Spy
A secret agent assassin finds out that she isn’t the only one. In fact, there are six other women trained as she has been – identical down to the fingerprints. Only problem is one of them is worth than a ruthless killer under orders. Also a psychopath. Which means she wants there to be only [...]
Continue reading about Flee – J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson
Beating up a beater. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32537
““If one green bottle should accidently fall… it might just crack its skull and lie bleeding to death in Marylebone Lane.”” or following Konstantin ends violently. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/37062
The most recent job John Rain was involved with was for higher stakes. Energy supply. After four years off Rain gets approached again. This time he and Dox, along with Treven and Larison are hired to take out two yank Defense honchos who are apparently planning fake terrorist attacks on the USA to allow them [...]
Hilger showdown. Which shows that even smart guys can do dumb things. Hilger and what is left of his crew kidnap Dox as a lever to get Rain to perform some assassinations for them. All part of a greater do something about the oil plot involving suborning a port official. So yeah, Rain wants to [...]
Continue reading about Requiem For An Assassin – Barry Eisler
Here’s a three-way teamup for Rain and company as a dying Tatsu has a request. Finally get rid of Yamaoto so he can expire in peace. Rain agrees and convinces Delilah to help. Things get messy when Midori and his son are endangered by Rain’s existence as they are a link to find him. Yamaoto [...]
This time it is the Mossad that wants Rain to remove someone – thanks to Delilah’s recommendation. And interestingly a couple of small sections are told from Delilah’s point of view – sign of increasing importance? Things go pear-shaped when he is about to knock off his explosives expert target and the man’s kid walks [...]
Not quite as strong as the first two. Here Rain follows through on his plans to decamp to Brazil for security reasons, in a couple of stages. However, the CIA pulls him back into, wanting him to dispose of an arms dealer. It isn’t as simple as that though, pointing out that the CIA right [...]
It would appear Eisler writes classy but brutal spy novels. The assassin John Rain has moved from Tokyo for business reasons: to make it harder for his enemies to get to him. Therefore, they get to his hacker friend the old fashioned way. With a prostitute paid to turn his head. As well as Japanese [...]
A Southern Californian trust fund baby does what you would expect in the late sixties. Apart from only drinking vodka, anyway. And being involved in an Import-Export business with an Iranian friend from his university days. Their other friend buys into the business, and ends up dying when he goes to Iran. The dead man’s [...]
When people mess up your dinner with your spy girlfriend with an assault team. 3.5 out of 5
4 out of 5
A webcam date – and a secretive job. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Flee 1 – J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson
Larison is on the move, avoiding people, when he runs into a gay bashing setup and turns the tables. 4 out of 5
““Look,” Larison said, “no one can just disappear anymore. Everyone is findable. It’s a condition of modern life. You want total security? You have to disconnect. Live off the grid, remotely, no contact with the outside world. But if you like cities, and judo, and jazz, and coffee houses, and culture, all of which is [...]
New Queen and Country novel! “Right, look, she was told, we can see where you’re going with this, and believe us, it’s not going to work. First of all, Minders are almost always drawn from the military, understand? Prior experience, prior service, the SAS and Royal Commando blokes, they already know how to kill a [...]
Continue reading about The Last Run : Preoperational Briefing – Greg Rucka
Is a spy, it seems. 3.5 out of 5 https://comics.comixology.com/#/view/5387/3-three-Preview
Bikini boat kill. 4.5 out of 5 https://comics.comixology.com/#/view/5674/Valentine-Vol-1-Fully-Loaded-Preview“>
Bad attitude disc kill. 3.5 out of 5 https://comics.comixology.com/#/view/5674/Valentine-Vol-1-Fully-Loaded-Preview
“She lay on a fancy cot of some sort, not a hospital bed. There was no television in the corner, no privacy drapes around the bed. A stethoscope and a brand-new box of latex gloves sat on a rickety fake-wood table not far from the bed—no sign of a hospital bed tray in sight. None [...]
