Here are 100 books that The Eleventh Commandment fans have personally recommended if you like
The Eleventh Commandment.
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I consider myself a disruptor of sorts, both in my life and in the art I make (I’m an actor, too). So I am by nature drawn to novels that bend and reshape (and sometimes ignore altogether) the rules and conventions that are supposed to govern the novelist’s craft and lead me to experience the world—and often the art of writing fiction itself—in ways I have never experienced either before. The novels on my list do just that.
Not exactly literary fiction, I know. And it breaks none of the rules governing the novelist’s craft. And we all read it back when it came out, didn't we? Or saw the movie, there've been a couple of versions...
So why is it on my list, you ask?
The Day of the Jackal is quite simply the greatest thriller ever written, and should be read by anyone who writes fiction, literary or otherwise—and by the rest of us as well.
Think for a moment: We follow The Jackal’s relentless quest to corner and kill French President Charles DeGaulle for 380 pages, waiting with breath bated to see whether he will succeed even though we know before we ever open the cover of the book (if we know even the slightest bit of history) that DeGaulle was never assassinated—ever!—not by The Jackal and not by anyone in…
The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.
It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.
Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am an amateur historian, druid, and author of 11 books so far. I have a great passion for ancient history, particularly Ireland, Greece, Persia, and Egypt. I have been a student of Druidry since the mid-1990s and I have also had a passion for history and mythology since I received a children’s version of The Twelve Labours of Hercules when I was around 7 years old.
I read this book a long time ago and went back to it again as it is so revolutionary and quite startling for its time (1968). His theories were often laughed at, but he has been hugely vindicated by later discoveries. I think he was a very brave man to write this book, addressing one of the greatest mysteries of all—how we became civilized.
He must have known he would be vilified for producing such a book, but he did it anyway and in doing so unleashed a torrent of unconventional archaeologists and explorers of the past. So much has changed since this book came out, but it is still a seminal work that, IMO, should be read by anyone interested in the ancient past and the evolution from simple farmers into advanced societies.
The groundbreaking classic that introduced the theory that ancient Earth established contact with aliens.
Immediately recognized as a work of monumental importance, Chariots of the Gods endures as proof that Earth has been visited repeatedly by advanced aliens from other worlds. Here, Erich von Daniken examines ancient ruins, lost cities, spaceports, and a myriad of hard scientific facts that point to extraterrestrial intervention in human history. Most incredible of all, however, is von Daniken's theory that we are the descendants of these galactic pioneers-and he reveals the archeological discoveries that prove it...
Balakrishna Kamath has to his credit a 39-year-long service in one of India’s premier Intelligence agencies. His long service has taken him to many places and enabled him to gain considerable experience in handling challenging operations. The coveted national-level honors - The Indian Police Medal and President's Police Medal, he had received during his service, would indicate the distinction he has earned in his career. After his retirement, he has written two novels – The Velvet Gloves (November 2018) and The Ace of Shadows (March 2022). These novels dwelling on intelligence operations have been recently signed for adaptation into web series.
The book captivatingly provides more than a peek into the legendary secret service organization – Mossad and its secretly executed high-stake operations. What would stun anyone is the sheer bravery of the Mossad agents who carry out their life-threatening assignments with clockwork precision. They are also men of flesh and blood, only they have steel nerves. They are the guardians of the Israeli nation and they do it literally with their sweat and blood. The readers would certainly get to feel the heartbeat of these amazing men on their onerous duty. Cannot miss reading this book.
Mossad is universally recognised as the greatest intelligence service in the world. It is also the most enigmatic, shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy. Many of its enthralling feats are still unknown; most of its heroes remain unnamed.From the kidnapping of Eichmann in Argentina and the systematic tracking down of those responsible for the Munich massacre to lesser-known episodes of astonishing espionage, this extraordinary book describes the dramatic, largely secret history of Mossad and the Israeli intelligence community.Examining the covert operations, the targeted assassinations and the paramilitary activities within and outside Israel, Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal detail the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Balakrishna Kamath has to his credit a 39-year-long service in one of India’s premier Intelligence agencies. His long service has taken him to many places and enabled him to gain considerable experience in handling challenging operations. The coveted national-level honors - The Indian Police Medal and President's Police Medal, he had received during his service, would indicate the distinction he has earned in his career. After his retirement, he has written two novels – The Velvet Gloves (November 2018) and The Ace of Shadows (March 2022). These novels dwelling on intelligence operations have been recently signed for adaptation into web series.
Besides being an excellent thriller, the book provides an interesting insight into terrorism prevalent in the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. The storyline is refreshingly new and the characters are so close to reality. The hide-and-seek game played out by the Pakistani terrorists and the Indian counter-terror operatives can keep the readers glued to the book. The stirring narration about how secret operations are planned and executed at grave risk would leave the readers awe-struck. These operatives can’t fail as that might endanger the lives of the innocent citizens whom they are duty-bound to protect. A compelling read, indeed.
