List of Top Ten Best Espionage Book Of All Time Top Picks 2023 Reviews

The Spy is a tale about counterespionage set during the Revolutionary War, with main character Harvey Birch, British loyalist who is in fact a George Washington's spy. The plot ranges back and forth over the neutral ground between the Continental and British armies with great haste and sweep. The action takes place so near to great events and the characters are all invested with something of the dusky light of heroes, while George Washington moves among them like an unsuspected god. This was the earliest American novel to win wide and permanent fame and may be said to have begun the type of romance which dominated U.S. fiction for 30 years. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. Before embarking on his career as a writer, Cooper served in the U.S. Navy as a Midshipman, which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. The novel that launched his career was The Spy, he also wrote numerous sea stories, and his best-known works are five historical novels of the frontier period known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

"Sir Roland has invited us to visit for the Autumn Feast.""Do we have to go, Papa? I couldn't feast with the most crooked politician in all of Briznom."As the daughter of a Briznomian vassal lord, Vannie Cumberland has spent her childhood immersed in the world of politics. Relations between Briznom and the neighboring country of Calhortz are strained due to the tyrannical rule of the strytes. A proposed alliance could calm relations between the two countries, but would come at the cost of Briznom's freedom.When her father's political archenemy invites them to the Autumn Feast, Vannie uncovers an evil scheme endangering the life of someone close to her. Personal enmity comes to a dangerous head as Vannie struggles to expose the corruption and stop the alliance. Time is running out. Events are becoming too big for her to handle. Will Sir Roland's son help or will things finally spiral out of control?A tale of treachery and political intrigue in a turbulent time, Espionage is a companion novel that sets the stage for Crannig Castle, the final installment of the Time Captives trilogy.

The New Spymasters: Inside Espionage from the Cold War to Global Terror

Covering the lives and achievements of five English intelligence officers involved in wars at home and abroad between 1870 and 1918, this exceptionally researched book offers an insight into spying in the age of Victoria. Including material from little-known sources such as memoirs, old biographies and information from M15 and the police history archives, this book is a more detailed sequel to Wade's earlier work, Spies in the Empire. The book examines the social and political context of Victorian spying and the role of intelligence in the Anglo-Boer wars as well as case studies on five intriguing characters: William Melville, Sir John Ardagh, Reginald Wingate and Rudolf Slatin, and William Robertson. Responding to a dearth of books covering this topic, Wade both presents fascinating biographies of some of the most significant figures in the history of intelligence as well as a snapshot of a time in which the experts and amateurs who would eventually become M15 struggled against bias, denigration and confusion.

Drawing upon previously secret KGB records released exclusively to Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood reveals for the first time the riveting story of Soviet espionage's "golden age" in the United States, from the 1930s through the early cold war.

Spies and Lies by Alex Joske is a ground-breaking exposé of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present and future. Mere years ago, Western governments chose to cooperate with China in the hope that it would liberalize, setting aside concerns about human rights abuses, totalitarian ambitions and espionage. But the axiom of China's 'peaceful rise' has been fundamentally challenged by the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian behavior under Xi Jinping. How did we get it wrong for so long? Spies and Lies pierces the Ministry of State Security's walls of secrecy and reveals how agents of the Chinese Communist Party have spent decades manipulating the West's attitudes - from an Australian prime minister to the US Congress, prominent think tanks and the FBI - about China's rise. Through interviews with defectors and intelligence officers, classified Chinese intelligence documents and original investigations, the book unmasks dozens of active Chinese intelligence officers along with global MSS fronts, including travel agencies, writers associations, publishing houses, alumni associations, newspapers, a Buddhist temple, a record company and charities. Spies and Lies is an extraordinary insight into the most successful influence operation in history - one which has fooled the West for years - and is indispensable reading.

9780297850953. Very good condition. Hard cover. Pages: 352. 352 p. In his new book Hillel Halkin brings his wonderful storytelling abilities to another fascinating place and time, the village of Zichron in Palestine in 1917. What everyone in the village agrees is that four members of an anti-Ottoman spy ring were betrayed and subsequently killed, one by her own hand to avoid torture. At the time it was recounted that four of the women in the village were each seen laughing and jeering the night of the betrayal, and that each subsequently died an unnatural death. But was it true? And if so, what connection was there between the women and the spy ring? Halkin scours the artifacts of the village, its ruined homes and ancient residents to piece together the events of nearly 90 years earlier which to this day are the defining legend of the town. Against a backdrop of cypress trees and vine-covered mountains, limestone cliffs and collapsing barns, a hilltop village seemingly of the Languedoc or Provence nestled among vineyards and olive trees, Halkin tells a tale not of the Western Mediterranean, full of blithe romance, but of its Eastern shore. For this is Palestine, and nothing is quite as it seems. Halkin pursues the story of espionage and British gold, of betrayal and deception, of supernatural retribution, of Jews and Arabs living alongside one another in the first half of the twentieth century. It's a journey into the past that shows an alternate future that might have been. It is also, for Halkin, a journey to discover once and for all the story of his home.