Who wants to be top spy then? 4 out of 5 http://www.onipress.com/downloads/oni_queen_country_1.cbr
“I VASS BORN TO KEEL UND MAKE LOVE!” 3.5 out of 5
Matt Helm is a happily married man with kids, and a writer of Westerns among other things. All this changes when an old acquaintance is spotted at a party. She happens to be a graduate of the same WWII spook school that he is. Or, in other words, this is not very likely to be [...]
Callan is stuck working as a bookkeeper for a boss he despises, when he is contacted again by Hunter. Who, of course, wants a man killed. Callan is suspicious as this is framed as a training run for possible rehiring into this particular division of killers (and of course pays much better, too). This involves [...]
Continue reading about A Red File For Callan – James Mitchell
Romp, is what you have to call this. If you are familiar with Shane Maloney’s Murray Whelan mysteries, there is a similar tone. Has similarly colorful friends, too, just some of them are spies, soldiers and sleuths. However, our hero Alby is very much the confident man of violence, being head bloke of a small [...]
Continue reading about Sensitive New Age Spy – Geoffrey McGeachin
Unlike the first ‘Thriller’ anthology, this is original, not reprint. Ergo, the quality will be lower, in general. That is the case, as at 3.28 number we have a pretty standard run of the mill original anthology number. As such, a couple of good stories, several decent entries, and the rest. Jeffrey Deaver and Philip [...]
Chinese spy hit, embarrassing. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Bedtime For Mr Li – David J. Montgomery
Kill President, maybe? 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Through A Veil Darkly – Kathleen Antrim
Retrovirus Ouroboris assassination. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.lewisshiner.com/liberation/kiss.html
Australian edition, American style – splitting up a longish book, in another words. Taking the 30 stories in the original Thriller anthology and splitting it in two, in a different story order. There are only 15 stories here, but the book length is closer to 500 pages than 400, so it has really large print [...]
An anthology put together after a Thriller writer’s organisation was formed. Almost all new stories at the time, some by people who don’t do that sort of thing usually, apparently. So, definitely good to see them taking a crack at it. Basically an original anthology, then. No attempt was actually made to definite what a [...]
An Osama present, again. 3.5 out of 5
Just give me a sniper rifle and a good wind. Although a shottie, a disguise and a typewriter can be good, too. 4 out of 5
Continue reading about Diplomatic Constraints – Raelyn Hillhouse
Deadly foodie decision. 3.5 out of 5
Triple Red Army setup terminal mission. 4 out of 5
Dad, you the double shooter, me too. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about The Other Side Of the Mirror – Eric Van Lustbader
Albania drug conference. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about At the Drop Of A Hat – Denise Hamilton
Monastery sonkiller double car blast. 3.5 out of 5
Disguise surprise for Carnivore’s daughter. 3.5 out of 5
“When you’re a spy, the word belated gets eradicated from your vocabulary. You don’t send belated birthday cards. You don’t send belated Christmas cards. You don’t send belated wedding, anniversary, graduation or congratulations cards. You don’t even bother to send belated wishes via e-mail. You tend to miss physical events like birthdays and baptisms and [...]
Continue reading about Burn Notice the End Game 1 – Todd Goldberg
A short spy novel, written under the Carmichael Smith name. The name Atomsk being one Soviet variants for something like ‘Atom City’. This isn’t a testing site to produce super powered mutants or hide ailen info on the X-Files type program, though. Instead, it is a key part of the possible development of Soviet nuclear [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Spy-Who-Came-Cold/sc-4wexh0-ZAU2vmWROa8Ba4w/page1.html#3 “Where’s the American gone?” asked Leamas. “Who?” “The CIA boy. The one who was with me.” “Bed time,” said the elder man and they all laughed. Leamas put down his mug and said: “What are your rules for shooting to protect a man coming over? A man on the run.” “We can only give [...]
