Wilderness of Mirrors - Great Espionage Fiction
Explore the best espionage fiction with 'Wilderness of Mirrors'—a curated list of gripping spy novels filled with deception, intrigue, and thrilling covert operations. Discover must-read books for fans of high-stakes espionage and suspense.
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The Third Man
by Graham Greene
Rollo Martins' usual line is the writing of cheap paperback Westerns under the name of Buck Dexter. But when his old friend Harry Lime invites him to Vienna, he jumps at the chance. With exactly five pounds in his pocket, he arrives only just in time to make it to his friend's funeral. The victim of an apparently banal street accident, the late Mr. Lime, it seems, had been the focus of a criminal investigation, suspected of nothing less than being "the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city." Martins is determined to clear his friend's name, and begins an investigation of his own...
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carre
George Smiley is assigned to uncover the identity of the double agent operating in the highest levels of British Intelligence.
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The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
by John le Carre
Featuring an Introduction by the author, the crowning Cold War masterwork is once again available in a collector's trade edition.
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Our Game
by John Le Carré
"FURIOUS IN ACTION...TAKES US BY THE NECK ON PAGE ONE AND NEVER LETS GO." --Chicago Sun-Times With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress Emma. But when both Emma and Cranmer's star double agent and lifelong rival, Larry Pettifer, disappear, Cranmer is suddenly on the run, searching for his brilliant protege, desperately eluding his former colleagues, in a frantic journey across Europe and into the lawless, battered landscapes of Moscow and southern Russia, to save whatever of his life he has left.... "IRRESISTIBLE...A sinuous plot, leisurely introduced, whose coils become increasingly constricting. There is crisp, intelligent dialogue, much of it riding an undercurrent of menace. And there is a hero who does not see himself as heroic but who struggles with inner demons as much as with the forces arrayed against him." --Time "AS THRILLING AS LE CARRE GETS...The novel has the heartstop duplicity of A Perfect Spy and some of the outraged honor of The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl." --The Boston Globe "GRIPPING." --The Christian Science Monitor A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
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The Russia House
by John Le Carré
John le Carre 's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him unprecedented worldwide acclaim. At a small British trade fair in Moscow, a message of global importance is made up of three very fragile human links: a Soviet physicist (code name Bluebird) burdened with a secret knowledge; a beautiful young Russian woman to whom the papers are entrusted; and Barley Blair, a bewildered English publisher pressed into service by British Intelligence to ferret out the source of the document. A magnificent story of love, betrayal, and courage, The Russia House catches history in the act.
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The Honourable Schoolboy
by John le Carre
Trying to rebuild his espionage organization after a traitor is unmasked, George Smiley sends one of his most trusted agents on a mission to the Far East.
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Smiley's People
by John le Carre
A spy story that gives the final convulsive confrontation between George Smiley and his mortal enemy, Karla.
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The Untouchable
by John Banville
WINNER OF THE LANNAN LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION • From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes the fascinating story of a former British spy who's been unmasked as a Russian agent—and "one of spy fiction's greatest characters" (People). • "Contemporary fiction gets no better than this." —The New York Times Book Review One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, biting social comedy, and vertiginous moral complexity. The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation? As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell's co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity, The Untouchable places John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre. "Victor Maskell is one of the great characters in recent fiction.... The Untouchable is the best work of art in any medium on [its] subject." —Washington Post Book World "As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland; Joyce and Beckett notwithstanding." —San Francisco Chronicle
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Snow Wolf
by Glenn Meade
It is 1953. Joseph Stalin is teetering on the edge of insanity, and is about to plunge the world into nuclear chaos. Only one man and one woman can penetrate the Iron Curtain and stop this madman before it's too late. But someone inside the Kremlin knows they exist. And as the KGB's deadliest manhunter pursues these two CIA-hired assassins, another duel unfolds. Martin's Press.
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Winter
by Len Deighton
Peter and Pauli Winter are two very different brothers born into a time when the horrors of war engulf and extinguish the Germany that is. Yet for all their differences, the destinies of the two brothers are forever bound to the madness that lies ahead. From their sheltered childhood through their violent coming of age in the Great War . . . from the chaos of 1920 Berlin to the spreading power of Hitler . . . the brothers are wrenched apart by conflicting ideals and ambitions. Now mortal enemies, they are trapped in a holocaust that threatens to tear them -- and the world -- to pieces. "From the Paperback edition.
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Berlin Game
by Len Deighton
When a valuable agent behind the Iron Curtain signals he wants out, it's up to Bernard Samson, once active in the field but now anchored to a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. But soon, Samson is confronted with evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues. And to find out who it is, he must sift through layers of lies and follow a web of treachery from London to Berlin until hero and traitor collide. "Each scene in this story is so adroitly realized that it creates its own suspense." NEWSWEEK From the Paperback edition.
