I’m a bestselling spy writer – these are my top 8 espionage authors | Books | Entertainment

The headlines this summer are full of war, political strife, underhand dealings and power grabs. So it’s reassuring to read a really good spy novel and remind ourselves it’s all par for the course. Skulduggery has always existed at the highest levels and very entertaining it can be too, in fiction at least. Spy fiction is having a golden moment with some of the best writers turning their hands to the genre. The sheer variety of authors, stories, settings and plots – from the rip-roaring and action-heavy to the slow-moving and cerebral.

My new book, Solitary Agents, is out now and this weekend is the amazing Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, one of the world’s most famous celebrations of the genre. So to celebrate, here are eight spy authors I love to read and why they stand out in a crowded field. From stone-cold classics to up-to-the-minute thrillers, there’s a little something for everybody here.

David Goodman’s novels include A Reluctant Spy, his multi-award-winning debut, and Solitary Agents, out now in hardback, eBook and audio, both from Headline. His debut science fiction novel, Shards of Starlight, writing as David W Goodman, is out from Solaris Books in Autumn 2027

When it comes to breakneck pace, strong plot hooks and putting the reader firmly in the shoes of intelligence officers, it’s hard to beat ‘the new queen of spy fiction’ Ava Glass, whose Emma Makepeace novels are a study in well-balanced character and action. As a former crime reporter and then UK civil servant working in counter-terror communications, Ava has worked with the real operators and services that protect the UK, often working with people whose real names she never learned. She brings all of that experience to novels like The Chase, The Traitor and The Trap and it shows.

My tastes in spy fiction are broad, from the ‘exploding helicopters’ end of the spectrum right through to the slower paced, more realistic stories. Charles Cumming’s novels, particularly his earlier ones like A Spy By Nature and A Foreign Country, are definitely in the slower-moving category, but that doesn’t make them any less riveting. You wouldn’t think it’s possible to make someone going through a hotel room bin incredibly tense, but Cumming does it with flair, as his characters piece together conspiracies and leads, often off-the-books and unofficially, to root out traitors, moles and double-dealers. These books are compelling modern spy fiction at its best.

Where to start with the author many still see as the best in the business, even more than half a decade after his death? Whether you consider the slim, tense mastery of his breakout debut novel The Spy Who Came In From The Cold or the sweeping arc of the George Smiley novels, you’re in for a slow-moving, character-driven treat.

His later novels branched out into arms dealing, corporate malfeasance, and even back into the legacy of his Cold War novels, as the modern world reckoned with the long-term impact of Smiley’s activities. But for my money it’s the novels Le Carré wrote in the seventies and eighties that are his best and most well-observed work.

I first came across the author Nick Harkaway through his own work, written under a pen-name, because it turns out he’s actually Nick Cornwell, son of David Cornwell, AKA John Le Carré. And his complex, speculative writing stood very well on its own, including the gobsmacking novels GNOMON, Titanium Noir and Sleeper Beach.

But Harkaway has also recently started writing books set in the world of his father’s novels, starting with Karla’s Choice, soon to be followed by The Taper Man. These ‘in-between’ novels are written in the gaps between the Le Carré originals and they evoke those books beautifully, while still being very much Nick’s own work. Highly recommended.

Another Cold War writer with a huge body of work, Greene is probably best-known for The Quiet American, his devastating and evocative novel telling the story of a dissolute English journalist, a young CIA officer and the woman they both wish to possess. However, probably my favourite of his novels is Our Man In Havana, a deeply funny but paranoid slice of Caribbean espionage that follows Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in pre-revolutionary Cuba. He agrees to pass information to MI6 and creates a completely fictitious network of informants to do so. Things get a lot darker when the Cuban regime, the CIA and MI6 all begin to act on Wormold’s fantasies.

As an actual former clandestine officer for the CIA, I.S. Berry’s debut novel The Peacock and the Sparrow, set in Bahrain during the Arab Spring of 2011, is a masterclass in slow-burn tension and the real-world mechanisms of intelligence work. This novel is almost entirely about the characters and the manipulations of intelligence gathering, with Berry’s jaded field officer Shane Collins finding himself caught between the plans and betrayals of his masters and the love of a woman. It’s the kind of spy story where nobody is quite what they seem and everything has a horrible inevitability.

It’s tough to pick a top spot for a list like this, but David McCloskey comes very, very close. Another former CIA officer (though on the analyst, office-based side rather than out in the field), McCloskey’s recent run of work is exceptional, starting with his debut Damascus Station and most recently The Persian, just out in paperback.

What I love about his books is the incredibly memorable characters (a CIA station chief called Artemis Proctor is a particular favourite), the detailed espionage tradecraft and the real sense of place and time in each book, from pre-civil-war Syria to Putin’s Moscow and the alligator-ridden swamps of Florida. McCloskey is also one of the co-hosts of the excellent The Rest Is Classified podcast, which is an essential listen for anyone fascinated by real-world spies.

My number one spot, however, has to go to the novelist who got me back into reading spy books after many years away from the genre. From the moment I picked up Slow Horses, the first in the fantastic Slough House series, I knew I was reading something that was both very different and a little bit special. Herron’s building full of misfits brought a much-needed wry smile to the genre, served alongside excellent plotting and some of the best dialogue in the business. And Herron hasn’t stopped with this superb series – he’s also writing new standalone spy novels like The Secret Hours and there’s also the excellent Zoë Boehm thrillers to dive into as well. A superb novelist and, as I’ve discovered since joining the ranks of spy writers myself, a very nice guy in person.