Pressed collars and impossibly polished cufflinks. Concealed deadly gadgetry and dashes across foreign borders with expertly doctored passports. An absurdly beautiful woman, or two, waiting patiently in a penthouse suite. Such are the tropes of modern spy fiction as popularised by iconic authors such as Ian Fleming.
This suave and idealistic characterisation paired with mouth-wateringly appealing mystery, violence and excess is what helped to propel fictional espionage into a classic, canonical genre. Yet there’s so much more to historical espionage – both fictional and non-fictional – than 007.
The history and evolution of global espionage and the enduring appeal of double agentry tend to centre around the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. Throughout these tumultuous decades, trust was obsolete, and paranoia was paramount. Indeed, it’s no wonder Arthur Miller decided to write a parabolic play which was about the Salem Witch Trials on the surface, and the dangers of McCarthyism in America beneath.
In the 20th and early 21st centuries, the world was so clearly divided in two – as was reflected in Berlin, still pressed by the weight of reparations, by the presence of a physical border until 1989. Superpower versus superpower, it was the allied forces against the behemoth that was the USSR – which made a fertile bed for mutual spying and trickery.
Whether you’re reading spy fiction or watching a film on the subject, you can count on some kind of East/West double agent plotline. While contemporary spy stories may shy away from such historical references, even Killing Eve isn’t exempt from the presence of a Russian accent.
Espionage has existed as an invaluable political tool for centuries. The strongest examples include Sun Tzu’s ancient text The Art of War, which considers how to defeat the enemy without entering battle, and in which spying is an invaluable tactic. Meanwhile, the very first piece of spy fiction was arguably written by Rudyard Kipling in 1901. Kim details the coming-of-age of a young Indian boy straddling loyalties to both the East and the West.
It wasn’t until 1953 that the image of the sleek, suited and booted spy who lives a life of sex, power, danger and intrigue was invented by Ian Fleming. Before then, it was inspectors and detective characters who reigned supreme in the realm of mystery.
In this distinctly 21st-century spy fiction, women are repeatedly classed as secondary characters and are often mercilessly objectified in the process. Even Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny, while the strongest female character in the Bond series (though it doesn’t take much), is still depicted as a defunct field agent. Even when female characters are depicted as the protagonists in spy fiction – they remain at the beck and call of perfunctory male characters, all while being overtly over-sexualised. For instance, while each reboot of Charlie’s Angels is wonderfully camp and full of killer outfits, the premise still consists of three scantily clad women who are at the beck and call of a mysterious male figure.
Otherwise, fictional stories about female spies are usually tangled up in romance and love affairs. Even the most forward-looking pieces of espionage fiction find inspiration from the same source material, making it difficult to discover spy fiction with powerful female characters.
With the storied context for historical works of fiction and non-fiction which deal with the topic of espionage in mind, we’ve selected some of the best spy novels of all time – including some hard-hitters featuring female protagonists. Keep scrolling to dive in.
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The Mercenary by Paul Vidich
One of Vidich’s most recent spy thrillers, The Mercenary takes place in the USSR in the mid-1980s and follows the attempted exfiltration of a senior KGB officer in the wake of the union’s imminent downfall. With the exfiltration of double agents tricky at the best of times, the Moscow-based CIA wrestle with the task at hand – one that has never before been successfully completed. An exercise in the true nature of a spy’s loyalties and the personal histories they may attempt to erase, Vidich weaves yet another gripping piece of historical fiction to add to the shelf.
Buy now £12.99, Waterstones
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
One of Ambler’s celebrated anti-fascist spy thrillers of the 1940s, The Mask of Dimitrios follows the travels of English crime novelist Charles Latimer who, while in Istanbul, meets a Turkish police inspector by the name of Colonel Haki. It is Haki who tells Latimer of the news that an infamous, wanted criminal known as Dimitrios has been found dead in the Bosphorus. Fascinated by this development, Latimer attempts to unravel the criminal’s mysterious death by making his way through the increasingly volatile pre-war Europe.
Buy now £9.05, Amazon
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Arguably the first piece of espionage fiction to grace the global press, Kipling’s Kim tells the tale of the orphaned son of Irish parents who died in poverty in India. With 19th-century India very much at the mercy of British rule, Kim must determine how to survive in his ever-changing cultural and political landscape. Renowned for its detailed depiction of India under colonialism set against the backdrop of the First Afghan War, we follow Kim’s Odyssean journey as he’s tapped by Colonel Creighton to join the secret Indian service of the English government to learn the principles of the ‘Great Game’.
