Six Days of the Condor

By James Grady,

Book cover of Six Days of the Condor

Book description

'From the bottom of the stairwell Malcolm could only see that the room appeared to be empty. Mrs Russell wasn't at her desk. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Dr. Lappe's door was partially open. There was a peculiar odour in the room . Malcolm tossed…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Six Days of the Condor as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This spot very nearly went to the great John le Carre, perhaps his brilliant The Little Drummer Girl.

Grady’s debut is not as complex or as dense as le Carre, but it holds a special place in my heart, partly because of its back story.

Grady was a young congressional staffer in my adopted hometown of Washington, DC when he dreamed up a covert CIA unit whose role is to monitor foreign intelligence operations by scouring books and magazines from around the world.

When the novel was adapted into the movie Three Days of the Condor, it was…

For me, this story is a lively reminder of the necessity of adaptability. Our mastery of life is essentially on-the-job training, an education that never ends.

In this espionage thriller, a man comes back from lunch to find everyone in his office murdered. Realizing that he is also a target, he goes on the run. But it’s not enough to escape. If he wants to survive, he needs to understand what’s happening. He must pursue his pursuers.

But he is completely out of his element here. His job was to read books all day. He has no experience being an…

James Grady was 23 years old when he wrote this cold war spy thriller masterpiece in his loft apartment in Helena, Montana, yet what he imagined came true. He created a secret CIA division so realistically that – The New York Times later found – the Soviet KGB, assuming the division existed, created one of their own. Grady also came up with a unique way to carry out an assassination....which unfortunately was copied by Iranian agents in Washington after the book came out. I love the real connection between the “what if” of thrillers and what is in the world.   

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