Continue reading about The Spy Who Came In From the Cold 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Call-for-the-Dead/sc-W4wLgztjQUOf2ENjYAkvWQ/page1.html “The effect of Lady Ann’s departure upon her former husband did not interest society — which indeed is unconcerned with the aftermath of sensation. Yet it would be interesting to know what Sawley and his flock might have made of Smiley’s reaction; of that fleshy, bespectacled face puckered in energetic concentration as he read [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Honourable-Schoolboy/sc-pJQ4nqJvA0C5a-gCepCjpg/page1.html “Afterwards, in the dusty little corners where London’s secret servants drink together, there was argument about where the Dolphin case history should really begin. One crowd, led by a blimpish fellow in charge of microphone transcription, went so far as to claim that the fitting date was some sixty years ago, when “that arch-cad [...]
Continue reading about The Honourable Schoolboy 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/A-Small-Town-in-Germany/sc-9N_pOyyh30Ci9eHlj1qing/page1.html#3 “Once upon a time, Cork remembered wistfully, panics came singly. You had a scream on the Berlin corridor, Russian helicopters teasing up the border, an up-and-downer with the Four Power Steering Committee in Washington. Or there was intrigue: suspected German diplomatic initiative in Moscow that had to be nipped in the bud, a suspected [...]
Continue reading about A Small Town In Germany 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/A-Perfect-Spy/sc-bwwuPx_j2ES89rlkwM75aw/page1.html#9 “Going great guns was the answer. On his right sat the dread Frau Oberregierungsrat Dinkel, a woman so plain and rude, even by the standards of official wives, that some of the toughest troopers in the Embassy had been reduced to stunned silence by her. Yet Magnus had drawn her to him like a [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Single-Single/sc-FJHt97oUvEezqJZwsWhczg/page1.html#8 ” “We are calling this `exemplary punishment,’” Hoban was declaring, in a prepared statement from his prayer book. “Louder,” Monsieur François ordered laconically from up the hill, so Hoban said the sentence again. “Sure, it’s a vengeance killing too. Please. We would not be human if we did not exact vengeance. But also we [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Smileys-People/sc-3BUupxARwEqOXZOpqTjlHQ/page1.html#1 “Two seemingly unconnected events heralded the summons of Mr. George Smiley from his dubious retirement. The first had for its background Paris, and for a season the boiling month of August, when Parisians by tradition abandon their city to the scalding sunshine and the bus-loads of packaged tourists.” 3.5 out of 5
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Looking-Glass-War/sc-NsYZudYl6Em-CXeUOTz67A/page1.html#7 “”Did you get any pictures?” Taylor asked. He must get the film and go. Lansen shrugged, put his hand in his raincoat pocket and, to Taylor’s horror, extracted a zinc container for thirty-five-millimetre film, handing it to him across the table. “What was it?” Lansen asked again. “What were they after in such a [...]
Continue reading about The Looking Glass War 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Constant-Gardener/sc-Fi8R7OFNYUKFaEKo487deg/page1.html#2 “”Well, I don’t think it can really — no, it can’t,” Mildren replied, gathering conviction as he spoke. “It’s Tessa Quayle, Sandy.” A different Woodrow now, hackles up, nerves extended. Tessa. “What about her?” he said. His tone deliberately incurious, his mind racing in all directions. Oh Tessa. Oh Christ. What have you done [...]
Continue reading about The Constant Gardener 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Russia-House/sc-WsBz5dYVbEOEWjBFTkA-iQ/page1.html#3 “That she was Russian went without saying. Only a Russian woman would have a plastic perhaps-bag dangling from her arm in readiness for the chance purchase that is the triumph of everyday life, even if most perhaps-bags were of string. Only a Russian would be so nosy as to stand close enough to check [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Absolute-Friends/sc-GjrzB3yURk2bdCvHsZhNQw/page1.html#1 “”Humph,” says Mundy aloud, brows furrowed. During his tour, Mr. Blair will make a brief stopover in Iraq. The emphasis will be on reconstruction rather than triumphalism. “I should bloody well hope so,” Mundy growls, his glower intensifying. Mr. Blair has no doubt whatever that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will shortly be found. [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Little-Drummer-Girl/sc-1CIkUZhKGUSncAIYk0Qz4A/page1.html “It exploded much later than intended, probably a good twelve hours later, at twenty-six minutes past eight on Monday morning. Several defunct wristwatches, the property of victims, confirmed the time. As with its predecessors over the last few months, there had been no warning. But then none had been intended. The Düsseldorf car-bombing of [...]
