Tag: Spy

Roundup: February 2017

March 1, 2017 by Drew

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Rating: 3 out of 5 The Short Version: Locke Lamora is a young thief at the head of a band of merry misfits known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Alternating between tales of his rise to the head of the Bastards and an ongoing story in Camorr that starts as a simple job but quickly expands to be far more deadly, it’s time to meet Locke Lamora… The Review: I had the highest of hopes for this […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Spy • Tags: All Hail God Mammon, All the Old Knives, CIA, Comic Books, Douglas Preston, Elizabeth Strout, Fantasy, Fiction, Gentlemen Bastards, Horror, Jonathan Hickman, Lincoln Child, Literature, My Name is Lucy Barton, myths, Neil Gaiman, norse mythology, Olen Steinhauer, Pendergast, Preston & Child, Review Roundup, Roundup, Scott Lynch, Spy, Storytelling, The Black Monday Murders, The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Obsidian Chamber, The Tournament of Books 2017, Thriller, Tomm Coker

Trigger Mortis

November 28, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Shortly after the events of Goldfinger, James Bond is back in London (with Pussy Galore still in tow) – but not for long. He’s quickly dispatched to the Nürburgring to keep an eye on an English racer who is being targeted by the Russians, only to discover a larger plot in the works between the Russians and a Korean scientist to sabotage a rocket test. With an intrepid Secret Service agent by his side, Bond must stop a disaster […]

Categories: Fiction, Spy • Tags: Anthony Horowitz, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Ian Fleming, James Bond, review, Reviews, Spy, Thriller, Trigger Mortis

Roundup, September 2016

September 30, 2016 by Drew

James Bond: Vargr by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters 4 out of 5 The Short Version: After a revenge mission in Helsinki, Bond returns to London and is handed a case from his fallen comrade’s workload. A new drug has hit English shores and his job is to break up the trafficking operation – but what should be a simple in and out job turns out to be anything but. The Review: The idea of Warren Ellis taking on James […]

Categories: Fiction, Roundup • Tags: 007, A Chooseable Path Adventure, Action, Choose Your Own Adventure, Classics, Family, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Hamlet, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reed, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Jason Masters, Jens Peter Jacobsen, Literature, Niels Lyhne, Philosophy, Ramona Ausubel, Riverhead, Ryan North, Shakespeare, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, Spy, Thriller, Tiina Nunnally, To Be or Not to Be, Transhumanism, Translation, Vargr, Warren Ellis, William Shakespeare

Sweet Tooth

July 29, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s 1972 and the Cold War is in full swing. England is still reeling from the discovery of the Cambridge 5 almost twenty years earlier. New plans are put in place by MI5 to encourage artists to make pro-Western materials – and new recruit Serena Frome is tapped to run author Tom Haley. But as she gets closer to Haley, she must keep truth and lie separate even as the world pushes her to come clean… The […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 1970s, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Cold War, England, Fiction, Ian McEwan, Literature, Metafiction, Reviews, Spy, Sweet Tooth, The Great Vacation of 2016, Writing

License Renewed

September 18, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Bond is back – only it’s now the 1980s and things have changed. Not everything, of course: there’s still an M and a Q and Bond is still Bond and a crazy person has an idea for how to wreak havoc around the world, this time involving nuclear power stations. And only Bond has a chance at stopping him… The Review: Those old Fleming Bond novels are strangely compelling. Not all of them were terrifically well-written (although […]

Categories: Fiction, Spy • Tags: Adventure, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, England, Fiction, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Gardner, License Renewed, MI-6, Reviews, Spy

Authority (The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 2)

March 27, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: In the wake of the disastrous twelfth expedition into Area X (recounted in Annihilation) John Rodriguez – aka Control – has come in to clean up the Southern Reach. But as he begins to sift through the mess left by the previous director, an unsettling realization begins to bubble up: maybe this mess can’t be cleaned up at all… The Review: Okay. Okay okay okay. Elevator pitch: where Annihilation was Lovecraftian wilderness adventure, this is le Carré-meets-The Thing. AND IT […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature • Tags: Area X, Authority, Fiction, Horror, Jeff Vandermeer, Literature, Spy, The Southern Reach, The Southern Reach Trilogy

The Looking Glass War

March 6, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Some film that would confirm the Soviets placing missiles near the West German border has gone missing during a routine handoff and the courier has wound up dead. It was a simple car accident – but the Department doesn’t know that and so they seize the opportunity to one-up their more talented brethren in the Circus and so they begin to train an old agent to go under in East Germany. But the spy game isn’t about trying to […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature, Spy • Tags: Cold War, Fiction, John le Carré, Literature, Matt Taylor, Spy, The Looking Glass War

Angelmaker

December 17, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: Once upon a time, there was a lady spy and a doomsday device. Then there was a gangster son of a clockmaker, who in turn had a son who wanted nothing to do with being a gangster. When the doomsday device is suddenly reactivated in the present and a swarm of mechanized bees who bring the truth descend on the world at large, it’s up to Joe Spork – who just wanted to work in clockwork – to […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature, Spy • Tags: Angelmaker, Fiction, Literature, London, Nick Harkaway, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Spy, Steampunk

Call for the Dead

November 11, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: After a routine interview with George Smiley, a Foreign Office civil servant apparently kills himself. When Smiley visits his widow for a follow-up, an unexpected phone call sets off a chain of events that will lead Smiley to uncover that Samuel Fennan – and his wife – were far more covert than they seem. As members of the spy ring start to drop, it’s up to Smiley to find the ringleader before it’s too late. The Review: It […]

Categories: Fiction, Spy • Tags: Call for the Dead, Fiction, George Smiley, John le Carré, Literature, Spy

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books