In a page-turning narrative that reads like a thriller, an award-winning journalist exposes the troubling truth behind the world's first act of nuclear terrorism: the fatal poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko by a rare radioactive isotope. In a page-turning narrative that reads like a thriller, an award-winning journalist exposes the troubling truth behind the world's first act of nuclear terrorism. On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko sipped tea in London's Millennium Hotel. Hours later the Russian emigre and former intelligence officer, who was sharply critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, fell ill and within days was rushed to the hospital. Fatally poisoned by a rare radioactive isotope slipped into his drink, Litvinenko issued a dramatic deathbed statement accusing Putin himself of engineering his murder. Alan S. Cowell, then London Bureau Chief of the New York Times, who covered the story from its inception, has written the definitive story of this assassination and of the profound international implications of this first act of nuclear terrorism. Who was Alexander Litvinenko? What had happened in Russia since the end of the cold war to make his life there untenable and in severe jeopardy even in England, the country that had granted him asylum? And how did he really die? The life of Alexander Litvinenko provides a riveting narrative in its own right, culminating in an event that rang alarm bells among western governments at the ease with which radioactive materials were deployed in a major Western capital to commit a unique crime. But it also evokes a wide range of other issues: Russia's lurch to authoritarianism, the return of the KGB to the Kremlin, the perils of a new cold war driven by Russia's oil riches and Vladimir Putin's thirst for power. Cowell provides a remarkable and detailed reconstruction both of how Litvinenko died and of the issues surrounding his murder. Drawing onexclusive reporting from Britain, Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the United States, he traces in unprecedented detail the polonium trail leading from Russia's closed nuclear cities through Moscow and Hamburg to the Millenium Hotel in central London. He provides the most detailed step-by-step explanation of how and where polonium was found; how the assassins tried on several occasions to kill Litvinenko; and how they bungled a conspiracy that may have had more targets than Litvinenko himself. With a colorful cast that includes the tycoons, spies, and killers who surrounded Litvinenko in the roller-coaster Russia of the 1990s, as well as the emigres who flocked to London in such numbers that the British capital earned the sobriquet Londongrad, this book lays out the events that allowed an accused killer to escape prosecution in a delicate diplomatic minuet that helped save face for the authorities in London and Moscow. A masterful work of investigative reporting, The Terminal Spy offers unprecedented insight into one of the most chilling true stories of our time.

This is a Pre-Owned book. All our books are in Good or better condition. Format: Paperback Author: Philip Taubman ISBN10: 0684857006 ISBN13: 9780684857008 In a brief period of explosive, top-secret innovation during the 1950s, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and government officials rewrote the book on airplane design and led the nation into outer space. Led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, they invented the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and the first reconnaissance satellites that revolutionized spying, proved that the missile gap was a myth, and protected the United States from Soviet surprise nuclear attack. They also made possible the space-based mapping, communications, and targeting systems used in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq.VeteranNew York Timesreporter and editor Philip Taubman interviewed dozens of participants and mined thousands of previously classified documents to tell this hidden, far-reaching story. He reconstructs the crucial meetings, conversations, and decisions that inspired and guided the development of the spy plane and satellite projects during one of the most perilous periods in our history, a time when, as President Eisenhower said, the world seemed to be 'racing toward catastrophe.'This is the story of these secret heroes, told in full for the first time.

This is a Pre-Owned book. All our books are in Good or better condition. Format: Hardcover Author: Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew ISBN10: 1891620088 ISBN13: 9781891620089 NO ESPIONAGE MISSIONS have been kept more secret than those involving American submarines. Only presidents and a select few have known the truth about the submarines that have for decades silently roamed the depths in a dangerous battle for information and advantage. Even the families of the men on board had no idea what their husbands, sons and brothers were doing, and anyone who went looking for the truth behind these mysterious missions found only a veil of silence. Americas submarine espionage remained one of the last great secrets. lt;P gt;Now, after six years of research, veteran investigative journalist Sherry Sontag and award-winning New York Times reporter Christopher Drew finally reveal the exciting, epic story of adventure, ingenuity, courage and disaster beneath the sea. Blind Mans Bluff shows for the first time how the Navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. Sontag and Drew unveil new evidence that the Navys own negligence might have been responsible for the loss of the USS Scorpion, a submarine that disappeared, all hands lost, thirty years ago. They disclose for the first time details of the bitter war between the CIA and the Navy and how it threatened to sabotage one of Americas most important undersea missions. They tell the complete story of the audacious attempt to steal a Soviet submarine with the help of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and how it was doomed from the start. And Sontag and Drew reveal how the Navy used the comforting notion of deep sea rescue vehicles to hide operations that were more James Bond than Jacques Cousteau. lt;P gt;Blind Mans Bluff contains anunforgettable array of characters, including the spy who brilliantly guided Americas undersea cable tapping on the basis of childhood memories of the Mississippi River; the cowboy sub commander who brazenly outraced torpedoes and could