Why am I passionate about this?
As a kid, I always wanted to be a Secret Service agent. As an adult, I became one. The job introduced me to the classified and shadowy world of national security. I traveled the globe, working in places I'd only read about in novels and meeting people who seemed like well-written characters from a book. When I was assigned as a liaison agent to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, I attended numerous FBI and CIA schools—even the facility known as The Farm. But through it all, I read! When I retired and had time to think about what I did, I figured I'd try writing.
Larry's book list on spies from a retired secret service agent
Why did Larry love this book?
During my time working in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, we would "throw out a line to see if anything bit." By that, I mean we'd leak information into the terrorism community to see their response.
That response often determined which direction we'd take an investigation. That's what the plot of The Russia House does. The CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service get a taste of information from an inside Russian military source, but can it be believed?
1 author picked The Russia House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
John le Carre's first post-glasnost spy novel, The Russia House captures the effect of a slow and uncertain thaw on ordinary people and on the shadowy puppet-masters who command them
Barley Blair is not a Service man: he is a small-time publisher, a self-destructive soul whose only loves are whisky and jazz. But it was Barley who, one drunken night at a dacha in Peredelkino during the Moscow Book Fair, was befriended by a high-ranking Soviet scientist who could be the greatest asset to the West since perestroika began, and made a promise. Nearly a year later, his drunken promise…