The best books about women spies

When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. It was the first time in history that a head of state had been murdered without a clue who'd done it--and on a Stockholm street at point-blank range.

Internationally known for his fictional villains, Larsson was well acquainted with their real-life counterparts and documented extremist activities throughout the world. For years he'd been amassing evidence that linked their terrorist acts to what he called "one of the most astounding murder cases" he'd ever covered. Larsson's archive was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa was given exclusive access to the author's secret project.

In The Man Who Played with Fire, Stocklassa collects the pieces of Larsson's true-crime puzzle to follow the trail of intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy begun by one of the world's most famous thriller writers. Together they set out to solve a mystery that no one else could.

In the mid-1960s, the FBI was secretly involved with three charismatic figures: the ambitious neophyte politician Ronald Reagan, the fierce but fragile radical Mario Savio, and the liberal university president Clark Kerr. Subversives traces these converging narratives in a dramatic and disturbing story of FBI surveillance, illegal break-ins, infiltration, planted news stories, poison-pen letters, and secret detention lists, all centered on the Free Speech Movement at the University of California’s Berkeley campus.

Subversives provides a fresh look at the legacy of the sixties, sheds new light on one of America’s most popular presidents, and tells a cautionary tale about the dangers of secrecy and unchecked power.

Maggie Conrad’s husband of ten days is sent overseas in WW1 and never comes home. A second suitor is lost at sea in Nova Scotia’s August Gale. Turning thirty, on her own, and faced with “men’s rules in a man’s world,” Maggie struggles to build her life on her own terms. Rum runners, an undercover policeman, and an interfering sister-in-law complicate her efforts for independence. Can Maggie clear the hurdles, find her path, and be an independent woman in a small rural village in 1929?

Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. Her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there.

When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother’s younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. Madelyn soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner, prodigal daughter of the town’s founder. Miss Rose is a suffragist and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte. At first, Madelyn simply wants to feel beautiful and loved. But, when a series of troubling events threaten the small town, Madelyn must make a life-changing choice. 

One missing girl. Two lives on the line. Four treacherous challenges. Nora Sommer's first case for the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service is one she'll never forget - if she survives.

When I decided to create a second series, I recognized the logical and most commercial path which checked all the genre boxes, would be a male protagonist in the Florida Keys. But Nora Sommer, a nineteen-year-old Norwegian runaway who’d appeared in several of my AJ Bailey novels, wouldn’t leave me alone. Her personality had become so engaging, her struggle to leave her past behind so motivating; I couldn’t deny her. Nora doesn’t think, act, react, or interact like most people. I fell in love with her character and haven’t regretted the choice for a moment.

The Diplomatic Coup is a thriller with a strong female protagonist based on the life of a reporter covering the US State Department. It is eerily prophetic featuring a politician with no regard for democracy determined to use any and all means to seize power. Written by a former State Department correspondent, this book is full of authentic detail. What's it like to travel on the plane of the Secretary of State, to file stories under pressure, to attend press conferences with heads of state? Only someone who has really been there can answer these questions. It also features a sweet and unusual love affair and a pounding climax.

Hailed as "Red Dawn with a modern Special Operations twist," "so realistic and plausible that it's terrifying," an "on the edge of your seat thriller that will have you looking in your rearview mirror for enemy troops," The Pact takes readers on a work of military fiction influenced by real world events seen lining up in the eyes of a former Green Beret combat veteran. If all of America’s enemies were to join forces to attack our homeland, what would a team of former Special Operations soldiers do in response? Read The Pact Trilogy to find out.

Elena Redewolde has lost everything—her family, castle, title, and dignity—and King Edward II’s corrupt court is to blame. All that remains is her freedom, but even that’s taken away when she’s forced to wed the local mercenary captain, Stephen Warde. Though Stephen promises to restore her lands and salvage her family’s reputation, he refuses to tell her how. The months pass by while her circumstances remain the same, but then strange events start unfolding around their town, and she begins to wonder whether she might twist the situation to her advantage. Tax raises, falsely forged gold, whispers of a foreign invasion? If Elena can uncover this fraud and corruption surrounding her, maybe it’ll help her reclaim her destiny and win back her home…

Christine Granville, aka Krystyna Skarbek, loved adrenalin, men and, above all, freedom - both for her country and for herself personally. This Polish-born Countess with Jewish heritage, was the first woman to serve Britain as a special agent during the Second World War, and her achievements prompted Churchill to call her his ‘favourite spy.’ Christine served in three different theatres of the war, initially skiing into Nazi-occupied Poland, then serving in Egypt and the Middle East, before being parachuted behind enemy lines in France in 1944 where her service made her legendary among the special forces. Not only did she make the first contact between the French resistance and the Italian partisans across the Alps, she also secured the defection of an entire German garrison on a strategic pass in the mountains. Despite being arrested more than once, she used her wits to save not only her own skin but also the lives of many of her male comrades-in-arms. Awarded the George Medal, OBE, and French Croix-de-Guerre, her early tragic death made headlines around the world, yet her true story was kept hidden. Clare was decorated with Poland’s national honour, the Bene Merito, for this inspiring biography. 

In 1940, with German U-boats blockading all commerce across the Atlantic Ocean, a fireball at the Crown Cork and Seal factory lit the sky over Baltimore. The newspapers said that you could see its glow as far north as Philadelphia and as far south as Annapolis. Rumors of Nazi sabotage led to an FBI investigation and pulled an entire industry into the machinery of national security as America stood on the brink of war.

In Cork Wars, David A. Taylor traces this fascinating story through the lives of three men and their families, who were all drawn into this dangerous intersection of enterprise and espionage. At the heart of this tale is self-made mogul Charles McManus, son of Irish immigrants, who grew up on Baltimore's rough streets. McManus ran Crown Cork and Seal, a company that manufactured everything from bottle caps to oil-tight gaskets for fighter planes. Frank DiCara, as a young teenager growing up in Highlandtown, watched from his bedroom window as the fire blazed at the factory. Just a few years later, under pressure to support his family after the death of his father, DiCara quit school and got a job at Crown. Meanwhile, Melchor Marsa, Catalan by birth, managed Crown Cork and Seal's plants in Spain and Portugal--and was perfectly placed to be recruited as a spy.