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...
Philby. Burgess. Maclean. If you're a student of Cold War spies (and if you're at Spybrary there's a decent chance you are), those names will be very familiar. The latter pair's 1951 defection helped to make public the most famous spy scandal of the era. In the decades since, they've also inspired countless works of...
Spybrarian John Koenig is back from his expedition visiting almost every used book store from Michigan to Washington State. When he wasn't scaling ladders (why are the good spy books always on the top shelf?) or scouring dark nooks and crannies he penned several review of recent spy reads. Here is his latest – The...
On Episode 61 of the Spybrary Spy Podcast, Shane and Karl talk about the recently released book from Geoff Dyer titled ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy' on Where Eagles Dare. In this no holds barred discussion two well read spy fans give you their assessment of the book. In the interest of being balanced please do...
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...
Spybrary Spy Podcast with Matthew Kresal Robert Sellars – Battle for Bond – Brush Pass Review -Episode 58 of the Spybrary Spy Podcast After a rejuvenating few months at Shrublands our Brush Pass Reviews makes a welcome return to the Spybrary Spy Podcast.Matthew Kresal's brush pass has been decoded. Tune in and hear his transmission...
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....
Berlin Game -Len Deighton – Spybrary Book Club Edition Spybrary listeners voted overwhelmingly for Berlin Game to be the first spy book to be discussed in our first ever book club Spybrary edition. Listen to an in-depth conversation on this spy classic with Spybrary host Shane Whaley, Deighton expert Rob Mallows and newcomer to Len...
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...
Red Sparrow Trilogy Deep Dive Recently we received some intelligence suggesting that two well known Spybrarians and Spy Book bloggers Matthew Bradford and Jeff Quest were planning a meetup in Los Angeles. So we sent some of our agents to tail them for the day, thankfully they did what every self-respecting Spybrarian would do....