Continue reading about The Little Drummer Girl 1 – John Le Carre
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Quiller-Memorandum/sc-437tiCqkNEu6S3haNM0tCQ/page1.html#4 ““I was flown out from London this morning with orders to make contact in strict hush. I wasn’t allowed to go to your hotel or meet you anywhere in public, so Local Control had a difficult task. Your phone was tapped sometime before noon in the hope that we could find out your program [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Bourne-Supremacy/sc-eYMXWPVIn0uN4SiN_WvSGQ/page1.html#1 “Get out! Now!” The guard had no chance. Swiftly the priest pulled a razor-thin, double-edged knife from the folds at his waist. He slashed the man’s wrist, half severing the hand with the gun from the guard’s arm, then arced the blade surgically across the man’s throat; air and blood erupted as the head [...]
Continue reading about The Bourne Supremacy 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Bourne-Ultimatum/sc-ZSQsXWxtOUyE1ALj6Hxq1w/page1.html “Medusa. The bastard battalion from Vietnam, the unlogged, unsanctioned, unacknowledged collection of killers and misfits who roamed the jungles of Southeast Asia directed by Command Saigon, the original death squads who brought Saigon more intelligence input than all the search-and-destroys put together. Jason Bourne had come out of Medusa with David Webb only a [...]
Continue reading about The Bourne Ultimatum Prologue – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Scarlatti-Inheritance/sc-0brkyFzWSEuK1fHtmJuw_A/page1.html#8 “”In your judgment if we delivered the file to Major Canfield, would he produce . . . April Red . . . for this meeting with Kroeger?” “I believe he would.” “Why? It’s a cruel thing to do to an eighteen-year-old boy.” The general hesitated. “I’m not sure he has an alternative. There’s nothing [...]
Continue reading about The Scarlatti Inheritance 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Paris-Option/sc-EP8CBIP2yk6iDOl3I7aWkQ/page1.html “The black van rolled to a stop outside L’Institut Pasteur, cut its engine, and turned off its headlights. It remained there, silent, until the young couple, oblivious in their bliss, disappeared inside a building across the street. The van’s doors clicked open, and four figures emerged clothed completely in black, their faces hidden behind [...]
Continue reading about The Paris Option 1 – Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Cry-of-the-Halidon/sc-sVo1C1ch7U-tWeaTY6Tzcg/page1.html#2 “”I’m really very sorry for the inconvenience, meeting like this. Old Julian has his quirks, I’ll grant you that.” McAuliff decided he might have misjudged the Dunstone man. “It was a little confusing, that’s all. If the object was precaution–for what reason I can’t imagine he picked a hell of a car to send.” [...]
Continue reading about The Cry Of the Halidon 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/THE-MATARESE-COUNTDOWN/sc-_JX7l7ggQUucxKQrhuHAmw/page1.html#6 “”You’re not only suggesting, but you’re also actually stating, that we’re all related!” cried the attorney from Boston. “What proof do you have?” “Buried six feet in the earth on the northeast acreage of this property was a small vault, an oilcloth packet inside. It took me five months to find it. In the [...]
Continue reading about The Matarese Countdown 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Apocalypse-Watch/sc-aFb8gC-5D0CVtotvcRGGCQ/page1.html “Thirty-two months of grueling serpentine work were about to bear fruit, thought Latham. Nearly three years of building a life, a life that was not his, were about to come to an end. The incessant, maddening, exhausting travels throughout Europe and the Middle East, synchronized down to hours, even minutes, so he’d be at [...]
Continue reading about The Apocalypse Watch 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Robert-Ludlums-The-Hades-Factor/sc-zf9wTF5wpEaOD2x58533GQ/page1.html#2 “Because the police were involved, only four hours later the medical examiner prepared for the autopsy of the late Mario Dublin, address unknown, in the morgue on the basement level of the hospital. The double doors of the suite flung wide. “Walter! Don’t open him!” Dr. Walter Pecjic looked up. “What’s wrong, Andy?” “Maybe [...]
