A chess tournament in the Cold War is the starting point for this classy and compelling spy thriller; soon we are whisked to Cambridge, Lithuania, Vienna, the GDR, the Kremlin...
Nifty historical spy novel, in which an MI5 operative is sent to Paris to deal with a blackmail case with political repercussions. The PM is Ramsay Macdonald.
Recounts seven decades of activities, with interviews that include most of the surviving former heads of the CIA and discussions of the Agency's role in containing presidential powers. Revel... read more
Revisits the circumstances surrounding the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjoeld in 1961, who was found dead in the smoking wreckage of his plane on the way to Leopoldville in the ... read more
The subject's death released the official biographer from the prohibition against writing about Le Carr?'s private life. Hence this second book from Sisman. Not to be confused with Suleika D... read more
There are those who swear he was a spy, others who insist he was too scatty or essentially lazy to be one. Whatever the truth, he was an exceptional linguist (Iranian, Afghan Persian, Arabic... read more
The fascinating story of a language known as 'Rotwelsch', associated with vagabonds - linked to Yiddish and Romani - that the author learned from his father and uncle. His grandfather, a Naz... read more
Mathilde Carre joined the French Resistance in 1940 but was captured by the Germans a year later and betrayed her network. She survived working as as a double agent and then - possibly - a t... read more
Philby's granddaughter has drawn on unpublished letters for this tense novel about Edith Tudor-Hart, the woman who introduced Philby to his Soviet handler.
The only woman to reach London from Warsaw during WW2, she was later parachuted back into Poland where she was deeply involved in the Uprising; she then disappeared into the Soviet prison sy... read more
Hair-raising tour of the corridors and back doors of the globalised digital world that looks at espionage and crime, and exposes our startling vulnerabilities.
Powerful tale of espionage and love in the early years of the Syrian war. By a former CIA agent, this was published in 2021 in the US and only now in the UK, propelled by word of mouth.
Nevinson, the retired spy whom we met in Berta Isla, becomes entangled in the lives of three women. The last novel by this late and much lamented author is labyrinthine and brilliant...
It seems the 'Mrs Burton' (born Ursula Kuczynski) who pedalled around the English countryside in 1942 was a colonel in the Red Army. Her life story is extraordinary.