espionage

Nightshade is the twelfth installment of the Alex Rider series. When a secret agent is killed by a ruthless 16-year-old assassin in Brazil, teenage MI6 spy Alex Rider is sent to Gibraltar, a maximum-security prison, assuming the identity of his lookalike nemesis, Julius Grief. His mission? To bond with and extract information from the assassin, Freddy. However, things take an unexpected turn, and Alex finds himself infiltrating a mysterious, sinister organization known as Nightshade.

This Alex Rider novel was quite good. It was easy to read, and the pacing was excellent, as expected. In

With an impressive cast,

Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Chris Hemsworth, and serious breakout star of 2018 contender, Cynthia Erivo

Bad Times at the El Royale  is the follow up to Drew Goddard's critically acclaimed directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods...

   The El Royale Hotel was once a hot celebrity getaway, frequented by the likes of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.  Its days of glory are over, however, as a series of strangers check in to an otherwise empty hotel.  There's a priest (Bridges), a vacuum salesman (Hamm), a singer (Erivo), and a woman

The Travelers is a fast-paced, globe-trotting novel filled with CIA intrigue. What better cover for a spy than to be a travel writer? Travel writers go to far-flung, exotic locals, meet people, and there are no red flags on why they travel so much. Will Rhodes is a personable, intriguing character looking for perfection in all areas of his life; from drinking the perfect glass of wine to finding the perfect wall sconce. While on assignment in France, his life begins to turn upside down when he meets Elle Hardwick, a woman who may wreck his marriage, career and life. Caught in the middle of a

This is a very well-written thriller!  The action starts when a plane goes down and Robert Harland, the only survivor, hears a cell phone ringing in the East River.  He wades to the sound and finds his old friend from the CIA dead. Harland uses the phone and takes his friend's wallet, which just happens to contain some discs, for his widow.  Robert Harland is a former British spy, now working for the UN.  The explanation for the crash does not ring true to him and he suspects sabotage. But why? The answer lies in Harland's past!

The plotting is first rate, grounded and realistic. The action

Fear Itself is a World War II thriller that focuses on German-Americans and their activities before and during the war. At that time, the FBI, under the rule of the legendary J. Edgar Hoover, was focused on unearthing communists. There were a few agents, however, who saw the Bund, a German-American organization as more of an immediate threat than the communists. Two of those agents, Harry Guttman and Jimmy Nessheim, are tracking down a plot that could change the course of the war, and thereby, history.

So many WWII spy thrillers take place in Europe, like The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva or A

I saw the Gary Oldman film adaptation of this classic John Le Carré novel last winter, which made me curious about this BBC series of produced in 1979.  Even though I knew “the story” from the film, I found this series riveting.  The basic set-up of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that a mole has infiltrated the Circus, which is the code name for the British Secret Intelligence Service, and it is Smiley’s job to ferret him out.  This is a good, old-fashioned spy story reeking of Cold-War era paranoia.  The stunning cast is uniformly excellent, but it is Alec Guinness as George Smiley who

It’s been 24 hours since I’ve finished Code Name Verity, and I am still staring at a wall, recovering.

We first meet our heroine as a prisoner of war in Occupied France, writing down everything she knows about the Allied War Effort to hand over to the Nazis.  She is beaten and starved and in mental anguish over the probable death of her best friend, Maddie, the pilot who crash-landed their plane into France.  But despite the bruises and burns, our narrator is full of spirit and defiance and refuses to let her captors have anything without a struggle—even as she collaborates, she piques and

As a child of the British Ambassador, the author of this book grew up in 1950s Prague. Today as an accomplished journalist, he returned to discover the truth about childhood memories that have haunted him all his life. In this non-fiction book, Laurence shares stories of his childhood in Prague and times long lost.

He wanted to discover the dark family secrets kept behind the Iron Curtain. What he really wanted to know was whether his father was truly a foreign diplomat, or a skillful spy.  His journalistic background and past connections helped him uncover stories about his parents and their

Micah Dalton is a cleaner. He “cleans up” other agent’s mistakes. When his mentor supposedly commits suicide, Micah investigates. It is non-stop action and intrigue in London, Italy and the U.S.A. as Micah hunts for the killer. What is different here is that Micah has the help of the victim as a re-appearing ghost, or is it a reaction to a psychotropic drug given to him by the killer? The reader is not sure and doesn’t care. What a fun read! There is a lot of dry humor and enough angst to go around for everyone. This is David Stone’s first novel.