![]() ![]() ![]() A Sunday-morning phone call from a Russian spy to a CIA director who, in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from his heiress wife, has gone to ground at his country club, sets in motion this still-bewildering nonfiction counterintelligence case. Cherkashin has the grace to concede after all the prideful huffing and puffing, is how easy his job was: “Intelligence officers might think they’re chiefly responsible for recruiting agents, but most of the work really consists of finding people who want to be recruited.” And he offers a flinty warning to any spymaster who thinks his service is impenetrable: “The only way to be absolutely safe is to remove people from intelligence gathering.” It’s a cautionary wisdom that, case after case, reverberates through this unnerving yet instructive book.Ģ. As Victor Cherkashin determinedly spins events, he’s “the man who recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames”-two long-running moles burrowed deep in the American intelligence establishment. This is a chatty, self-congratulatory memoir by a KGB counterintelligence officer who spent a 38-year career sulking in the shadows. This article first appeared in the Spring 2022 edition of Coffee or Die’ s print magazine as “The World of Spycraft.From a Wall Street Journal review by Howard Blum titled “Five Best: Books on Counterespionage”:īy Victor Cherkashin with Gregory Feifer (2005)ġ. For readers who want their tradecraft smothered in action, adventure, and vodka martinis, Casino Royale is the unbeatable classic. Despite the unrealistic portrayal of what spies do, there’s no denying that Casino Royale and Fleming’s other Bond stories are some of the best spy books to date. He is always the center of attention, drives fast cars, attends high-visibility events alongside a steady stream of beautiful women and, of course, never avoids destructive gunfights and chases. Everything Bond does is contradictory to what real secret agents do. With the recent film No Time To Die, Fleming’s secret agent lives on 69 years after his debut in Casino Royale.įleming gave the hush-hush world of spycraft a flashy facelift when he introduced readers to 007. The most famous fictional spy in the world was born from the mind of real British intelligence officer Ian Fleming. Purnell tells a deeply personal tale of one of the most interesting spies from the Greatest Generation. In addition to fighting Nazis, communists, and sexist policies, Hall fought the same battles of failure, isolation, and burnout that all humans face. Sonia Purnell brings Hall’s fascinating story to life through extensive research and a writing style that makes the world-class spy so relatable that it’s easy to imagine yourself in her shoes. She played a pivotal role in establishing the French Resistance and worked for Britain’s Special Operations Executive, America’s Office of Strategic Services, and the Central Intelligence Agency before retiring from intelligence work in 1966. Hall - a one-legged American who managed to talk her way into Winston Churchill’s “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” - was the first Allied woman deployed to Nazi-occupied France. One of the most fascinating real accounts of espionage in World War II is the story of Virginia Hall. ‘A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II’ by Sonia Purnell The fast-paced hunt is Smiley - and le Carré - at their best.Ī Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. The stakes couldn’t be higher as vital British intelligence continues to flow into Soviet hands until Smiley can put a stop to the leak. ![]() In Tinker, Smiley is on the hunt for a Soviet mole within MI6. Smiley leans into his vanilla physical appearance and acts the part of a nonconfrontational pushover to help conceal his true identity as a cunning secret agent. Where Bond is a smooth, charismatic womanizer, Smiley is a balding, aging doormat. Smiley stands in stark contrast to Britain’s other famous fictitious spy: James Bond. His fifth book to include the fictional spy George Smiley, Tinker is le Carré’s magnum opus. Of his lengthy bibliography, one novel stands above the rest: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. David John Moore Cornwell was forced to use the pen name John le Carré because Foreign Office officials were prohibited from publishing work under their real names. In fact, le Carré wasn’t even his real name. His own experiences working for British intelligence bled into all of his work. Having served in both MI5 and MI6, le Carré was no stranger to the subjects he wrote about. Le Carré penned more than 30 books centered around the high-stakes world of international espionage. No author is more closely associated with spy novels than John le Carré. ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ by John le Carré Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. ![]()
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