Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue Books - Page 3

Casino Royale (James Bond Novels)

Ian Fleming

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 130 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great read! 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Do you want a long review? Well too bad, you're not going to get one here. The first Bond book is great for fans of sensationalist literature. It is not always quick-paced but it sets the tone for suspense and unexpected and much wanted action. Tense moments are the card game with Le chiffre, the bomb assasination attempt, the car chase, and the torture scene. The romantic beach getaway between Bond and Vesper may bore you, but Bond's last words in the novel make up for it. Thank God, for books like this because it was a breeze to read. Back when this book was published they had paperback fiction, where the average paperback book was around 55,000 words. What do you get when you see the average paperback book released nowadays and Barnes and Noble? You see huge Bible-sized books. No thank you. I bought the old paperback edition that can fit inside my pocket. It was great reading it on the light rail to and from work each day for a whole week. I like this book and I hope you will too.

Editorial Review:

In the first of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, 007 declares war on Le Chiffre, French communist and paymaster of the Soviet murder organization SMERSH.

The battle begins with a fifty-million-franc game of baccarat, gains momentum during Bond's fiery love affair with a sensuous lady spy, and reaches a chilling climax with fiendish torture at the hands of a master sadist. For incredible suspense, unexpected thrills, and extraordinary danger, nothing can beat James Bond in his inaugural adventure.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

David Michaels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Ghost Recon's got it all. David Michaels got it right 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

If a novel is a contract between two imaginations author David Michaels gives us more than enough ammo to fight alongside Captain Scott Mitchell and his Ghost Team.

From the Southern Philippines, Northwest Waziristan, and Xiamen, China, Mitchell and his Ghosts carry out the Army's clandestine ops; coping with the impact of unforeseen tragedy, remembering lessons-learned, and treasuring camaraderie.

But during Operation War Wrath in Xiamen, China, a decade-old tragedy resurfaces endangering the mission and the team. Mitchell now must fight his rage, complete the mission, and bring his wounded and battle-weary team out of China --- vanishing like the ghosts they trained to be.

Editorial Review:

The U.S. Army’s Special Forces are known for their highly specialized training and courage behind enemy lines. But there’s a group that’s even more stealthy and deadly. It’s comprised of the most feared operators on the face of the earth—the soldiers of Ghost Recon.

The Gun Seller

Hugh Laurie

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 107 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Apparently this guy is multi-talented 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I don't watch House, but I've seen Hugh Laurie in other work, and apparently he's very talented. Not only can he pull off a genuine American accent, he can write a heck of a crime novel.

The Gun Seller works as a thriller and a comedic novel. It is expertly written, very smart (well researched, with sundry technical details about motorcycles, weaponry and international espionage), and hilarious. A lot of full-time crime writers would do well to read this work.

The protagonist is in many ways a typical crime novel hero -- full of faults, doesn't quite fit in with mainstream culture, has a taste for liquor and the occasional woman, falls for a femme fatale and has at his center an admirable moral code -- but Laurie also gives Thomas Lang a hilariously scabrous interior monologue that will keep you laughing throughout. Also, as is typical in crime novels, Thomas Lang, for all his tongue-in-cheek dialogue, takes doing the right thing very seriously. At times, he is alone in a world filled with corruption, cowardice and greed.

This novel isn't just good because it's surprising that an actor could pull it off. It's excellent work on its own. It's no wonder that Laurie has become such a big success: He's got the chops.

Highly recommended for fans of crime novels, espionage thrillers and irreverent humor.

Editorial Review:

British actor and comedian Hugh Laurie's first book is a spot-on spy spoof about hapless ex-soldier Thomas Lang, who is drawn unwittingly and unwillingly into the center of a dangerous James Bond-like plot of international terrorists, arms dealing, high-tech weapons, and CIA spooks. You may recall having seen Laurie in the English television series Jeeves and Wooster; Laurie played Bertie Wooster, the clutzy hero of the P.G. Wodehouse comic novels that originated those characters. The lineage from Wodehouse's Wooster to Laurie's Lang is clear, and, if you like Wodehouse, you'll probably love The Gun Seller.

The Assassin: A Novel

Stephen Coonts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The headlines only reveal half the truth. Here’s the real story. . . .

Abu Qasim, the ruthless and cunning Al Qaeda leader who nearly succeeded in blowing up a meeting of the G-8 in Paris, has escaped from the grasp of the Americans and is plotting his next move. A small band of powerful men, highly placed leaders of industry and politics in the West, have decided they need to target and destroy the terrorist and his inner circle before he can strike again. When a prominent Russian dissident is poisoned in London, however, it’s clear that there’s a very dangerous leak within the ranks of the Westerners, and that Abu Qasim has turned the tables on his rivals---it is now he who is pursuing, and his aim is to kill.