Continue reading about The Hades Factor 1 – Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Robert-Ludlums-The-Cassandra-Compact/sc-O_tKaeYNn0iRKoGZrqta7Q/page1.html#1 “The caretaker stirred when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. There was barely any light left in the sky, and he had just made coffee and was reluctant to get up. But his curiosity got the better of him. Visitors to Alexandria seldom ventured into the cemetery at Ivy Hill; the historic [...]
Continue reading about The Cassandra Compact 1 – Robert Ludlum and Philip Shelby
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/Robert-Ludlums-THE-ALTMAN-CODE/sc-pdiTnL4i4EOGv3JoMl7cFw/page1.html “There was a saying in Washington that lawyers ran the government, but spies ran the lawyers. The city was cobwebbed with intelligence agencies, everything from the legendary CIA and FBI and the little-known NRO to alphabet groups in all branches of the military and government, even in the illustrious Departments of State and Justice. [...]
Continue reading about The Altman Code 1 – Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Prometheus-Deception/sc-fVkID1lQNkWWAF2xeMuaow/page1.html ” Only a trained engineer with highly rarefied expertise might have noticed a few anomalous details—the fact, for example, that every window frame was equipped with a piezoelectric oscillator, rendering futile any attempt at laser-acoustic surveillance from outside. Or the high-frequency white-noise “drench” that enveloped the building in a cone of radio waves, sufficient [...]
Continue reading about The Prometheus Deception 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-SIGMA-Protocol/sc-9WnGbPGSq0CVz0zk5mBLAA/page1.html#11 “In his right hand Cavanaugh gripped his blue-black pistol, the ten-inch-long tube of a sound suppressor threaded to its barrel. Ben, flashing back on target-practice memories from twenty years ago, saw that it was a Walther PPK, a .32. Ben held his breath, terrified that his gasping would give him away. He drew back [...]
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Road-to-Gandolfo/sc-PKsyhJUO50OTajc4QCr7Cw/page1.html “”How the hell can they?” Symington removed a piece of glass from is little finger. “What the hell are they saying? ‘We interrupt this program to announce that the American military representative, General MacKenzie Hawkins, shot the balls off a ten-foot jade statue in Son Tai Square’?—Bullshit! Peking wouldn’t allow that; it’s too goddamned [...]
Continue reading about The Road To Gandolfo 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.shortcovers.com/shortcovers/The-Janson-Directive/sc-b_GjmFvq1ECqJRZB33WauA/page1.html#1 ” Harnett was an international construction firm, but not the kind that put up skyscrapers in American metropolises. Most of its projects were outside the United States; along with larger corporations such as Bechtel, Vivendi, and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, it contracted for projects like dams, wastewater treatment plants, and gas turbine power stations—unglamorous [...]
Continue reading about The Janson Directive 1 – Robert Ludlum
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553572421&view;=excerpt “Five shots, fired from less than a one-meter range into the back of the head and neck, were more than enough. The big, burly man slumped forward against his door and slithered to the carpet. The gunman did not bother to check; there was no need. He had done this before, practicing on prisoners, [...]
If you hang around waiting to blow up a bomber base that doesn’t exist anymore, I will have to kill you you stupid russkie. 4 out of 5
http://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/64244.html#cutid1 “You think they won’t let you have my wallet after they’re done with me?” I asked him. He blinked. “What? I—“ He was to my left, so I used that leg, brought my foot up and swept his right knee. He tumbled forward, managed to barely get his hands out in time to keep [...]
Walking Dead 4 – Greg Ruckahttp://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/60652.html#cutid1 ““You’re looking to make trouble yourself.” “Maybe. But that’s my business.” He considered that. “You and Yeva, you’ve lived here four years now?” “About that.” “Never any problems from you two. Everyone likes you, everyone likes Yeva. Everyone even likes your fucking dog.” “We like it here.” “What I [...]
