![]() Granted, I must admit that that might have something to do with my specific tastes, which seem to be nearly identical to Gattiss's. In my review here when this second book in the Box trilogy came out, I wrote that it gave me "just about the most pure enjoyment I’ve gotten out of any book in a long time." All these years later, it still stands out for that. Box is a sort of debonair, bisexual mash-up of Sherock Holmes, James Bond and Oscar Wilde, and as witty a narrator as you could ask for. The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss (2006)īefore Mark Gatiss shot to Internet superstardom as co-creator of the BBC's terrific Sherlock, he penned a trilogy of fantastically fun spy/adventure novels featuring the unlikely secret agent "by appointment to His Majesty" Lucifer Box. ![]() Red Sparrow was the first in a trilogy, and unfortunately the second novel, Palace of Treason, was a serious letdown, but I'm holding out hope that Matthews will bounce back with his third novel and cement himself a spot among the great spies-turned-writers like le Carré, Greene and Fleming.Ĥ. While most of us will never be able to judge a spy novel for its accuracy, Matthews certainly lends an air of authority in his descriptions of tradecraft and Agency politics that feel incredibly realistic. The novel follows Russian SVR agent Dominiki Egorova and up and coming CIA officer Nate Nash first separately, and then as their paths ultimately converge. Proving once again that spies and authors draw from similar skill sets, former CIA officer Jason Matthews penned as impressive a debut novel as you're ever likely to read in this compelling tale of the spy games very much still being played between America and Russia. His follow-up novel, Our Kind of Traitor, was also fantastic, as was his memoir this year, The Pigeon Tunnel. How many authors are still producing some of their best work in their eighth or even ninth decades? Le Carré is a towering talent still at the top of his game. It's not only the best novel of the "War on Terror," but easily among the best in the author's justly celebrated oeuvre, featuring some of the most memorable characters he ever created. ![]() Some of his later books might suffer a bit from getting overly polemical, but A Most Wanted Man is the perfect concoction of literary fury. If anything, he's gotten angrier as he's gotten older. Not only has he remained prolific (I don't begrudge his contemporary Len Deighton enjoying his retirement, but oh how I wish he were still publishing as well!), but he's remained topical. Le Carré may have written about the Cold War better than just about anyone else, but that period was hardly the limit of his outrage. Speaking of le Carré, the all-time master of this genre is still as sharp as ever in his eighties. A Most Wanted Man by John le le Carré (2008) Perhaps if Steinhauer's new TV show Berlin Station proves successful, that will be remedied.Ģ. It astounds me that these books have not yet been filmed. Publishers absolutely love to label any new spy novel with a variation on "le Carré meets Ludlum" (odd as those particular bedfellows are), but Steinhauer really delivers on that, combining exciting action of the latter with the rich characterizations, complex plots and moral uncertainty of the former. The characters are compelling the tradecraft is impressive, and the espionage plot is ingenious. ![]() It's tough to pick a favorite of those (especially between the last two), but when it came out The Nearest Exit blew me away with the best "knot," to use Connie Sachs' term, since Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. all three are fantastic! The Nearest Exit is the middle novel in Steinhauer's Milo Weaver trilogy, which begins with The Tourist (2009) and ends (for now, anyway) with An American Spy (2012). If you haven't read this book, it's a bit unfair of me to list it as the best spy novel of the decade, because it can't really be read as a one-off it actually requires you to read three books. The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer (2010) Here are ten of my favorite spy novels published during the past ten years.ġ. But I do read a whole lot of spy fiction, and try to stay on top of the new stuff. There are simply too many published every year to possibly keep up with all of them. While I haven't seen all the spy movies to be released around the world over the past ten years, I have certainly seen the majority of them.
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