Admiral Jake Grafton dispatches special agent Tommy Carmellini to infiltrate the plot. He tracks the gorgeous and seductive Marisa Petrou, a Frenchwoman who may be Qasim’s daughter and who has her own reasons for wanting him alive---or wishing him dead. Qasim, meanwhile, has a trick up his sleeve---one that he’s been planning for years.

Who is behind the methodical assassinations of the wealthy and powerful Western vigilante team? Will Abu Qasim slip the noose once again? In this pulse-pounding thriller, Tommy Carmellini must put a stop to a master of terror before he unleashes even more death.

The Kill Artist

Daniel Silva

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 89 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Fans of Daniel Silva's well-received earlier novels, especially The Marching Season, will welcome his newest novel of espionage, revenge, and Middle Eastern politics. Gabriel Allon is an art restorer who's persuaded out of retirement by Ari Shamron, the crafty Israeli spymaster bent on a deadly mission: killing a Palestinian agent named Tariq before he can carry out his plan to assassinate an old comrade-in-arms, the treacherous peacemaker Yasir Arafat.

Tariq's role in the murder of Gabriel's wife and son draws both Gabriel and Sarah Halevy, the beautiful French model whose affair with Gabriel led to the assassination of his family. Still in love with Gabriel, Sarah allows herself to be set up with a cover and infiltrated into Tariq's inner circle. But before Gabriel can rescue her and fulfill his mission, Tariq turns the tables to get his old adversary as well as Arafat in his own sights. A particularly resonant scene in which Tariq and Arafat confront each other and discuss their former friendship, as well as the change in tactics that has brought Tariq to the ultimate betrayal, reveals Silva's deep comprehension of Palestinian rivalries. He puts a clever little fillip on the ending that adds to the brio of this strongly paced thriller. Silva creates complex, fascinating characters in Gabe, Ari, and Tariq, and more than fulfills the promise of his earlier books. --Jane Adams

Devil May Care

Sebastian Faulks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 78 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT JAMES BOND & IAN FLEMING
A Quiz

Q: Although James Bond is regarded by many as the quintessential English hero, he is actually not English. What is his nationality in the books?
A: He is half Scottish and half Swiss. He also hates that most English of drinks, tea--and describes it as 'mud'!

Q: Bond has had many famous incarnations on the big screen but, prior to these, he was first played on the radio by which British actor and game show host?
A: Bob Holness of Blockbusters fame

Q: Which Bond villain shares a birthday with his creator?
A: Ernst Stavro Blofeld. On Her Majesty's Secret Service reveals that Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908. Ian Lancaster Fleming entered the world on the same day at 7 Green Street in London.

Q: Which American President was a big fan of the Fleming novels?
A: President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was known to be a big fan of Fleming and listed From Russia With Love as one of his top 10 favourite books. Bizarrely, both Kennedy and his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald are believed to have been reading Bond novels the night before Kennedy was killed.

Q: Which famed children’s author helped Ian Fleming adapt his children's adventure story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the big screen?
A: Roald Dahl

Q: Where did Fleming write all his Bond books?
A: At Goldeneye, his Jamaican home. Although now part of a luxurious holiday resort, the house was very basic in Fleming's time--so much so that his friend and neighbour Noel Coward referred to it as Goldeneye, Nose and Throat!

Q: Although Ursula Andress wears the most famous bikini in cinema history in her iconic performance in Doctor No, in Fleming's novel of the same name the character Honeychile Rider wears even less. What does she wear?
A: She is naked save for a knife-belt.

Q: The first Bond novel, Casino Royale, originally had a different title when it was published in the US. Under what title was it initially published here?
A: The initial title here was Too Hot To Handle.

Q: What is James Bond’s favorite meal?
A: Breakfast. He has a particular penchant for scrambled eggs, and the short story 007 in New York even includes his own recipe for them.

Q: Who is Miss Moneypenny named for?
A: Miss Moneypenny was named after a character in an unpublished novel written by Ian Fleming's brother, the travel writer Peter Fleming.

---

Takedown: A Thriller

Brad Thor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 73 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

takedown by brad thor 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

great summer read, thriller, fast paced and love the central character scot harvath. am a robert ludlam fan and thor's books are similar in the intrigue, mystery, action. right now reading a fourth book of his. can't beat it for reading on the deck and we all know there is nothing on tv.

enjoyable, but don't think too much 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The book was enjoyable for a summer read. Of course it's a one man army against the evil terrorists and everyone else is just backdrop. The worst thing about it was the killing of the girlfriend at the end, just plain stupid. I'm going to get back at you for trying to kill me by hunting you down across the ocean just to kill a woman you've known what, a week??? And leave you totally uninjurred?? Yeah that hurts!! So as long as you don't take it too seriously and don't think too much you can read it and enjoy it.