The Quiller Memorandum – Adam HallA tight, taut spy thriller. Quiller is contacted by a man, asking him to go straight from one completed task, to another, and he is tired. It is never made explicitly clear who he works for, but it is clear where his sympathies lie. Even though he is a lone [...]
Mind’s Eye – Paul J. McAuleyhttp://www.omegacom.demon.co.uk/mindseye.htm “Alfie nodded. He was staring into the heart of the fire, where sparks snapped and jumped among glowing embers. His father leaned in and stroked his neck, murmuring the incantation that put him under. Alfie knew that he was being hypnotized and slyly thought to himself that this time [...]
Walking Dead 3 – Greg Ruckahttp://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/58960.html#cutid1 “Democracy was wheezing its way into the Republic of Georgia, but it still had a very long way to go. In the open land between the Black Sea and the capital, brigands still lurked the roads. The Russian Army’s presence still lingered in both Poti, further north on the [...]
The Bourne Identity 1 – Robert Ludlumhttp://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Bourne-Identity/Robert-Ludlum/e/9780553260113#EXC “DIPLOMATS SAID TO BE LINKED WITH FUGITIVE TERRORIST KNOWN AS CARLOS PARIS, July 10-France expelled three high-ranking Cuban diplomats today in connection with the worldwide search for a man called Carlos, who is believed to be an important link in an international terrorist network. The suspect, whose real [...]
Continue reading about The Bourne Identity 1 – Robert Ludlum
Walking Dead 2 – Greg Ruckahttp://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/57877.html#cutid1 “I stepped in blood when I stepped into the house. There was a lot of it, and I could smell it, along with the lingering of gunpowder. The moonlight outside wasn’t enough. I was going to have to turn on a light. When it came on, I could see [...]
An All-American Hero – Joe R. Lansdalehttp://www.joerlansdale.com/stories.shtml KGB homer. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about An All-American Hero – Joe R. Lansdale
Smoker – Greg Ruckahttp://www.gregrucka.com/smoker1.html “”It’s an easy job, Atticus. We plant Dean at the Orsini Hotel, button him up there for two weeks, tops. Two thousand dollars for the work, and you don’t even have to sit on him twenty-four/seven. I’ll supply three or four other guards to make him feel safe, you’ll all keep [...]
Critical Space 1 – Greg Ruckahttp://www.gregrucka.com/criticalspace1.html “The ashtray didn’t surprise me as much as the quality of the throw behind it. Perhaps when Skye Van Brandt was still in high school, before she was “discovered” and turned into one of People’s Fifty Most Beautiful Faces for two years running, before she’d netted two Oscar nominations [...]
Patriot Acts 3 – Greg Ruckahttp://www.gregrucka.com/patriotacts1.html “Firing like this—skip-firing—relied on the inherent strangeness of ballistics. Bullets don’t behave like billiard balls. Despite what movies and television portray, they don’t ricochet at perfect angles. This is why soldiers and cops don’t press themselves against walls for cover; if the angle is right and the surface hard [...]
Walking Dead 1 – Greg Ruckahttp://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/57181.html#cutid1 “Flat run, barefoot, in the forest, in the dark, it took me almost three minutes to cover the distance, and I counted gunshots as I ran. I heard a total of fourteen more, all of them sounding as if spoken by the same weapon. An engine turned as I [...]
Icon – Frederick ForsythUltra-right Russian problem. US and British intelligence uncover details about what the likely future head of Russia is going to get up to if he gains power, and it isn’t pretty, and perhaps a little bit prophetic. Not being to do anything about it through official channels, a group of influential westerners, [...]
The Devil’s Alternative – Frederick ForsythCold war crop war. A story involving Ukrainian anti-Soviet agitators, as well as a food crisis in the Soviet union. A crop disease leaves the Soviets with a serious shortage, and the US sees an opportunity to help out, while getting some things they want in return. Politburo hardliners don’t [...]
