Here are 100 books that The Illegals fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a psychiatrist, novelist, and former diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over many decades. I have always been passionate about spy thrillers, because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. The best spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
I have always loved Vidich’s portrayals of the Cold War between the USSR (now Russia) and the West, and his newest novel appealed to me because of its modern-day version of this struggle.
I liked the plot and characters, especially the protagonist Alex Mathews, a former CIA officer who has served in Moscow for many years, and the physical, emotional, and psychological toll that Moscow – a city which “has drawn him to her warm bosom” – leaves him with.
I loved the novel’s settings and place, and I found myself rooting for Alex as he struggles to adapt to the ‘Moscow Rules’ and ‘getting off the X.’ At the novel’s conclusion, I realized, like Alex, that the Cold War had never really ended.
'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…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
I am a psychiatrist, novelist, and former diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over many decades. I have always been passionate about spy thrillers, because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. The best spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
Lawler, as a former CIA case officer, brings tremendous authenticity and verve to his spy novels, and The Traitor’s Tale is no different.
I loved the fast-moving, vibrant plot, and I appreciated the characters, both the protagonists (especially Ambrose, Shawnee Chasing Hawk, and Gary Trichter). I enjoyed the intricate plot of espionage, recruitment, betrayal, a love story, and its finale.
Lawler’s book appealed to me because it reveals the very human side of espionage, which, in the end, is about relationships between human beings—between intelligence officers and their agents/spies.
Ambrose Knight--a highly decorated CIA case officer, top spy recruiter, and member of The Guild--is suspected of espionage and treated as a pariah by many Agency colleagues and friends. After several months of purgatory, he's exonerated when another case officer's treachery is revealed. Embittered by the accusations and Agency racial discrimination due to his African American ethnicity, Knight volunteers to the Russian intelligence service and begins living a double life."The Red Queen", a senior female FBI agent who heads the CIA's Counterespionage Group (the mole hunters), claims that Knight is in fact still a spy and has been all along,…
I am a psychiatrist, novelist, and former diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over many decades. I have always been passionate about spy thrillers, because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. The best spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
I have always enjoyed McCloskey’s spy novels, especially those set in the Middle East.
His newest, a tale of espionage and betrayal set in Iran, appealed to me because of its characters—an Iranian dentist recruited by Mossad as an agent, his Mossad spy handler, and their Iranian adversaries. I loved the realism and grittiness of this tale, and its portrayal of the human costs of espionage, and its betrayals, fault lines, and tragedies.
I love how McCloskey, a former CIA analyst, humanizes his characters, both the Israelis and the Iranians, showing us their human frailties, loyalties, and passions.
Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he's recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman's direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency. Kam proves to be a skillful asset, quietly earning money helping Glitzman smuggle weapons, run surveillance, and conduct kidnappings. But when Kam tries to recruit an Iranian widow seeking to avenge the death of her husband at…
A lyrical meditation on the mysterious bonds that connect us across species, across time and across the veil.
Slow Blink is a memoir about more than the weight of loving something you cannot keep. It recounts Louise’s relationship with a stray black cat whose bond with her transcended the ordinary,…
I am a psychiatrist, novelist, and former diplomat, who served overseas in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and India. My diplomatic travels took me to over 70 countries over many decades. I have always been passionate about spy thrillers, because they highlight the intrigue, drama, psychology, and history of different cultures, which brings out the humanity, courage, and tragedy of the characters therein. The best spy thrillers also capture a sense of place, culture, and history, and possess an authenticity that gives them a broader, universal appeal.
I loved Yariv Inbar’s tale, one of the best that I have read in years.
As a Mossad officer and novelist, he brilliantly captures the intricacies and nuances of espionage in a tale involving Irit, a Mossad officer, and her protagonist Noor, the wife of a Syrian WMD expert whom Irit hopes to recruit. I enjoyed how Inbar captured the intimacy of espionage, and the different stages of its life cycle, and how such things often end tragically, with multiple sorrows and traumas.
My other favorite character was Menachem, a former Mossad officer turned psychotherapist, who advises Mossad and Irit along the way, bringing an additional human touch to this singular novel.
