Four decades since Tom Clancy’s ground-breaking debut espionage thriller The Hunt For Red October was dominating bestseller lists around the world, the spy story is enjoying a renaissance thanks to a new generation of writers.
Forget John le Carré, Robert Ludlum and Ian Fleming, brilliant though they are, the world of fictional espionage is in the middle of a major shake-up. Suddenly, espionage is back in the bestseller lists again thanks to the likes of Mick Herron, David McCloskey, Tony Kent and I. S. Berry among others.
Perhaps it’s something to do with the dire state of global politics, the invasion of Ukraine, and the rise of Russia and China as aggressors? After all, the last big spy writing boom came during the Cold War. Or maybe we just want escapism and nothing beats a good thriller? Either way, readers are flocking to the espionage shelves for their reading….
Here are five of the most thrilling new books…
5 The Second Traitor by Alex Gerlis (Canelo, Out Now)
Former BBC correspondent Alex Gerlis has quietly been cutting a swathe through spy writing but – like John le Carré’s Alec Leamas – he’s coming in from the cold and wowing readers. This, the second in his acclaimed Double Agent series, a follow-up to Every Spy a Traitor, sees British intelligence on high alert. It’s September 1940 and a Nazi invasion of Britain is imminent.
The German navy is assembling a vast fleet in Rotterdam to ferry men and materiel across the Channel. Meanwhile, a sinister organisation called The Group – a collection of British and Irish Nazi collaborators – is at work within the UK trying to pave the way for the Wehrmacht. The Invasion Warning Sub-Committee is established to counter this threat, and Charles Cooper is tasked with cracking the network. But that is not the only concern for the spy chiefs: the search for double agent ‘Archie’ – the Soviet spy and British traitor feared to be hiding in MI6 – is hotting up. But to make things worse, they now know for certain that a second traitor, ‘Bertie’, is also in play. Gerlis writes some of the best historical spy thrillers in the business and The Second Traitor is no exception.
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4 Clown Town by Mick Herron (Baskerville, Out Now)
Mick Herron has done more than almost anyone to drive the renaissance in spy writing and Clown Town, the ninth book in his hugely popular Slough House series, televised by Apple TV and starring Gary Oldman as spymaster Jackson Lamb, doesn’t disappoint. The Oxford-based writer, one of the nicest people in fiction, has a reputation for killing off characters and brilliantly satirising the state of UK politics.
Clown Town sees River Cartwright, played on TV by Jack Lowden, champing at the bit to return to work after injury. With time to kill, he investigates the secrets of a library belonging to his late grandfather – a legendary spy – and a mysteriously missing book. Over at Slough House, the repository for failed spies, Jackson Lamb is as awful (and entertaining) as ever. But when mischief plotted in MI5 HQ threatens his Slow Horses, he takes notice.
Lamb has no plans to send in the clowns, and if they ignore his instructions and fool around, any harm that befalls them is hardly his fault. But they’re his clowns. And if they don’t all come home, there’ll be a reckoning.
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3 The Protocols of Spying by Merle Nygate (No Exit Press, October 9)
TV scriptwriter turned novelist Merle Nygate’s latest book, one of the first fictional responses to the October 7 attack on Israel, is audacious and gripping by turns – taking real-world events as the backdrop for a thrilling, thought-provoking story. In the aftermath of the 2023 Hamas atrocity, Mossad’s London station chief Eli Amiram is fighting battles on all fronts.
When an ambitious rival plans an assassination on British soil – supposedly authorised by supporters of US President Donald Trump – Eli suspects a deeper conspiracy. Meanwhile, British agent Petra is hunting for redemption in the wake of failure.
Tasked with recruiting Wasim Al-Arikhi, whose sister she couldn’t save from becoming a suicide bomber, she is drawn into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. But can Wasim be trusted or has she become a target? Sophisticated and pulse-pounding writing.
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2. The Seventh Floor by David McCloskey (Swift Press, Out Now)
Former CIA analyst McCloskey is another of Young Turk whose books have found an almost instant audience since his debut, Damascus Station, introducing eccentric CIA chief Artemis Proctor, was published in late 2021. His third book, The Seventh Floor, sees Artemis out of the CIA and in disgrace while trying to investigate a mole deep within the upper echelons of Langley.
The hunt will put her own history under the spotlight and bring Artemis, and CIA officer Sam Joseph, into the sights of a Russian spymaster who will do whatever it takes to protect his assets. David’s next book, The Persian, is due in January. Read this now and you’ll barely be able to wait.
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