Continue reading about The Devil’s Alternative – Frederick Forsyth
The Fourth Protocol – Frederick ForsythA spy thriller set in the Philby, Burgess and Maclean era of MI5. Here, a thief happens to discover secret documents outlining a plot to get a very hard left pro-Soviet government elected in the United Kingdom. With Philby involved, not just by your usual democracy, either, of course, so, [...]
Continue reading about The Fourth Protocol – Frederick Forsyth
The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place – Ray BradburyBurning down the house. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place – Ray Bradbury
The Eye Of the Needle – Ken FollettMama bear v spy. In this case, not a story I bought into, as a mother and child get in the way of an enemy agent’s plans, and must fight to survive. There’s also a movie, which in this case I actually thought was better, something that is [...]
The Eagle Has Landed – Jack HigginsGet Churchill : shorty. Old Adolph is having not a great time of it as the Allies begin to make gains in various theatres of war, so he hatches a spy-raid type plot to kill Churchill while he is not as easily defended. To do this involves landing a [...]
And Death His Legacy – George R. R. MartinA political assassination has unpleasant results, as far as the assassin sees it. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about And Death His Legacy – George R. R. Martin
London Match – Len DeightonMoles abound. The last book in this trilogy is probably not quite as good as the other two, you could call it a 3.75 if you like, but there is some entertaining commentary on what goes on in the spook office with the whole clueless management versus the footslogging hardworking spy [...]
Mexico Set – Len DeightonWife traitor repercussions. Bernard Samson’s wife is at the heart of his dilemma. Revealed as the KGB mole, his own organisation is viewing him with some suspicion for being fooled, despite any successes just obtained. One of his wife’s KGB colleagues is looking to defect, and he has to travel to [...]
Berlin Game – Len DeightonDefectors and moles. Len Deighton’s Game, Set Match trilogy is of a similar style to John Le Carre’s books about George Smiley. A quiet, unassuming, unheroic and unprepossessing and sometimes overlooked spy is wasted in obscurity until someone realises he is the right man for the job to help out in [...]
The Hunt For Red October – Tom ClancySubmarine defection deception chase. A Soviet submarine commander decides to take a new, improved very hard to track nuclear submarine and defect to the USA. Obviously, this will not make him popular with his own people, and when the USA gets wind of it they don’t necessarily understand [...]
Continue reading about The Hunt For Red October – Tom Clancy
Patriot Games – Tom ClancyIRA attack. Jack Ryan accidentally gets involved with the IRA when he saves one of their targets from being killed because he just happens to be around and that is the sort of thing he does. This has serious reprecussions for him when he is minding his own business with his [...]
Hidden Agendas – Tom ClancyInternet police save the day. Or something along those lines. While the whole premise of Clancy’s Net Force Agency is rather silly, the people in it, both geeks and grunts come off as interesting enough to make this book readable, even more so probably if you are one of those people [...]
A Clear and Present Danger – Tom ClancyDrug spy morals. Jack Ryan is promoted, and not pleased to find out about very dodgy drug operations being run in Colombia. He and a military officer work together when revenge is taken on the CIA for interfering in the drug business to try and salvage a dangerous [...]
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Balance of Power – Tom ClancySpanish politics and shooting. The Op-Center is a semi-independent agency that gets to do some dirty, dangerous work. This time it involves getting mixed up in Spanish politics, virus, and terrorism, leading to a stressful time for all, as it doesn’t take long for an assassination to happen. Just an [...]
The Fist Of God – Frederick ForsythNot enough human intelligence. Even then, in Iraq, it seems. A desperate military sends one of the few men it has that has a shot at passing locally into Iraq because of worries about a superweapon. Quite literally, a BFG. He does a bit of rabble rousing of the [...]
The Day Of the Jackal – Frederick ForsythMythological assassin vs detective. Mythological in the sense that he has a fancy name tying in to the history surrounding that particular assassin. In this case, some perhaps not so nice people want a French leader removed, and haven’t managed it themselves, so they bring in an outside [...]
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The Debut of Bimbashi Joyce – Arthur Conan Doylehttp://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700611.txt A new soldier doesn’t quite get the spy thing. 3 out of 5
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