Here are 7 books that A Spy Alone fans have personally recommended if you like
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Michael Frost Beckner of SPY GAME screenwriting fame (memorably played by R.Redford & B.Pitt) has unleashed upon us another spellbinder -- actually, a series of spellbinders -- with his new work KALEIDOSCOPE. The first episode is titled "July 4th and true to Beckner’s previous works, this new series portends to be a wildly exciting dive down a rabbit hole replete with boobytraps, assassins, and lots of deception.
It is a (relatively) short but tantalizing novella that scratches out the history of a spy family as intriguing as Charles McCarry’s Christophers but perhaps more treacherous than the House of Borgia. The Kingston family harbors many secrets, has covers within covers, and knows the lies to answer any question.
It is the beginning of a twisted journey and ropes of sand, a wilderness of mirrors, the dancing lights, broken mirrors, and twisting figures of a kaleidoscope await the reader in…
"KALEIDOSCOPE does for the CIA what THE SOPRANOS did for the mob." MICHAEL APTED, Academy Award nominated film director of COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, ENIGMA
With his critically acclaimed and award-winning Muir's Gambit, Bishop's Endgame, and Aiken in Check, novelist and screenwriter Michael Frost Beckner thrilled espionage fans worldwide with a return to his classic Robert Redford/Brad Pitt movie Spy Game.
Prepare yourself for Michael Frost Beckner's boldest experiment in espionage as Kaleidoscope expands the Spy Game universe with a multi-part saga of three generations of Kingstons—a CIA family trapped in the web of the Agency's…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
For the record, I’m not a spy. I’m a Lithuanian-American writer who had a dickens of a time validating WWII-era family papers about the Soviet occupation of Lithuania. I don’t speak Lithuanian, so I relied on English-language sources where Lithuania was sometimes little more than a footnote. As I learned more about the Soviet occupation and life after independence, I became convinced that it’s almost impossible to talk about Lithuania without considering the geopolitical tension that comes with having Russia as a neighbor. This grew into a love of spycraft, political strategy, history, international tensions, Lithuania, Eastern Europe, Russia… and pierogis.
What do you get when you combine a disgruntled employee, alligators, organizational politics, and espionage? A compelling look into the culture of the CIA.
Strong characters lead this hunt for a mole within the CIA. Two of the most interesting are women who are radically different from each other. One is rooted organizational politics. The other is determined to save the organization by finding a mole and righting a wrong.
It’s both entertaining and insightful. McCloskey takes a strategic and intellectual approach to the story, which is, for me, refreshing.
A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. When the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, operational chief Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat for the disaster and run out of the service. Months later, Sam appears at Procter's doorstep with an explosive secret: there is a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.
As Procter and Sam investigate, they arrive at a shortlist of suspects made up of both Procter's closest friends and fiercest enemies. The hunt requires Procter to dredge up her…
Since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of time. I’ve spent hours studying the physics of time as a hobby, and to this day, as an adult, that fascination continues. Whenever the topic of time arises in conversation, I will be the first to contribute my understanding of this mystery that has baffled humankind since the beginning of...well, time.
This book did something amazing to me. I was mesmerized by Finney’s narrative of the past, which negated the method of self-hypnosis he used to bring the protagonist from the future to the past, so it no longer seemed far-fetched.
The narrative recreation of the late 19th century captivated my imagination, enabling me to feel the protagonist’s awe at seeing, feeling, and smelling the past as actual reality. Isn’t this every writer’s dream?
Si Morley is bored with his job as a commercial illustrator and his social life doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So, when he is approached by an affable ex-football star and told that he is just what the government is looking for to take part in a top-secret programme, he doesn't hesitate for too long. And so one day Si steps out of his twentieth-century, New York apartment and finds himself back in January 1882. There are no cars, no planes, no computers, no television and the word 'nuclear' appears in no dictionaries. For Si, it's very like Eden,…
In 1913, a 15-year-old pregnant girl was found dead of apparent suicide. Dr. James Wilson, a new graduate and the first doctor ever to start a practice in this rural town, feels guilty over her death because of his delayed intervention.
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
Charles Beaumont was close friends with Richard Matheson, and they worked together on such projects as the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films and Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone. Beaumont’s stories are as rich and varied as Matheson’s, with delightfully witty language and fantastic plot twists. If you love classic Matheson short stories like “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and “Death Ship,” you’re bound to love Beaumont.
That Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone is only natural: for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. So take one uneasy step and fall headlong into his world: a world where lions stalk the plains, classics cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five stories that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
The Ritual of Illusion is a brilliant short novel by Richard Christian Matheson (Richard Matheson’s son). Written entirely in dialogue from the points of view of numerous different witnesses, it tells the story of Hollywood star Sephanie Vamore’s strange rise and bizarre fall. This is Sunset Boulevard Matheson-style…another generation of Matheson, that is.
A sinister love letter to the movies, acclaimed author Richard Christian Matheson’s The Ritual of Illusion is a novella of modern fear about where stars truly come from. Oscar-winning film siren, Sephanie Vamore, meteors to iconic fame … but like cinema itself, nothing is as it appears. The fifty witnesses to her mythic ascent and bizarre fate are film royalty … many based on Hollywood glitterati; directors, stars, agents, studio heads, screenwriters, lovers, producers.
Widescreen with lies and revelation, Vamore’s story is told Rashomon-style with dialogue alone—each hypnotic character adding poignant or lurid details to the shocking truth of what…
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
If someone asked me to name the greatest American horror story writer of the second half of the twentieth century, I would say “Richard Matheson” without hesitation. But if I were allowed two names, the other—equally without hesitation—would be Dennis Etchison, a writer who resembles Matheson in his economy of language, Southern California settings, and intense, twisty plots. His stories are as dark and disturbing as Matheson’s—and that’s really saying something.
In this second printing, Cycatrix Press is proud to bring the highly acclaimed collection Dennis Etchison's It Only Comes Out at Night, previously only available as a limited-edition hardcover (out of print) from Centipede Press to an affordable trade paperback with the addition of previously uncollected fiction, new illustrations, and unpublished appreciations by fellow authors.
More about It Only Comes Out at Night: Few writers of horror fiction are held in such high regard as Dennis Etchison. This career retrospective takes his best fiction, culled from nearly fifty years in the field.
Dennis Etchison (1943-2019) was an American writer and…
Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, and Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977. Both began a historic journey with unique 'time capsules' on board intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record 12-inch gold-plated disk…
I love Stephen King. He is easy to read and delves deep into his characters.
This being one of his shorter entries, really made you think. I reflected after each time I put the book down, wondering if I would make the same sort of choices. This was heartfelt and interesting, even if the typical King elements were there making parts hard to read.
'A resonant novella set in one of King's signature locales: the small town of Castle Rock, Maine' Washington Post
The small town of CASTLE ROCK, MAINE has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told...until now.
There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.