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Mexico Set
by Len Deighton
The second novel in the trilogy. Bernard is sent to Mexico in order to enrol the East German Erich Stinnes.
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London Match
by Len Deighton
"Taut...Splendid...First rate." THE WALL STREET JOURNAL With treason epidemic in London Central, a cloud of suspicion passes over each senior agent, and each falls helplessly into Moscow Centre's brilliant, complex trap. As LONDON MATCH rushes toward its amazing climax, the ultimate, decisive confrontation is about to take place--between Samson and the British KGB agent who, from the very beginning, has held Samson's entire life in delicate balance.
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A Gentleman's Game
by Greg Rucka
Tara Chace may be the most dangerous woman alive. She can seduce you into believing she’s the woman of your dreams—or kill you with the icy efficiency of an executioner. As the new head of Special Operations for British Intelligence, she no longer has to court death in the field—she wants to. Throw away the old rules, the old school, the old-boy network. The world of international espionage is about to learn the hard way that spying is no longer merely… A Gentleman's Game Greg Rucka’s electrifying thrillers have pushed the boundaries of suspense fiction to where few have dared to go. Now, in A Gentleman’s Game, one of the genre’s most fearless writers brings readers of international espionage his most fearless heroine yet: a no-holds-barred woman who’s as lethal as an assassin’s bullet. When an unthinkable act of terror devastates London, nothing will stop Tara Chace from hunting down those responsible. Her job is simple: stop the terrorists before they strike a second time. To succeed, she’ll do anything and everything it takes. She’ll have to kill again. Only this time the personal stakes will be higher than ever before. For the terrorist counterstrike will require that Tara allow herself to be used as bait by the government she serves. This time she’s turning her very life into a weapon that can be used only once. But as she and her former mentor race toward destiny at a remote terrorist training camp in Saudi Arabia, Tara begins to question just who’s pulling the trigger—and who’s the real enemy. In this new kind of war, betrayal can take any form...including one’s duty to queen and country. Based on the graphic novel series that won the coveted Eisner Award, A Gentleman’s Game is an electrifyingly realistic, headline-stealing thriller with an unforgettable protagonist—one who redefines every rule she doesn’t shatter.
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Tears of Autumn
by Charles McCarry
Influential secret agent Paul Christopher pursues a dangerous theory abut the assassinaton of President Kennedy, an investigation that threatens American foreign policy.
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Old Boys
by Charles McCarry
Retired agent Horace Christopher enlists the aid of four other retired colleagues to find his cousin, intelligence operative Paul Christopher, who has mysteriously vanished and is presumed dead.
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The Last Supper
by Charles McCarry
A woman's tragic death in a vehicular homicide minutes after her lover, Paul Christopher, leaves for Vietnam gives way to details about Christopher's youth and the origins of the CIA in the clandestine operations of the OSS during World War II.
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The Innocent
by Ian McEwan
A member of a British-American surveillance team in Cold War Berlin finds himself in too deep in this "wholly entertaining" work (The Wall Street Journal) from the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement. Twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham’s intelligence work—tunneling under a Russian communications center to tap the phone lines to Moscow—offers him a welcome opportunity to begin shedding his own unwanted innocence, even if he is only a bit player in a grim international comedy of errors. His relationship with Maria Eckdorf, an enigmatic and beautiful West Berliner, likewise promises to loosen the bonds of his ordinary life. But the promise turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening—a night when Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!
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The Company
by Robert Littell
A novel of Cold War espionage traces the struggles of two generations of CIA operatives fighting Communism and battling one another in the complex world of international intrigue.
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Legends
by Robert Littell
Struggling with disjointed memories about his past identities with the CIA, former field agent turned private detective Martin Odum wonders if he can trust his CIA psychiatrist and struggles to retain a hold on his sanity.
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Moscow Rules
by Robert Moss
Sasha Preobrazhensky infiltrates the upper echelons of the Soviet power structure and attempts to destroy the Kremlin and topple the entire Russian political system in a bloodless coup
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Good News, Bad News
by David Wolstencroft
Two espionage agents suddenly realize that not all orders must be followed and work together against their respective bosses.
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Red Gold
by Alan Furst
Deep in occupied France, Red Gold moves with quiet menace as predators from the dark edge of war.
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Berlin Noir
by Philip Kerr
Now in one volume—the first three novels in Philip Kerr’s New York Times bestselling historical mystery series starring hard-boiled detective Bernie Gunther... “A Chandleresque knight errant caught in insane historical surroundings. Bernie walks down streets so mean that nobody can stay alive and remain truly clean.”—John Powers, Fresh Air (NPR) Ex-policeman Bernie Gunther thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin. But then he went freelance, and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture. And even after the war, amidst the decayed, imperial splendour of Vienna, Bernie uncovered a legacy that made the wartime atrocities look lily-white in comparison... This collection includes: MARCH VIOLETS THE PALE CRIMINAL A GERMAN REQUIEM