Espionage Novels

[A Cousin]

I happened on this article by Stella Rimington, the former DG of MI-5, about her upcoming espionage novel Rip Tide in which she talks about the need for "fiction to tell the truth about espionage."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books...spies.html

To while away the time before S10 airs, I have been reading le Carre, beginning with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and moving on to the Karla trilogy.

In her article, Rimington brings up several novelists: William Le Queux, Graham Greene, Erskin Childers, John Buchan, Somerset Maugham, and Frederick Forsyth. Of course, there are others. I though it would be nice to have a thread where we can talk about all of them. If you have read, or are reading, an espionage novel, I'd like to hear what you have to say about it.

I would also like to hear what you might have to say about the truth in fictional espionage. Does telling the truth take the fun out of it? There is a poll to that end.