100 Books Like Then We Take Berlin

I read Eric Amber when I was young, and again when I was invited to take part in Andrew Marr’s BBC4 documentary Sleuths, Spies and Sorcerers.

Ambler’s books have no heroes or jingoism. He revolutionized spy fiction by injecting realism. He portrays the chaos of Europe in the 1930s, with people trying to survive without papers. In Epitaph for a Spy, Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee, has become stateless after the Treaty of Trianon. In France, he is arrested for spying because of a mix-up with camera film. He is told to find the real spy or be deported, which could mean death. He is left with no choice but to become a spy.

Ambler said that he wanted to write “credible and literate spy fiction.” He amply succeeded in this.

The Night of Wenceslas was the first thriller I read. I was in my teens, and into reading poetry at the time. My parents knew the author—we had even spent Boxing Day together—so Lionel Davidson was the first real novelist I met in person and I remember being excited to read this book.

The protagonist, Nicholas Whistler is young, half English and half Czechoslovakian. He hates working in his father’s business and is in debt because of his dissolute lifestyle. As a way out of his problems, he is lured into carrying out a mission in Prague and finds he has been duped into becoming an unwitting spy.

This book did not stop me from reading poetry—but spurred me to read much more widely.

BOX 88 is a thoroughly modern-day spy story set in two timeframes. Lachlan (‘Lockie’) Kite, the protagonist, is poles apart from Lawton’s Joe Wilderness. An apparently chance meeting at the funeral of an old school friend leads him to be abducted. Flashback 30 years, and we see how he was recruited to a secret cell of intelligence operatives (Box 88) when barely out of his upper-class boarding school. He is trained and asked to undergo a mission while spending the summer at the house of a school friend in France. While there, he falls heavily in love, and somehow manages to carry out his mission—albeit with devastating consequences. This portrayal of an intelligent young man growing up feels real and is beautifully handled. The start of a great series.

Javier Marías, who died recently, is a mesmerising writer. I lived in Spain for many years and have read most of his books. I recommend reading A Heart So White to start, but here, Berta Isla is perfect. This book introduces Tomás Nevinson, who is Anglo-Spanish. While studying at Oxford, he declines an offer to join MI6. He is then accused of murder—a ruse to oblige him to become an infiltrator. Now married to Berta in Madrid, he officially works for the embassy, but travels frequently on undercover missions, while Berta and their children find it difficult to accept his long, unexplained absences.

The book is an exploration of deception, betrayal, loyalty, identity, how a person becomes a spy, and how this impacts personal life.

I shall miss him.

Though Deighton has gone on to write several hugely popular and better-known spy stories, none of them beats Funeral In Berlin for sheer fun. Narrated by its nameless, smart-ass protagonist, who works for an obscure and underfunded British intelligence agency, the book has all the Cold War suspense, plot twists, and dubious characters you could wish for. Swiftly paced and told with great irreverent humor, it’s terrific entertainment.

I was immediately drawn to the suspense of this book. The novel begins at the Berlin Wall, where British intelligence agent Alec Leamas helplessly watches as East German guards murder his colleague.

As I followed the elaborate British plan to get revenge on an East German official, I had the nagging feeling that I was missing something. When I finally got to the end, I realized that I had been duped—much like many of the characters in the novel. 

It’s Berlin, 1949. The second world war has ended but the geopolitical intrigue hasn’t. Russia, the U. S., Great Britain, and France engage in cold war espionage as disparate citizens of the German city struggle to survive. A young Jewish writer who fled the Nazis for America is caught up in Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt. For the sake of his family and to keep from being deported, he agrees to help the CIA by returning to Berlin for a secret assignment. Kidnapping, murder, and more ensue, as he’s forced to keep tabs on the woman he left behind. Then he himself becomes the hunted. After returning to a city trying to rise from the ashes, this expat may or may not wind up ever being able to leave Berlin. 

This author offers a well-crafted history of daily life inside the Reich, a fascinating exploration of the German capital as the Nazi movement brought its citizens to their knees. Extensively researched and documented, Moorhouse vividly portrays the daily oppression and challenges faced on all societal fronts. This well-crafted study enmeshes the reader in life under totalitarian rule.

As a former intelligence officer, I love books that tell me about the places where real spies (and even some fictional ones) operated.

Roy Berkeley has done just that in cracking form with A Spy's London, which is an exhaustive guide to where the spies were in London (and still are).

Although I would challenge his assertion that London is the espionage capital of the world (hint: it’s Berlin), his book tells you the story and then shows you how to get there with walking tours, maps, and photos.

I especially love his description of the “ops” and how he brings them to life, whether they went well or failed spectacularly!

Many of the characters in this story collection work in unappreciated, underpaid, and unseen labor: as caregivers, nurses, cleaners, switchboard operators, administrators, substitute teachers. The stories are rooted in Berlin’s own experience as a mother, worker, and alcoholic.

A lot of authors are famous for writing “working class” stories — but many of them are men. I love this collection because it centers the story on working-class women, who often happen to be mothers raising their children alone. 

Lucia Berlin didn’t receive much attention as an author in her lifetime, but she writes with a skill, shrewdness, and vulnerability that places her among the very best. While some of the stories in this collection are sorrowful, others are funny, even uplifting. Whether from laughter or sadness, I was frequently moved to tears.