If you're a fan of the spy-fi side of spy fiction chances are you're a fan of The Avengers. With Patrick Macnee as the debonair John Steed alongside fellow agents such as Diana Rigg's Emma Peel, it's become a quintessential piece of 1960s British television. Indeed, the series was part of my teenage years as I watched re-runs of it and The Saint on BBC America some four decades after it originally … [Read more...] about Review – The Avengers: Too Many Targets
Spybrary Blog
Review – Into The Shadows: Assassination Corps
Having read and very much enjoyed The Fever, the opening salvo from Michael Brady's Into The Shadows range, I was eager to dig into the second volume. This one would take the firmly established CIA non-official cover (NOC) officer Michael Brennan to Asia in what seemed to be another tale potentially ripped from the headlines. Would it live up to volume one, though? As the book opens, Brennan is … [Read more...] about Review – Into The Shadows: Assassination Corps
Spybrary Secret Treff with Mick Herron – Agent Craggs reports in.
Our man in the UK, David Craggs, has been out and about and was lucky enough to have lunch with the UK's top spy master, Mick Herron. Here is his top secret report direct from a table somewhere in Oxford : “After events in Salisbury and with the UK terror threat off the Richter scale, one could have been forgiven for thinking that lunch with Mick Herron, the award winning creator of the 'Slough … [Read more...] about Spybrary Secret Treff with Mick Herron – Agent Craggs reports in.
Review of John le Carre’s The Circus Spy Game
Could you make the cut as a Cold War Spy? Spybrary Spy Podcast Listener Clarissa Aykroyd reviews her experience of John le Carre's The Circus, a new immersive spy game in London. On Sunday, 9 September I took part in ‘John le Carré’s The Circus’, a real-life spy game devised by Fire Hazard Games and played in central London. Le Carré fans were … [Read more...] about Review of John le Carre’s The Circus Spy Game
‘Jack Ryan’ Goes Prime
First appearing nearly thirty-five years ago in the pages of The Hunt For Red October, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is arguably the closest thing to an American James Bond. Not only with a highly successful series of novels but also a trilogy of successful films in the early 1990s. Recently, however, the CIA analyst has struggled a bit at cinemas with two reboots not quite hitting it off with audiences. … [Read more...] about ‘Jack Ryan’ Goes Prime
The Koenig Memo – Agent of Influence by Jeremy Duns
Agent of Influence is a slim book at 83 pages, but one with significant effect. Author Jeremy Duns works his subtitled topic, “Antony Terry and the Shaping of Cold War Fact and Fiction”, weaving an utterly fascinating behind-the-curtain story I didn’t want to end. Duns, tell me this self-published edition is merely you dipping a toe into the water to gauge the size of your potential … [Read more...] about The Koenig Memo – Agent of Influence by Jeremy Duns
‘The Very Best Men’ Of The CIA’s Early Years
My recent viewing of the film The Good Shepherd and my reading of the CIA History Staff's 2007 critique of the film left me curious about the fact behind the Hollywood fiction. Hitting upon a recommendation from that analysis and the film's archived website, I bought a book that had been sitting for months already on my Amazon wishlist. Published in 1995 with an updated preface in 2006, Evan … [Read more...] about ‘The Very Best Men’ Of The CIA’s Early Years