Free Agent by Jeremy Duns on the Spybrary Spy Podcast We are thrilled to transmit the first in our series of commentaries on spy novels read by the students of Fiction and Espionage at the University of Edinburgh. Today's group tackle the first novel in the Paul Dark series called Free Agent and written by...
Fiction and Espionage series introduction by University of Edinburgh's Penny Fielding and Simon Cooke. Spybrarians, we are in for a real treat. Our good friend Professor Penny Fielding and her colleague Professor Simon Cooke of the University of Edinburgh bring us 5 spy lit podcast episodes which are recorded by students of their Fiction and...
Brush Pass – a quick review from Spybrary listeners on the books they love (and hate!) Spy Author Payne Harrison has kindly submitted a brush pass review to the Spybrary Podcast.‘As a former Army signal officer and a spy novelist myself (including the ‘crypto-thriller,’Black Cipher), I’ve always been rather frustrated that other thriller authors have...
On this episode of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, John Koenig sends in a brush pass review of two spy novels written in the early 80s. Chess Player and Button Zone. Brush Pass – a quick review from Spybrary listeners on the books they love (and hate!) What is a Brush Pass review exactly? These are...
Brush Pass reviews? Remember them? I know it has been a while since we received any for transmission so I thought I would share my quick thoughts with you on Merle Nygate‘s The Righteous Spy. Spybrary Spy Podcast host Shane Whaley's brush pass review of The Righteous Spy by Merle Nygate. Many of you will...
James Inskster reviews John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps. ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ was, I think, the first book I ever reviewed for my blog. Back then, my blog was called ‘The Fountain Of Words and Wonder’ (a little long winded, in hindsight) and it looked very different to how it does now. It had autumnal tones,...
Review by John Koenig. Post-war Berlin is the epicenter of Paul Grant’s third entry in his fine trilogy, Berlin: Uprising. Change is happening in Germany, even after the relentless upsets of World War II and the Russian “liberation” and occupation of Berlin and much of the country. Berlin: Uprising stands on it’s own, but getting your hands on the...
One of the joys of listening to and being involved with the community around the Spybrary podcast has been discovering books I might never have heard of otherwise. Clive Egleton's The Russian Enigma (aka Pandora's Box) is just such an example of that, having been posted about by C.G. Faulkner whom I had the pleasure...
On today's Spybrary Spy Podcast, Spybrarian Jason King joins host Shane Whaley to share with us his 5 favourite spy books for 2018! He reveals why any respectable spy fan should be reading these 5 choices from 2018 and why they are ‘premier cru' for spy book fans. Agree? Disagree? Come and tell Jason on...
A review of The Company written by Robert Littell and reviewed by John Koenig for the Koenig Memorandum. Spy Book review – The Company by Robert Littell. The Company is pleasantly paced, detailed to an extreme, bringing places and people alive on the page in memorable fashion, yet never bogging down. Somehow Littell maintains a...
