Curtain mission for the CIA. It’s one of these classic TV series they made in the 70s that had a very famous theme tune, and they did it all in black and white. 6. An obvious choice but who could leave it out? Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes. Author Jeremy Duns says Maksim Isaev was a kind of Soviet James Bond and when they rerun the old black and white TV shows the Russian crime rate drops because everyone is indoors watching them. But the descriptions of Italy are just majestic, and so obviously real. It’s just brilliantly done. Gorky Park doesn’t so much explore the Cold War as use it to create the backdrop and scenario for a perfect spy thriller. And that is what led me to want to write one myself. What I tried to do was forgotten Cold War thrillers. What it’s really about is extraordinarily brutalist and cynical men betraying each other. In this carefully crafted novel, the search for whoisit ends in the biggest betrayal of all. It’s a fictionalised version of some real events that happened, where the Americans were thinking of making a separate peace deal with the Germans that would exclude the Soviets, and this guy’s job is to stop that happening. Though that’s probably what it’s like. Modesty rarely engaged in Cold War themes, but in The Impossible Virgin she does.”, Ice Station Zebra , Alistair McLean (1963), “Scottish adventure specialist McLean offers up one of the best Cold War thrillers in the nuclear submarine sub-genre. The central character is a British agent, Mills. 4 The main character, Quiller, is a sort of James Bond character, but he’s also a complete mess: he’s completely neurotic and paranoid. Set in the new Cold War between Putin’s Russia and the United States, Dugoni’s 15th novel is a riveting tale of treachery. I got really into them and read dozens and dozens and dozens of them. More reviewers hated it than loved it, but as a spy novel (or half of one), it’s completely successful, with sequences of action and sustained suspense that would look at home in the best straight genre work, and along the way, it tries to do something that few other novels about the period would ever go near: to understand the differences between the Russian and the American soul that gave rise to the Cold War in the first place. The first chapter, which sees the hero, Alec Leumas, waiting at a Berlin checkpoint for his prize agent to cross to the safety of the West, is simply perfect, working at a pitch of tension that most novels don’t ever reach. It’s about Suez, and it’s also about the Israel-Egypt stuff that went on 1967. Hone is pretty much completely forgotten now, but I think he rates with le Carré, and he’s quite similar to le Carré in prose style. It’s a slightly weird thing – you’re supporting him, you’re following him, but he’s actually loyal to the Soviet Union. The Searcher is his latest novel. Jeremy Duns is the author of the Paul Dark trilogy of spy thrillers set in the Cold War. Few could write the men-on-a-dangerous-mission adventure yarn better than McLean (The Guns of Navarone, 1957); this one is suggested by real events.”, The Manchurian Candidate , Richard Condon (1959), “This marriage of spy novel and political thriller is a dark satire that dared to suggest the ‘commies under the bed’ tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy only did the cause of Communism a huge favor. The novel, which became a very successful 1990 film, charts the defection of Lithuanian nuclear submarine commander Marko Alexandrovich Ramius, who wants to deliver his sub as well. This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. The best books on Forgotten Cold War Thrillers recommended by Jeremy Duns Author Jeremy Duns says Maksim Isaev was a kind of Soviet James Bond and when they rerun the old black and white TV shows the Russian crime rate drops because everyone is indoors watching them 1 Seventeen Moments of Spring by Yulian Semyonov John le Carré and others had imagined Russia through the eyes of the intelligence officers who studied it. Read. by Adam Hall Gorky Park doesn’t so much explore the Cold War as use it to create the backdrop and scenario for a perfect spy thriller. It was made into a film, which I haven’t seen, by John Huston, with lots of stars in it (Orson Welles, Richard Boone and others). Bone up on your spy skills with his picks, and be sure to add any favorites that Collins missed to the list in the comments. John le Carré, Call for the Dead (1961) You may very well think it perverse of me not to pick The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, but this is the book that introduces Smiley. John le Carré and others had imagined Russia through the eyes of the intelligence officers who studied it. I haven’t been able to find out much about him, but he wrote quite a few novels. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré. Before his death, legendary crime writer Mickey Spillane entrusted the completion of his unfinished work to his longtime friend, Max Allan Collins — a top-notch writer in his own right. He takes up with, obviously, a beautiful woman, who is a hotel guide in his little village in Italy. They’re not about how real spies are at all. They’re all told from his point of view, they’re all first-person narratives, so you’re really inside his head. Read. After President Reagan praised Red October at a press conference, sales skyrocketed, and a writer who couldn’t get arrested had suddenly invented a new genre – the techno-thriller. Though the conflict with the Soviets is subtler here than in the well-known 1968 film version, the Cold War is the real engine of the sub’s mission, the frostbite ‘doctor’ a British Intelligence agent, with Russian spies coming into play. Also available from: Buy. And that is what led me to want to write one myself. When they rerun the series apparently the crime rate drops in Moscow because everyone is inside watching it. Your first choice is Seventeen Moments of Spring, which was a Soviet attempt to create a rival to James Bond. Meanwhile it was going for more like 1,000€ on eBay.”. So I got very into the series. The first section of the novel depicts the planning of the mission and the training of Soviet assassin Red Grant. I don’t know when they last ran it, but they just made a prequel. In his assignment to locate missing scientists, he uncovers a secret brainwashing scheme that marks him for the next victim, due to betrayal from the ranks of the superiors he already distrusts.