What if one impossible decision during a suspenseful mission shattered everything you believed about your past?
Set deep within the world of contemporary Israeli espionage, Behind the Trigger is a psychological spy thriller where covert operations collide with buried trauma, and the cost of trust is life or death.
Irit is no cliché female protagonist. She’s a Mossad field agent, mother, and wife - trained to complete missions, not confront her past. But when a thrilling assignment sparks an unexpected connection with Noor - the wife of a Syrian missiles engineer - everything changes.
I have been writing about Russia for the past 20 years for all the UK national newspapers, The Spectator and contributed to several TV documentaries. I am fascinated by Russia which is a unique country and has been a major influence on the world for the past 100 years. Based on new documents, my book Londongrad - From Russia with Cash revealed how Russian Oligarchs made their wealth, moved it out of Russia,hid their fortunes and then parked and spent it in London. My new book - Agents of Influence - provides an insight into how the KGB influenced the West based on new archives.
It is rare for a KGB spy to reveal so many secrets about the Soviet Union and Russian intelligence operations in the West and so this book is a revelation.
Kalugin was a KGB officer based in the USA in the 1970s and he describes all their dirty tricks - fake letters, disinformation, honey trapping, and even attempts to bug the US Congress.
Oleg Kalugin oversaw the work of American spies, matched wits with the CIA, and became one of the youngest generals in KGB history. Even so, he grew increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system. In 1990, he went public, exposing the intelligence agency's shadowy methods. Revised and updated in the light of the KGB's enduring presence in Russian politics, Spymaster is Kalugin's impressively illuminating memoir of the final years of the Soviet Union.
I am an author and veteran journalist who reported for The Washington Post for more than two decades, and I write frequently about military history and intelligence. My father worked for the CIA, and I was born in Berlin when he was stationed there as a case officer. Later I was based in Germany as a foreign correspondent when the Berlin Wall came down. So it’s not too surprising that I am interested in Cold War espionage and history. As a reporter, author, and reader, I’ve always been attracted to stories off the beaten track, the ones that most people know little or nothing about.
Hoffman tells the previously little-known story of Soviet military engineer Adolf Tolkachev, whose disgust with the communist regime inspired him to turn over enormously valuable secrets to the CIA station in Moscow beginning in the late 1970s. Hoffman’s careful reporting allows him to describe in meticulous and fascinating detail the remarkable techniques and great risks involved in running an agent in Moscow late in the Cold War.
WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH AUGUST 2018 AND A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'An astonishingly detailed picture of espionage in the 1980s, written with pacey journalistic verve and an eerily contemporary feel.' Ben Macintyre, The Times
'A gripping story of courage, professionalism, and betrayal in the secret world.' Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow, 1988-1992
'One of the best spy stories to come out of the Cold War and all the more riveting for being true.' Washington Post
January, 1977. While the chief of the CIA's Moscow station fills his gas tank, a stranger drops a note into the car.…
Dr. Mark Lin, a cynical and disillusioned internist, is the target of a hacker known as Doctor Lucifer. Three patients at Ivory Memorial Hospital suffer from medication errors, created by the hacker, yet Mark is forced to take the blame. He knows a computer worm is spreading and crippling network…
I became fascinated with the collapsing USSR upon my first trip to Moscow in 1990, and made contact with Joseph Berg, a man suspected of being Joel Barr, a Soviet Spy and close friend of Julius Rosenberg. I subsequently co-hosted Barr’s first visits back to America in an effort to obtain his true story. This led to an agreement to write a novel based on his life, which led to a close association and friendship. As I got to know Barr, he also introduced me to Morton Sobell. I became absorbed in the stories of these men who were motivated by political idealism to aid the Soviet Union in matching the United States in military power.
This book is the most comprehensive account of KGB spying in America and two of its authors have studied the subject exhaustively for decades and the third author is a Soviet ex KGB agent with firsthand knowledge of and access to Soviet KGB files.
This is the bible and go-to book for any studied interest in the subject.
An unprecedented expose of Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 40s
This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account.
