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Spy Stories 2/10/2015 7:41:43 AM
This post originally appeared on thunderalleybcp.com
Spy stories are popular for a reason.
Whether real life tales or pure invention, spy stories, by their nature, have built-in suspense. The secretive and deceptive nature of espionage creates drama before a spy has even entered a hostile environment. With “the fate of the free world” so often at stake, spy stories can ramp up adrenaline and action or surround the reader in a slowly tightening web of inevitable dread.
Spy stories are versatile. They can encompass any number of situations, settings and missions. And while a spy story has no problem standing on its own, it also blends well with other types of plots.
Here are a few memorable spy stories. Including a couple that readers might not obviously tag as such.
The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum
Ludlum was one of the titans of modern spy fiction. Though his latter books could be uneven, his signature creation, Jason Bourne, has carved out an enduring legacy. The Bourne Identity, the character’s introductory adventure, is practically the template of a modern spy novel. You have a single operative, compromised by an issue beyond his control (memory loss), fighting against a vast, well-funded and -armed organization hunting him down. You add in an attractive love interest who meets the hero under dire circumstances in a Swiss hotel, wild swings across the globe and a shadowy conspiracy. Bourne succeeds because of its expert mix of spy novel elements, spiked with a memorable lead character and a love interest who’s smart and resourceful, a vital part of the hero’s survival, not a dead weight or mere pawn to be exploited by the villains. This quintessential Cold War tale successfully translated into a modern film franchise that took the novel’s DNA and spun it in some creative directions.
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
James Bond has become the world’s favorite fictional spy thanks to a wildly successful film series that’s lasted through six decades and several recasts. But many movie fans overlook the book series that spawned the films. Casino Royale introduced Bond fully realized from the outset. Fleming didn’t shy away from the more brutal aspects of espionage work, but also captured how much of a business it could be. There were rules and conventions. A spy might try to get around them, but he always had to be aware of them. If the movie version of Bond has a reputation for being un-PC, he’s a bleeding heart feminist compared to the original iteration. It might be more accurate to label Fleming’s ‘50s-spawned creation as “pre-feminist.” Casino Royale is a much more existential experience than one might expect, but it’s vital and compelling, even almost 70 years after its initial publication.
The Odessa File – Frederick Forsyth
Post-World War II Europe in the ‘50s and ‘60s provided fertile soil for spy fiction. With the Iron Curtain providing an ideological divide and the hidden (or not-so-hidden) remnants of Nazi sympathy, there was a lot to underpin a narrative and spark writers’ imaginations. With The Odessa File, Forsyth tapped into the ambivalent attitudes in Germany 20 years after the war. There was a generational divide, with younger Germans especially eager to distance themselves from an ideology of hatred. German societal mechanisms struggled with reconciling a need to atone with a desire to move forward, while often turning a blind eye to the surviving pockets of Nazi influence. Odessa mixed some intense psychological elements with bursts of action and used it to explore the identity of a scarred nation at a crossroads. Dishing up insight to go along with the action? Now that’s a great spy trick.
The Spymistress – Jennifer Chiaverini
Truth can be stranger than fiction. Spymistress unfolds a tale inspired by the true story of a Richmond spinster from a wealthy family who deplored the Confederate secession of Virginia in the Civil War. Elizabeth Van Lew trod a perilous line, putting on a show of Confederate support while using her family’s connections to help the Union cause. Often at great peril to her own safety, Elizabeth cared for captured Union soldiers, sheltered fugitives and enlisted Union sympathizers to her cause. The rupture in Elizabeth’s own family mirrored countless such ideological breaks in the Civil War and increased the potential danger. Chiaverini doesn’t shy away from dramatizing some of the more horrific aspects of makeshift war prisons and the slow choking of a city under siege. It’s a careful blend of spy and war stories, a natural pairing.