It is 1996. A fifteen-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba fidayeen crosses over to India from Pakistan. When officer Shekhar Singh of the Counter Terrorism Cell captures and interrogates him, he makes a startling revelation. The terror group has begun sending men to settle down in India in the guise of regular civilians. On the sly, they are to serve as outposts for its missions and destroy the country from within.
Stunned but not shaken, Shekhar and his bosses decide to take the fight to the enemy camp. Five Indian intelligence agents are planted in the LeT to…
I knew nothing about spies – except that James Bond preferred his martinis shaken, not stirred – until 2009, when federal agents hauled Jim and Nathan Nicholson into the federal courthouse I covered as an investigative reporter for The Oregonian newspaper. Since then, I’ve taken a deep dive into the real world of spies and spy catchers, producing The Spy’s Son and writing another cool spy case into Newsweek magazine. Now I’m hooked. But with apologies to 007, I prefer my martinis stirred.
This is a solemn, unflinching portal into the creepy, complicated life of former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who picked his nation’s pockets of secrets from 1979 to 2001 and sold them to the KGB and SVR in Washington, D.C.
Vise’s book achieves a novelistic feel because he has a brilliant eye for the telling detail. For example, he could have just written that Hanssen’s wife Bonnie worried that he failed to make it home for Sunday supper on February 18, 2001 (the day of his arrest). But Vise builds dramatic tension, noting that Hanssen was always on time, that Bonnie phoned his cell phone (it was dead), served one of her specialties (Moroccan beef over rice), and prayed he had not died of a heart attack (because he suffered arrhythmia).
Called "a first-rate spy story" (Entertainment Weekly), The Bureau and the Mole is the sensational New York Times best-seller that tells the inside story of FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Philip Hanssen, a seemingly all-American boy who would become the perfect traitor, jeopardizing America's national security for over twenty years by selling top-secret information to the Russians. Drawing from a wide variety of sources in the FBI, the Justice Department, the White House, and the intelligence community, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David A. Vise tells the story of how Hanssen employed the very sources and methods his own nation had entrusted to…
I covered the FBI and CIA for years, first as a print reporter in Washington and then as the head of the NBC News investigative unit. So I have covered my fair share of spy scandals, and with my colleague Pete Williams helped NBC break the story of Robert Hanssen’s arrest. I was immediately drawn to the Ana Montes Cuba spy story when it broke and then learned that Montes had bought her condo from my close friend and college roommate, John. That meant I had spent hours inside Ana’s DC apartment, and that odd connection rooted me in her story in a deeper way.
This book is a fascinating and comprehensive account of one of the worst intelligence disasters in U.S. history. It is about Robert Hanssen, the late FBI Agent and Russian turncoat who was corrupt, sullen, imperious, and endlessly fascinating.
We know about a lot of his misdeeds and personality disorders because of this groundbreaking book by David Wise. David is a brilliant and accomplished espionage writer who died in 2018. He explains how the FBI spent $7 million to steal Hanssen’s personnel files from the KGB. Those secret Russian files led directly to Hanssen’s 2001 arrest.
Wise also conducted exclusive interviews with the psychiatrist who met Hanssen in his jail cell more than 30 times. Finally, Wise chronicles Hanssen’s bizarre sex life, including the hidden video camera he used to record his wife, so he could share the videos with his best friend.
Spy tells, for the first time, the full, authoritative story of how FBI agent Robert Hanssen, code name grayday, spied for Russia for twenty-two years in what has been called the “worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history”–and how he was finally caught in an incredible gambit by U.S. intelligence.
David Wise, the nation’s leading espionage writer, has called on his unique knowledge and unrivaled intelligence sources to write the definitive, inside story of how Robert Hanssen betrayed his country, and why.
Spy at last reveals the mind and motives of a man who was a walking paradox: FBI counterspy, KGB…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I covered the FBI and CIA for years, first as a print reporter in Washington and then as the head of the NBC News investigative unit. So I have covered my fair share of spy scandals, and with my colleague Pete Williams helped NBC break the story of Robert Hanssen’s arrest. I was immediately drawn to the Ana Montes Cuba spy story when it broke and then learned that Montes had bought her condo from my close friend and college roommate, John. That meant I had spent hours inside Ana’s DC apartment, and that odd connection rooted me in her story in a deeper way.
If you’re like me, you can’t consume enough news about Robert Hanssen, the FBI Special Agent who sold out his country to Russia.