Editorial Review:

July 4th weekend, New York City:As thousands of holiday travelers make their way out of Manhattan, a flawlessly executed terrorist attack plunges the city into a maelstrom of panic and death. Amidst the chaos, an elite team of foreign soldiers is systematically searching for one of their own, a man so powerful that the U.S. government refuses to admit he even exists and will do anything to keep him hidden. Now, with the world's deadliest enemy upon America's doorstep, counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath must fight his way through the burning city streets to take down an invisible terrorist mastermind with the means to unleash hell on a global scale.

Die Trying (Jack Reacher, No. 2)

Lee Child

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 118 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Television writer Lee Child's otherwise riveting first thriller, Killing Floor, was criticized by some reviewers because of an unconvincing coincidence at its center. Child addresses that problem in his second book--and thumbs his nose at those reviewers--by having his hero, ex-military policeman Jack Reacher, just happen to be walking by a Chicago dry cleaner when an attractive young FBI agent named Holly Johnson comes out carrying nine expensive outfits and a crutch to support her soccer-injured knee. As Holly stumbles, Reacher grabs her and her garments--which gets him kidnapped along with her by a trio of very determined badguys. "He had no problem with how he had gotten grabbed up in the first place," Child writes. "Just a freak of chance had put him alongside Holly Johnson at the exact time the snatch was going down. He was comfortable with that. He understood freak chances. Life was built out of freak chances, however much people would like to pretend otherwise." Lucky for Holly--whose father just happens to be an Army general and current head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thus making her a tempting target for a bunch of Montana-based extremists--Reacher still has all the skills and strengths associated with his former occupation. And Child still knows how to write scenes of violent action better than virtually anyone else around. --Dick Adler

The Enemy (Jack Reacher, No. 8)

Lee Child

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 137 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier’s son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army’s brightest stars. But in every cop’s life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case.

New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The world is changing. And in a North Carolina “hot-sheets” motel, a two-star general is found dead. His briefcase is missing. Nobody knows what was in it. Within minutes Jack Reacher has his orders: Control the situation. But this situation can’t be controlled. Within hours the general’s wife is murdered hundreds of miles away. Then the dominoes really start to fall.

Two Special Forces soldiers—the toughest of the tough—are taken down, one at a time. Top military commanders are moved from place to place in a bizarre game of chess. And somewhere inside the vast worldwide fortress that is the U.S. Army, Jack Reacher—an ordinarily untouchable investigator for the 110th Special Unit—is being set up as a fall guy with the worst enemies a man can have.

But Reacher won’t quit. He’s fighting a new kind of war. And he’s taking a young female lieutenant with him on a deadly hunt that leads them from the ragged edges of a rural army post to the winding streets of Paris to a confrontation with an enemy he didn’t know he had. With his French-born mother dying—and divulging to her son one last, stunning secret—Reacher is forced to question everything he once believed…about his family, his career, his loyalties—and himself. Because this soldier’s son is on his way into the darkness, where he finds a tangled drama of desperate desires and violent death—and a conspiracy more chilling, ingenious, and treacherous than anyone could have guessed.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Unlikely Spy

Daniel Silva

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Silva is taking a month out of my life! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I stumbled across "Mark of the Assassin" a couple weeks ago. Upon completion, I purchased every available novel written by Silva.

"The Unlikely Spy" is more complicated than most thrillers. It is also not as polished as his later novels. It does clearly show a remarkable talent for research and crafting a tale that expertly weaves both fact and fiction.

My theory however is that maybe Canaris outfoxed Hitler into biting on the ruse that Normandy was not our first choice. I think much of Hitlers staff wanted the war to end and the madness to stop. Clearly better to have the Americans get their first over the Ivans.

Either that or Hitlers spy network pretty well sucked. Of course, gathering accurate intelligence is hard to do. That is why it is usually wrong.

If you like spy thrillers, Silva is at the top of the game.

Editorial Review:

In this debut novel, veteran journalist Silva mines the reliable territory of World War II espionage to produce a gripping, historically detailed thriller. In early 1944 the Allies were preparing their invasion of Normandy; critical to the invasion's success was an elaborate set of deceptions--from phony radio signals to bogus airfields and barracks--intended to keep Hitler in the dark about when and where the Allied troops would arrive. Catherine Blake is the beautiful, ruthless spy who could bring the whole charade crashing down; Alfred Vicary is the brilliant but bumbling professor Churchill has tapped to protect the operation. Along with a teeming cast of other characters, real and fictional, they bring the chase to a furious and satisfying climax.