54 books like I Am Pilgrim

“But it’s the world, it’s gone mad.” It sums up a spy world in Alec Leamas finds himself turfed from his position by British Intelligence for a string of failures in Soviet-held East Berlin.

Ultimately, he joins East Berlin’s Intelligence only to make one desperate to escape from them. It was a world of agents and double agents with no end in sight.

I like the book for its fast pace and incredible character sketches that made them come alive in their triumphs and failures and memorable long after you finish the book.

I learned so much from reading this book by the bureau's pioneering profiler.

Books by profilers and local police who solve major murders often focus on the author's career. No one cares. Douglas's books focus on the crimes and the perpetrators.

He has interviewed Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Lynette Fromme, John Wayne Gacy, Edmund Kemper, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Speck, Sara Jane Moore, and Charles Manson. He explains what makes them tick.

And now for something completely different, set in the People's Republic of Laos in 1976.

Dr. Siri Paiboun, a former surgeon and socialist activist now old and disillusioned with the Communist Party, has become the country's only coroner. It's a job he hates, made worse by corrupt officials and a judge who tries to turn even blatant homicides into deaths from natural causes. And by the dead, who haunt his dreams. 

Aided only by his Thai nurse, Dtui, and his mentally-challenged morgue attendant, Geung, Siri must deal with the bodies of three men who weren't supposed to be found and the suspicious death of a senior official's wife. Both are political tightropes. As he teeters on them, Siri travels to an unfamiliar area where the people know him—but as the reincarnation of Yeh Ming, an ancient shaman.

Soon, he's having hallucinations that may, in fact, be very real. To save… show more.

The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological thriller that delves deep into the complexities of identity. Clarice Starling, the protagonist, is a young FBI trainee navigating a male-dominated field. Her background as "poor white trash" adds another layer to her struggle for acceptance and respect.

The book masterfully explores her identity as she interacts with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant but twisted psychiatrist (and cannibal). This relationship forces her to confront her own prejudices and insecurities, making her character arc incredibly compelling. The story also tackles societal expectations and the limitations they impose on individual identity.

If you're fascinated by intricate psychological landscapes and enjoy narratives that are creepy and horrifying, this book is a must-read.

I chose this for authenticity. Newsday's review said it was "chillingly real" and "the reader himself seems to be traveling with 'the Jackal.'"

That’s because Forsyth, as a foreign correspondent working in Europe and Africa, knew assassins, mercenaries, and arms dealers, which allowed him to craft fantastic but believable characters, settings, and situations. Forsyth opens the novel with the depiction of a real assassination attempt, employs historical figures, locations, and details, then seamlessly weaves his fictional plot into this authentic world.

Forsyth reveals lives most of us can only imagine, and he shows that wall-to-wall suspense does not require wall-to-wall action, but is built on plausible intrigue, sustained tension, and excellent writing.

Leave it to Follett to keep you in suspense from one chapter after another when a German agent operating in England discovers that the barracks and equipment on the coast are fakes and needs to get the information to German Intelligence.

The book’s title comes from the agent’s code name, The Needle, who uses a long needle to kill anyone. The book later became a movie in 1981. Ironically, only Hitler had the right guess where the invasion would take place. He was ignored by his generals.

I admire Follett’s great writing style. It’s fast-paced, with almost every chapter filled with suspense that keeps you guessing what’s happening next. A hard book to put down.

Silva’s novels about Gabriel Allon—a reluctant Israeli secret agent posing as an Italian art restorer—are my current favorite read and a serious contender for the best spy thrillers by a contemporary writer.

Each of the novels in the series works as a separate episode; in this case, Allon is lured into action to track down a Palestinian assassin.

But Allon is brought to life by recurring themes across the series, including the fact that his traumatized wife is permanently assigned to a psychiatric hospital by the car bomb that killed their son.

Silva’s meticulous writing and ingenious mixing of historical fact and fiction will appeal to literary readers. 

The first James Bond novel. Obvious choice for me; I’m a huge Fleming/Bond fan and came to the original novels via the films. It was Bond that inspired me to write while on a narrowboat crossing an aqueduct on a Welsh canal thinking this scene should be in a Bond movie. Fleming’s first novel introduces us to a James Bond many wouldn’t recognize. Bond is already tired, vulnerable, and beginning to have serious professional misgivings. The novel’s plot and subplots are based on real-world knowledge Fleming picked up during WWII.

His descriptions of the casino’s glamour and the sensuous descriptions of food and drink would have brought color to the sepia-tinted lives of austerity Britain still navigating past bomb sites and dealing with food rationing when the book was published. There’s troubling chauvinism but there are twists and turns a plenty and a resolution that should garner some sympathy for… show more.

Reading a novel by Alan Furst is like seeing Casablanca for the first time, if it were written by Hemingway. There’s that same evocative atmosphere of people smoking cigarettes, having affairs, making sophisticated remarks, while looming over them is the war. Furst mines a narrow niche. All of his books are set in Europe either during World War Two or in the Thirties, with the war threatening. The protagonist here is Colonel Mercier, military attaché at the French embassy in Warsaw. Mercier must navigate the salons and alleyways of Warsaw against all manner of spies and German agents. The book is also an exploration of love in a desperate time through Mercier’s affair with the beautiful Anna, a Polish lawyer. It’s very good. Furst is always good. 

In the fight against the War on Terror, many Americans have long forgotten the war that never stopped raging against an enemy that is better funded than many of our governmental organizations, is not bound by any laws or treaties, has a virtually unlimited supply of money, weapons, and soldiers, and is located just south of our borders. 

Patriot Games is an oldie but goody, a fictional novel that sheds light on the realistic way in which our War on Drugs encompasses Special Operations troops working hand in hand with intelligence agencies and law enforcement. I have friends who have fought directly in these drug wars, and who have told me the enemy had all of their names and personal information before they even landed south of the border for their deployments. The War on Drugs is savage and is still raging very close to home, yet we rarely hear… show more.