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A Small Town in Germany

John le Carre · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Clear and Present Danger

Tom Clancy · 760 pages

The sudden and surprising assassination of three American officials in Colombia. Many people in many places, moving off on missions they all mistakenly thought they understood. The future was too fearful for contemplation, and beyond the expected finish lines were things that, once decided, were better left unseen.

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueDense Prose
❤️

The Bourne Supremacy

Robert Ludlum · 679 pages

EspionagePolitical IntrigueDialogue-HeavyCold War Era
❤️

The Tears of Autumn

Charles McCarry · 276 pages

Influential secret agent Paul Christopher pursues a dangerous theory about the assassination of President Kennedy, an investigation that threatens American foreign policy.

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
❤️

Topaz

Leon Uris · 352 pages

On the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis, American and French intelligence agents are plunged into a maze of Cold War intrigue In Paris, 1962, French intelligence chief André Devereaux and NATO intelligence chief Michael Nordstrom have uncovered Soviet plans to ship nuclear arms to Cuba. But when Devereaux reports his findings and nobody acts—and he is targeted in an assassination attempt—he soon re

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
❤️

The Company

Robert Littell · 894 pages

From the back cover: Welcome to the Company - better known as the CIA to outsiders. With a sharp eye for the pathos and absurdity of the spy game, internationally renowned novelist Robert Littell seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic saga that races across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of the 1950s, the Soviet invasion

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
❤️

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Stieg Larsson · 602 pages

> Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have t

EspionagePolitical IntrigueDense ProseSlow-Paced
❤️

36 Yalta Boulevard

Olen Steinhauer · 320 pages

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
🙂

London Match

Len Deighton · 387 pages

Ce roman fait suite à ##Le réseau Brahms## et à ##Mexico poker## en formant une trilogie. La force de cette sombre histoire d'espionnage réside surtout dans la tentation d'approfondir les états d'âme des principaux protagonistes. Sans reprendre la trilogie de Smiley de John Le Carré, certaines ressemblances dans l'intrigue n'empêcheront pas les amateurs de cette formule de lire avec plaisir ces tr

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
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The Human Factor

Graham Greene · 326 pages

"In the low-key but treacherous domain of "the firm," Maurice Castle performs routine intelligence duties that are less than world-shattering. Then a new security chief, "a broom," is appointed. As he sweeps through the department, he uncovers a leak, a systematic betrayal involving the major powers in South Africa. Castle's associate, Davis, had access to the files in question and his drinking, g

Cold War EraEspionageSlow-PacedThriller
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Gorky Park

Martin Cruz Smith · 384 pages

A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI and New York police as he pursues a rich, ruthless, and well-connected American fu

Cold War EraSlow-PacedEspionageDense Prose
🙂

The Moscow Club

Joseph Finder · 539 pages

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
🙂

Istanbul Passage

Joseph Kanon

"From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Stardust, The Good German, and Los Alamos--a gripping tale of an American undercover agent in 1945 Istanbul who descends into the murky cat-and-mouse world of compromise and betrayal that will come to define the entire post-war era. A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American b

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
🙂

Declare

Tim Powers · 528 pages

As a young double agent infiltrating the Soviet spy network in Nazi-occupied Paris, Andrew Hale finds himself caught up in a secret, even more ruthless war. Two decades later, in 1963, he will be forced to confront again the nightmarethat has haunted his adult life: a lethal unfinished operation code-named Declare. From the corridors of Whitehall to the Arabian desert, from post-war Berlin to the

Cold War EraEspionageDense ProseThriller
🙂

From Russia With Love

Ian Fleming · 258 pages

James Bond is marked for death by the Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH in Ian Fleming’s masterful spy thriller, and the novel that President John F. Kennedy named one of his favourite books of all time. SMERSH stands for ‘Death to Spies’ and there’s no secret agent they’d like to disgrace and destroy more than 007, James Bond. But ensnaring the British Secret Service’s most lethal opera

Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
🙂

The Fourth Protocol

Frederick Forsyth · 448 pages

Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastati

Cold War EraEspionageThrillerPolitical Intrigue
🙂

The Manchurian Candidate

Richard Condon · 320 pages

Sgt Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator...and the perfect assassin. Brainwashed during his time as a POW he is a 'sleeper', a living weapon to be triggered by a secret signal. He will act without question, no matter what order he is made to

Cold War EraPolitical IntrigueEspionageThriller
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Cold War EraEspionagePolitical IntrigueThriller
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The Untouchable

John Banville · 410 pages

(From the Hardcover edition) Twenty years after his "retirement," ex-spy Victor Maskell attempts to come to terms with what has happened to his life by embarking on his memoirs. This is the plot which fuels Banville's stunning new novel--a story that goes beyond the mere facts of espionage to penetrate the intricate heart of the spy.

Cold War EraEspionageDense ProsePolitical Intrigue
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Under Western Eyes

Joseph Conrad · 341 pages

"First published in 1911, Under Western Eyes traces the experiences of Razumov, a young Russian student of philosophy who is uninvolved in politics or protest. Against his will he finds himself caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing directed against the Tsarist authorities. He is pulled in different directions - by his conscience and his ambitions, by powerful opposed political forces,

EspionagePolitical IntrigueSlow-PacedDense Prose
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Edge of Eternity

Ken Follett · 1,120 pages

Cold War EraPolitical IntrigueEspionageDense Prose
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The Lacuna

Barbara Kingsolver · 528 pages

In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico-from a coastal

Cold War EraSlow-PacedDense ProsePolitical Intrigue
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The Dogs of Riga

Henning Mankell · 336 pages

In 1991, two corpses, frozen together, have been washed ashore on the remote Swedish coastline. Inspector Wallander travels to the politically unsettled Latvia to attempt to solve the mystery.

Cold War EraSlow-PacedEspionageThriller
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Prelude to Foundation

Isaac Asimov · 434 pages

Voici une occasion tant pour ceux qui ont lu les cinq volumes du cycle ##Fondation## d'en constater la prȟistoire, que pour ceux qui ne les ont pas lus d'inaugurer la lecture d'un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la science-fiction contemporaine. [SDM].

Political IntrigueDialogue-HeavySlow-PacedDense Prose
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The Mote in God's Eye

Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle · 560 pages

Science fiction classic about the rise, fall and subsequent rise of a civilization where the peak catastrophe is known as the "crazy eddy point". Introduces the concept of frictionless toilets that don't have any water in them but I suspect the authors didn't think it all the way through - I don't recall a negative air pressure that would keep odours in their rightfull place. Nevertheless a fascin

Slow-PacedDense ProsePolitical IntrigueDialogue-Heavy
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