Burn Factor – Kyle Mills
Mills crafts some very modern spy thrillers. Burn Factor is an excellent example. It delves into the world of computers and how one intelligent computer analyst drops into a deadly conspiracy before ever having left her desk. Mills does a nice job of showing how his heroine figures out the rules of survival when faced with a brutal, shadowy opponent that has little difficulty in trailing her wherever she runs. Mills crafts a canny political story that draws in elements of the reader’s everyday world. The potential horror of the story hits harder because of those realistic, grounding elements.
The Baroque Cycle – Neal Stephenson
Stephenson’s epic trilogy (Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World) covers a lot of narrative ground. Over thousands of pages, The Baroque Cycle is historical drama, medical mystery, war chronicle, scientific contemplation, exotic adventure story and, yes, a spy thriller. Resourceful heroine Eliza goes from courtesan enslavement in the Middle East to a life as a respected Countess in France. Through it all she plays a subtle spy game. She has friends on both sides of the English/French divide and readers aren’t always entirely sure where Eliza’s allegiances lie. Encrypted letters, shadowy meetings and other hallmarks of spy fiction propel Eliza’s story throughout the three volumes. As Eliza conquers the dawn of the modern world of finance, she proves to be a pivotal figure in the intricate web that Stephenson weaves. It’s a clever way to work a spy strand into this dense, sprawling work.
The Spies of Warsaw – Alan Furst
Furst’s World War II-set novels put economy and realism over splashy spy action. The War and the slowly encroaching political menace surround Furst’s characters with a suffocating inevitability. His protagonists find themselves in positions where they can make a difference, at risk to their own lives, or do nothing and be complicit in the crimes afflicting society. Warsaw is one of Furst’s more memorable creations, featuring Mercier, a French diplomat in Warsaw who risks international incident to leverage his consular role in the struggle against the encroaching Nazi menace. Mercier is one of Furst’s more striking characters, an emotionally damaged man with a strong sense of morality that’s roused by the atrocities around him in the run-up to war. It’s hard to go wrong with Furst’s novels (his various Paris-set books are first rate), but Warsaw is a perfect example of the powerful subtlety of Furst’s approach to spy drama.
Noble House – James Clavell
Clavell’s Asian Quarter saga novels are sprawling affairs that cover a lot of stylistic territory. The Cold War-set Noble House spins an intricate spy sub-plot that surrounds its lead characters almost without their realizing it. The Hong Kong setting is rather apt for a spy plot pitting British Capitalists against Chinese Communists. Clavell found clever ways to intersect the spy plot with the main family and business dramas that dominate Noble House. It’s a nice example of how a spy plot can be fused into other genre fiction, as an example of the array of stories that play out among a large, diverse cast.
Double Cross – Ben Macintyre
Macintyre’s history of the ring of double agents run by Great Britain who had a major impact on World War II sometimes reads like spy fiction. That the events recounted in Double Cross actually happened makes them all the more remarkable. Macintyre relates how several “ordinary” people found themselves tapped as spies by Nazi Germany and the various ways they made their way into the service of British Intelligence to work against their German masters. Readers might scoff at the various near-misses, lucky breaks and unbelievable coincidences, had they not actually all happened. Recounting how a few of these agents were instrumental in helping the Allies pull off the D-Day invasion and in keeping Germany off guard before, during and after crucial operations is fascinating history and a compelling spy saga.
Phoenix Rising – Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
The beginning of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series gives the spy adventure a Steampunk makeover. In an alternate version of late 19th Century Britain, the Ministry handles those issues that the general public shouldn’t hear about. Reluctant partners Eliza and Wellington find themselves drawn into the plans of a dangerous secret society. Meanwhile, they’re dogged by the ploys of a dangerous, high ranking government official, a criminal organization running its own long game and a shadowy society of anarchists with a particular interest in Wellington. It’s a fun twist on spy sagas, packed with imagination, outlandish gadgets and colorful characters. Phoenix is another great example of how smoothly the spy story melds with other genres.
