The closest ancestor I have found to my own writing, Greene, a former British intelligence officer, tells a classic spy story with an absurd sense of humor.
James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in need of cash, agrees to become an MI6 informant. But laziness causes him to invent intelligence, including by sketching vacuum cleaner parts and passing them off as drawings of a secret military installation.
When real life and the fake intelligence become intertwined, things get very strange and very funny. A joy to read.
MI6’s man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true…
First published in 1959 against the backdrop of the Cold War, Our Man in Havana remains one of Graham Greene’s most widely read novels. It is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government intelligence that still resonates today. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by…
I couldn't stop smiling as I listened to the bizarre story of Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies, and the travails of his strange, colorful blended family as they deal with an 'airborne toxic event'.
When Jack finds out that his wife is taking an experimental drug, he determines to find out why, and the reason gives the third act a real poignancy, even if it's no less bizarre than what preceded it. White Noise is a lot fun to read; a modern masterpiece.
The National Book Award-winning classic from the author of Underworld and Libra-an "eerie, brilliant, and touching" (New York Times) family drama about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology-soon to be a major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig
White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent…
I had been searching contemporary spy authors for a while, wondering if there's anyone still writing today who can match the likes of Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth, and John le Carre.
I was starting to doubt it, until a fellow writer recommended Silva. This is the first of many books about Gabriel Allon, the renowned art restorer and reluctant assassin for Israeli intelligence. Silva's writing has the direct, no-nonsense feel of Forsyth, and his mixing of fact and fiction is fascinating.
A great pick for anyone looking for an intelligent, literary thriller.
Wily old Israeli intelligence chief recalls former agents in order to eliminate top Palestinian terrorist. One agent is now an art restorer, the other a fashion model. Ten years before on a mission to destroy the Arab Black September group they were briefly lovers. Now their pasts and their enemies come back to haunt them, as the terrorist murders ambassadors in Paris and Holland. Will the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks be his next target? And what motivates the terrorist? Is it politics, or is it possibly personal? Set mainly in London, but with forays into Paris, Amsterdam, the Middle East and…
Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who answers a phone call meant for a secret agent and stumbles into a hidden world of espionage and secrecy. Recruited by the Ministry of Security, he is sent on assignment to safeguard the king.
But Orlov soon discovers that his ministry handler, the alluring femme fatale Agent Zelle, is planning not to protect the king but to assassinate him. Caught in a web of plot and counterplot, confusing loyalties, and explosive betrayals, Orlov finds himself on trial for murder.