Buy now £8.75, Amazon
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
The story of an accidental spy, Ambler’s third novel follows a Hungarian refugee called Josef Vadassay. While holidaying in the French Riviera, he takes his camera to a local chemist to be developed and suffers the consequences of a mistaken identity. Believed to be a Gestapo agent, Vadassay finds himself desperately attempting to prove his innocence to the French police by trying to uncover the real spy’s true identity.
Buy now £6.69, Amazon
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
‘Slow Horses’ is what the disgraced spies of Slough House are referred to as. Former agents of the field, this vagabond bunch have committed various crimes relating to drunkenness, lechery and betrayal while on duty and have been sentenced to a life of paper pushing at the Slough House outpost for British Intelligence. However, when the story of a kidnapped boy who is scheduled to be beheaded breaks, the Slow Horses refuse to sit quietly.
Buy now £6.50, Amazon
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré
One of the most celebrated spy thrillers ever written, le Carré writes of love and betrayal at the height of the Cold War. Alec Leamas is a weathered spy who has been at the centre of frost-bitten conflict in Berlin for years. With one final mission to complete before being called home for good, Leamas must make his way into the depths of East Berlin – so far, so espionage. However, Leamas becomes caught up in a tangled web of interpersonal relationships that threaten to destroy everything.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Looking to get into the Bond series, despite the threat of misogynistic writing and absurdly dapper spies? We won’t hold it against you. The first – and to some, the best – of Fleming’s Bond novels is the beloved Casino Royale. Agent 007 is the finest gambler in the service and is tasked with outplaying villain Le Chiffre to destroy his Soviet terrorist cell.
Buy now £3.30, Amazon
Dominion by C.J Sansom
Have you ever wondered what would’ve happened if the Allied forces had lost the Second World War? In this fictionalised account of an alternative historical timeline C.J Sansom writes of what it would’ve been like had Britain become a satellite state of Nazi Germany. Dominion is at once a political thriller, spy thriller and love story which follows the growing defiance amongst British citizens. In the midst of a potential uprising, Civil Servant David Fitzgerald is acting as a spy for the Resistance and embarks on a deadly mission to rescue an old friend.
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
Box 88 by Charles Cumming
A fast-paced page-turner by Charles Cumming, Box 88 flips between the present day and 1989 during the tail-end of the Cold War. The novel’s titular, top-secret organisation was formed by Western powers during the bitterly cold conflict and continues to run silently into the present day. The novel’s protagonist, Lachlan Kite, takes us through what led him to become the leader of an undercover international espionage group by delving into his childhood memories all the way up to the present day.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
Inspired by true events, The Lost Girls of Paris takes place during the First World War. Eleanor Trigg leads a ring of female secret agents in London, twelve of whom are sent to help the resistance – but never return home. When Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station in 1946 containing a dozen photographs of mysterious women, she becomes determined to find out who they are.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
Who is Vera Kelly? By Rosalie Knecht
Knecht’s roaring spy novel takes place at the very beginning of the Swinging Sixties as Vera Kelly attempts to find her feet in Greenwich Village. While working night shifts at a local radio station and attempting to blend seamlessly into the underground gay scene, Kelly is tapped by a recruiter for the CIA. The sardonic and mystifying protagonist goes undercover and finds out more about her true identity than she ever thought possible.
Buy now £4.25, Amazon
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
A favourite of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club, The Alice Network is an intertwined tale of a female spy network during the First World War, and a young American socialite desperately searching for her cousin in the dreadful aftermath of the Second World War. Thirty years after Eve Gardiner served as a spy in enemy-occupied France, Charlie St. Clair burst into her home desperately babbling about the trials and tribulations of a group of women that Eve hadn’t considered in decades.
Buy now £10.95, Amazon
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
One of Barack Obama’s best books of 2019, American Spy is a subversive espionage novel which flips every traditional spy-thriller trope imaginable on its head. Marie Mitchell, a black, American mother of two living in Regan-era America serves as our central protagonist. Mitchell goes undercover to find Thomas Sankara, who is considered to be the African Che Guevara. With her family, home and livelihood at stake – Mitchell must choose between a love for her country and her own survival. A powerfully raw portrayal of the black experience in 1980s America, American Spy is a far cry from Cold War-era espionage fiction.
Buy now £8.99, Waterstones