Elaine Shannon, the longtime Time Magazine correspondent, and Ann Blackman relied on more than 150 interviews in telling Hanssen’s story of deceit and depravity. They reveal the dramatic story of an ex-KGB officer stealing Hanssen’s KGB file, Hanssen’s obsession with kinky sex, and his (ironic) affiliation with the ultra-conservative and moralistic Catholic society, Opus Dei.
Two veteran Time reporters present a riveting glimpse into the life of Robert Hanssen, a seemingly quintessential surburban father and a trusted and loyal FBI agent who, after fifteen years of extremely damaging espionage, betrayed his family, his church, and his country - and got away with it, destroying the confidence of the FBI. 125,000 first printing.
Writing is my life. As a child I wrote poems, scripts, and short stories. A couple of decades, a BCALA literary award, and a three-book deal later, my wild imagination has grown into a passion for exposing the truth. In 2020, a third of the 300,000 missing women in the United States were Black, and in that same year, I was almost a victim of human trafficking myself. With this second chance, I write to bring awareness and attention to women who cannot speak for themselves. I write to shed light on the truth and these five books have helped me on my journey.
This action-packed spy thriller kept me on edge from the first chapter mostly due to the beautiful prose, but also because it depicts the CIA in an accessible way. The book taught me to analyze people based on not their words or actions, but their intentions. Diving headfirst into the political hierarchy of the esteemed agency, this book highlights that no one—especially the co-worker you sit next to and eat lunch with every day—can be trusted. Fun and fast-paced, Red Widowdrops you in a body of water and just when you think you’re in a swimming pool, you find out you’re in the ocean.
“A wicked sharp spy novel…Equal parts Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Killing Eve.” –S. A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears
An exhilarating spy thriller written by an intelligence veteran about two women CIA agents whose paths become intertwined around a threat to the Russia Division--one that's coming from inside the agency.
Lyndsey Duncan worries her career with the CIA might be over. After lines are crossed with another intelligence agent during an assignment, she is sent home to Washington on administrative leave. So when a former colleague--now Chief of the Russia Division--recruits her for an internal investigation,…
As a kid, I always wanted to be a Secret Service agent. As an adult, I became one. The job introduced me to the classified and shadowy world of national security. I traveled the globe, working in places I'd only read about in novels and meeting people who seemed like well-written characters from a book. When I was assigned as a liaison agent to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, I attended numerous FBI and CIA schools—even the facility known as The Farm. But through it all, I read! When I retired and had time to think about what I did, I figured I'd try writing.
During my time working in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, we would "throw out a line to see if anything bit." By that, I mean we'd leak information into the terrorism community to see their response.
That response often determined which direction we'd take an investigation. That's what the plot of The Russia House does. The CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service get a taste of information from an inside Russian military source, but can it be believed?
John le Carre's first post-glasnost spy novel, The Russia House captures the effect of a slow and uncertain thaw on ordinary people and on the shadowy puppet-masters who command them
Barley Blair is not a Service man: he is a small-time publisher, a self-destructive soul whose only loves are whisky and jazz. But it was Barley who, one drunken night at a dacha in Peredelkino during the Moscow Book Fair, was befriended by a high-ranking Soviet scientist who could be the greatest asset to the West since perestroika began, and made a promise. Nearly a year later, his drunken promise…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a former U.S. Army service member and a student of life, espionage and intelligence have often been staples in my research (as a creative writer), the cornerstones of my professional experience (as a combat veteran and slum baby), and a central theme in most of my novels. I’ve always enjoyed dissecting the inherent struggles of mankind and their inevitable fallouts—the pain, the joy, the misguided hopes and leaps of faith. Espionage and intelligence weaponize these sentiments. They transform them into actionable information and, sometimes, life-altering schemes.
That is what drives my work and sparks my interest in this subject matter: the psychological warfare we subject ourselves—and others—to.
This book delivers refined espionage with depth and risk.
Former Moscow Station chief Alex Matthews is drawn back into agency politics when his old asset, Byron, may hold kompromat that could crash the White House. The tension is quiet and personal; betrayal, loss, and moral confusion pulse at its core.
Vidich builds atmosphere with precision: the cold bureaucracy, Moscow’s shadows, and a man torn between patriotism and regret. In an era of fast-paced spy stories, this novel stands out for its emotional honesty, elegant plotting, and the real stakes for its characters.
It’s a must-read in 2025, especially if you’re craving a literary challenge.
'In The Poet's Game, Vidich confirms his place in the pantheon of the new generation of spy novelists. Once again, his elegant, finely developed characters add nuance and depth to a fast-paced story' Financial Times
'Vidich details political gamesmanship with an exactitude in the tradition of John le Carre, whose influence he ably honours' Irish Times
'We all have dreams and then we wake up.'
Alex Matthews thought he had left it all behind. His CIA career, the viper's den of bureaucracy at headquarters and the lies and stress of the cat and mouse game of double agents. But then…
