I haven’t read nearly as much as Randall, or even the great Mr. Of these, not all are pure spy fiction, but his site is a great resource and it has helped me find many great books. He currently gives 149 of them a grade of A or better. Randall Masteller’s brilliant site, Spy Guys + Gals, currently lists nearly 2,000 different spy series, from many hundreds of authors. They deserve a place here, but they are better known for their non-spy work and fall here behind some who devoted their entire canon to espionage.Īre there 125 spy authors worth the trouble? There are authors here (Philip Kerr and Ross Thomas to name two) who perform well but would be much higher for their overall body of work.
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But, generally, if you published a full series at a high level, you’re going to rank higher than someone who turned their hand to a couple of spy books. In compiling my top spy author rankings, I have tried to judge people based on a body of work, but those with a few great works stand shoulder to shoulder with people who churned out far more. (Nearly) everyone here has some of these attributes. I like great writing, characters you care about, snappy dialogue, and a moody sense of time and space as well as plots that twist and turn, that surprise and shock. The main focus is the Cold War, but it also includes a lot of wartime espionage and a very small flicker of American blockbuster fiction, which my friend David Craggs refers to as “the Kalashnikov kids”.Īs you will see, my taste leans heavily towards the more cerebral spies (I’ve never read Brad Thor, Lee Child, or Mark Greaney), but I’m also a fan of excitement, suspense, and tension. You will find here, full-time spy novelists, detective writers who dabble in spy fiction on the side, literary authors who have tried their hands, career intelligence officers, cerebral leading men and women, action man adventure thrillers with a spying element, some classics of the genre and a few one-hit wonders.
Spy fiction is a broad church, of course.
The idea is to introduce some of you to authors you may not be familiar with and to provoke a discussion about their relative merits. This list has been a long while in gestation and brings together everything I know and love about spy fiction. This is my third such list hereafter ranking the John le Carre novels and the James Bond films (coming soon.) With Spybrary Founder Shane Whaley‘s permission, I’m going to commence a new list : a countdown of my top 125 spy authors. He interviews Prime Ministers and Presidents for a living, so please consider sharing this feature with friends and peers. We are very lucky that Tim is giving up his time to write this for us. Use it for reference, price checking, reviews, etc and try and buy locally or at least independently if you can.Ĥ. I am using Amazon links on this page because Spybrary is a global community.
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Tim welcomes and encourages constructive debate and discussion.Ģ– I will update this blog post as often as I can but definitely weekly, sadly that East German desk is rammed at the moment, what with Dicky Cruyer never writing his own reports but it pays for my spy books.ģ– Please please if you can buy any of the spy books listed directly from an independent bookstore/shop that would be epic. Do come and share your views in our friendly Spybrary community. We hope this feature will help you discover new spy novels or revisit the work of spy authors of yesteryear. Buckle up and get that credit card ready as Tim takes us on a journey highlighting and showcasing his top spy authors.īefore we dive in, four items for you to consider.ġ – We are not all going to agree with Tim's top spy authors and that is fine. I had no idea that there was such a wide universe in the spy book genre with so many talented spy authors that I had yet to discover. I worshipped at the altar of Len Deighton, John le Carre, and Ian Fleming. I blush when I think back to the early days of the Spybrary project. You can watch the discussion below or listen in via your podcast app. Joining us were Professor Penny Fielding, author and critic Jeremy Duns, spy blogger Matthew Bradford, and John le Carre book collector Steven Ritterman to run the rule over Tim's pick of the best spy writers.
Tim revealed more about his method and criteria for selecting this monster list of spy authors. A panel to discuss Tim's list of the best spy writers. UPDATE – On August 7th, we hosted our first ever live episode of Spybrary. Do we have a treat in store for you spy book fans! Many of you will know Tim Shipman as the Chief Political Commentator at the Sunday Times or maybe you know him as the author of All Out War? But did you know that Tim is also a huge fan of spy books and boasts his own very impressive Spybrary? In this exclusive Spybrary feature Tim is going to share with us his top 125 spy authors ranked!
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