The reach and influence of Vladimir Putin is breathtaking. In A Very Expensive Poison, writer Lucy Prebble details and explores the assassination of Russian Defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and surmises that Mr Putin most probably authorised the hit. If it weren’t based on a real incident, A Very Expensive Poison may simply…
There is a grand tradition of former spies going on to write spy novels – Ian Fleming and John Le Carre are probably two of the best known. But there are also authors like Stella Rimington (most recently – The Devil’s Bargain), Joe Weisberg (An Ordinary Spy and also The Americans TV series) and Jack…
There cannot be a better metaphor for the Cold War than the game of chess. But more than the metaphor, of course, was the very real rivalry between the West and Russia across the chess board. Both of these aspects are used to great effect by Patrick Worrall in his Cold War debut The Partisan….
Stella Rimington, former head of MI5, is probably now as well known for her series of espionage thrillers featuring English agent Liz Carlysle. The Devil’s Bargain is well within the spy genre but breaks out some new characters. It is currently a stand alone but is in some ways an origin story for a new…
Director John Madden is a bit of an enigma. The Englishman is of course best known as the director of Shakespeare in Love. He’s also done some fine work in films like Proof (2005), The Debt (2010) and Miss Sloane (2016). But he also has Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Killshot on his resume. His new…
Legendary novelist John Le Carré died in 2020 leaving behind a legacy of twenty-seven novels that both set the template and often redefined the spy novel. Silverview, his final book, unpublished at the time of his death, has now been released and shows his ability and skills undiminished. Silverview is a small gem of a…
The truth, they say, can be stranger than fiction. In Lydia Dean Pilcher’s A Call to Spy, the true story of remarkable women spies might not be all that strange, but it is powerful. Virginia Hall is sometimes touted as America’s first woman spy. While the title might not be entirely accurate, she was one…
Jackie Chan is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. He’s known for his energetic and carefully choreographed fight scenes and for doing his own, often dangerous, stunts. But Hollywood hasn’t quite known how to handle him properly. Chan has found himself stuck in a number of formulaic lightweight action comedies like the…
Post 9-11 it’s hard to think that there hasn’t been speculation about the next shock and awe campaign. I bet nobody thought there’d be an Australian, rough and tumble ex-commercial pilot, come spy at the centre of it all. The theory that Michael McGuire proposes in his thriller Flight Risk is, however, just believable enough…
Director Francis Lawrence re-teams with star Jennifer Lawrence (no relation) for Red Sparrow. But where their previous success were in the YA-friendly Hunger Games trilogy, this film is a far darker – and more adult – proposition. Lawrence (the director) has given his lead actor an intricately crafted spy thriller in which to strut her…
