spy fiction
60 Years of ‘The Spy Who Came in From the Cold’
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–Adapted from a Center For Fiction conversation between Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich, November 9, 2023 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was published in September 1963 in London under the name of a little-known writer, John le Carré, and several months later the novel came to America. This month marks the 60th…
My First Thriller: Joseph Finder
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Joe Finder must have thought he knew the secrets to selling a book. His first, a work of nonfiction, Red Carpet: The Connection Between the Kremlin and America’s Most Powerful Businessmen, had a hardcover run of 10,000. It sold out. Sounds like an early and smooth ride into the literary sunset. But there’s a catch. (There’s…
What Spy Fiction Taught Me About Breaking the Rules
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As a kid, I broke what I like to think was a normal amount of rules. There was the time in kindergarten when we were sitting on the rug for storytime, and the boy in front of me kept leaning back against my legs, even when I asked him to stop, and eventually I got…
The Secret History of John le Carré’s Career in the Intelligence Services
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‘People believe what they want to believe,’ wrote David to one of his lovers. ‘ALWAYS.’ he was referring to the ‘revelation’ that Graham Greene had continued working for British intelligence into his seventies. ‘No good me telling them that GG was far too drunk to remember anything, & that his residual connections with the Brit…
The Best Hotels – and Hotel Bars – in Espionage Fiction
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Bars in grand hotels figure prominently in the canon of spy literature. One of the pleasures I get from reading the novels of Joseph Kanon, Graham Greene and other masters of the spy genre, is that the anonymous guests in the grand hotels come alive with a backstory and confidential business discussed over martinis is…
Ava Glass: Me and the Spies
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I’d only been working for the British government for a few weeks when I met my first spy. I’d already had my background checked, and I thought that part was over when I first met Eve in the kitchenette at my office. She was new she said. Worked in the legal department. A few days…