I grew up in Germany and have been living all over the globe since I was 18, including the US. I married a New Yorker 15 years ago. I am drawn to stories that combine both the German and American cultures — two worlds I feel at home in — and as reflected in my debut novel. The next one will take place between the US and East Germany - we had relatives on the other side of the Iron Curtain whom we visited frequently. I will never forget surprising my 17-year-old cousin sitting alone in the garden, crying… over a can of Coke that we had smuggled over the border to him.
Before stumbling across this memoir, while doing the research for my next novel, I had no idea that the Cold War saw German Communist spies living in the USA - but come to think of it, why shouldn’t they have existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain? Barsky’s story blew me away: he was sent by the KGB to the States as a sleeper agent. What “broke” him was not his challenging profession, but the love for his child — he eventually had two families, one in East Germany with a wife who knew about his true identity - and another one in the States, with a wife who didn’t.
He had a son with the German and a daughter with his Latin-American wife in the US. He wasn’t there when his son was born, but witnessed the birth of his daughter. When the Cold War ended and…
One decision can end everything . . . or lead to unlikely redemption. Millions watched the CBS 60 Minutes special on Jack Barsky in 2015. Now, in this fascinating memoir, the Soviet KGB agent tells his story of gut-wrenching choices, appalling betrayals, his turbulent inner world, and the secret life he lived for years without getting caught.
On October 8, 1978, a Canadian national by the name of William Dyson stepped off a plane at O’Hare International Airport and proceeded toward Customs and Immigration.
I write spy fiction because I’ve lived close to the seams of power—working and traveling across the U.S., Europe, and China—and I’m obsessed with how ideas turn into decisions. I read philosophy for clarity, history for humility, and intelligence studies for the uncomfortable truth that good intentions aren’t enough.
My novel, A Spy Inside the Castle, grew from years of research and the harder work of translating it into human stakes. I’m passionate about books that illuminate secrecy and strategy without losing sight of people. These five shaped my thinking and, more importantly, kept me honest on the page.
I was drawn to Walton because he shows the CIA and other services evolving over decades, almost like living ecosystems.
What I valued most was how he highlights technology’s growing role in shaping intelligence work—how tools and data became as decisive as human agents. That perspective mirrored my own fascination with labyrinths: systems that adapt, feed on complexity, and reshape themselves in response to pressure.
Walton’s history is sweeping yet precise, and it left me seeing the intelligence world as something organic, not static—a reminder that secrecy and technology co-evolve, often faster than our ability to control them.
The riveting story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China
'A masterpiece' CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5
'The book we have all been waiting for' BRENDAN SIMMS, author of Hitler: A Global Biography
'Gripping, authoritative... A vivid account of intelligence skulduggery' Kirkus
Espionage, election meddling, disinformation, assassinations, subversion, and sabotage - all attract headlines today about Putin's dictatorship. But they are far from new. The West has a long-term Russia problem, not a Putin problem. Spies mines hitherto secret…
I grew up in the United States, completed my undergraduate degree there, and then pursued a doctorate in Modern History at the University of Cambridge. Now, I teach European history at Oxford Brookes University and publish research on Russia and the Soviet Union. I have always been fascinated by revolutions and civil conflicts, especially how people navigate the disruption of stability and normality. How they process fragmentary information, protect themselves, and embrace new ideas to give meaning to their threatened lives is central to my work as a historian. The Russian Revolution and Civil War offer a rich tapestry for exploring these dilemmas.
This book narrowly focuses on one of the most famous moments that putatively determined the course of Russian and world history in the 20th century—Lenin’s journey from exile in Zurich, through enemy territory, to Petrograd in April 1917. The journey acquired infamy because it was facilitated by the German Army and government.
Leaving to one side consideration of counterfactuals or “what-ifs,” I loved Merridale’s book because it manages to capture so many worlds—the world of Russian revolutionary politics and exile, of espionage during WWI, and the early weeks of the Revolution of 1917—all while maintaining a focus on the human level of a train journey.
'The superb, funny, fascinating story of Lenin's trans-European rail journey and how it shook the world' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year
'Splendid ... a jewel among histories, taking a single episode from the penultimate year of the Great War, illuminating a continent, a revolution and a series of psychologies in a moment of cataclysm and doing it with wit, judgment and an eye for telling detail' David Aaronovitch, The Times
By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break a stalemate that…
