The Book of Spies: An Anthology of Literary Espionage

by Alan Furst (Editor)

An anthology of the world's best literary espionage, selected by a contemporary master of the genre, Alan Furst.
Here is an extraordinary collection of work from some of the finest novelists of the twentieth century.

Genres: Espionage, Fiction, Short Stories, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Anthologies

374 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Alan Furst is widely recognized as the current master of the historical spy novel. Born in New York, he has lived for long periods in France, especially Paris. He now lives on Long Island.

Night Soldiers novels
* Night Soldiers (1988)
* Dark Star (1991)
* The Polish Officer (1995)
* The World at Night (1996)
* Red Gold (1999)
* Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
* Blood of Victory (2003)
* Dark Voyage (2004)
* The Foreign Correspondent (2006)
* The Spies of Warsaw (2008)
* Spies of the Balkans (2010)
* Mission to Paris (2012)
* Midnight in Europe (2013)
* Under Occupation (2019)

Stand-alone novels
* Your day in the barrel (1976)
* The Paris drop (1980)
* The Caribbean Account (1981)
* Shadow Trade (1983)

For more information, see Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a short story anthology, as I thought it was when I picked it up, but 30-40 page chunks of various espionage novels. It is a nice sampler of some classic works and a good introduction to some great writers. Reading the selections has made me want to try Eric Ambler, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene and a few others I've never gotten around to reading. It's also convinced me to read some Steinbeck and Le Carre for the first time in years. I also now know to stay away from Anthony Burgess and Baroness Orczy.

[Charles Kerns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Furst picks them for you. Eleven (I think) chapters from books of espionage, intrigue, and downright murder. Furst explains, "There were two standards for selection: good writing--we are here in the literary end of the spectrum--and the pursuit of authenticity."

I used the book to browse and then went for the full Ambler and McCarry in the library--why did I not hear of McCarry before?

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generally I really like Alan Furst. This book is a collection of short excerpts from other 'spy' novels by other top notch authors. So you get a smattering of a little pieces to wet your appetite for more. Ok, but i should have just got the whole book in the first place.

[Trina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the spy fiction collected here by Alan Furst. He’s picked selections ranging from John le Carré to John Steinbeck, and he gives some good reasons for including writers who are masters of “intrigue” more than “espionage”.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book of Spies, edited by Alan Furst, aims for a sweet spot where fine writing and intriguing subject matter converge, exposing the often unpleasant truth about the blundering immorality of snooping and snitching.

Many internationally famous writers--Joseph Conrad,Graham Greene, Rebecca West, Anthony Burgess--have dabbled in this twilight genre of espionage stories about ambiguous men and women. Somewhat uniformly these writers employed the valet's view of their characters--to them no master is a hero. Moral compromise, deception, cynicism and a kind of randy egocentrism make the figure of the antihero more typical in such tales.

Furst, a master of the genre, chose some gems for this collection. I have known the name Eric Ambler for a long time without knowing how well he wrote. I had no idea that Maugham's Ashenden was so uniquely compelling. One of the most raw and insightful selections in this book (all the pieces are excerpts, not stories in the classic fashion) is Maxim Gorky's The Spy. A revolutionary himself, Gorky manages to perfectly portray street-level rats working for the Czar's secret police, catching their humanity, vanity, and confusion in the face of the Bloody Sunday massacre of peaceful protestors in 1905. (How could the beloved Czar's minions slaughter his devoted subjects?)

For as well as he wrote, and as prescient he was, I nonetheless always have thought Graham Greene was a bit sloppy in his broad-stroke characterization of the spook Pyle in The Quiet American. That said, the episode reprinted here does offer a panoramic view of Vietnam's complex politics in the 1950s.

Possibly the worst piece in the collection is taken from The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry. Here, instead of depicting an intelligence agent as a headstrong idiot, we get a Hamletesque fellow who despairs of everything he does but nonetheless possesses immense ability to do things. He is a former poet, he allegedly can pick up Asian languages in a few weeks by listening to them, his latest lover is truly in love with him, he has the nerve to piss off the Kennedy White House, and he really, really knows Paris...and Rome...and Bangkok. McCarry writes within the subset genre, in other words, of the supremely gifted but sorrowful spook, a rather romantic and implausible antihero.

The selection from Conrad's Under Western Eyes, a book I read a few years ago, struck me as odd this time around. Here Conrad is recounting the way a Russian student is compromised into alienation from the Czar. Razumov is really unhappy about this but sees no way out. In a sense, he is much more persuasively human than Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov because of his ambivalence. But in another sense, an almost sub-narrative sense (I'll explain this), he is less perfectly rendered to the point that, on occasion, Conrad's majestic prose, his phrasing, his tempo, falters and becomes a kind of imitation of Russian translated into English. What's going on with one of my favorite authors? Well, it turns out that he was writing against Dostoevsky, had great difficulty doing so, and seems to have spent some time during the drafting talking to himself in Polish about what he was trying to do in English. True story? Who knows, but I read it recently and it accords with the little bobbles in the text.

Rebecca West's The Birds Fall Down is fascinating for its rather daring exercise in recounting all the twists and turns, misconceptions, dropped balls, red herrings, and goofs that plague an imperfectly coordinated cadre of Russians hoping to get control of a ship being built in Glasgow that they hope can be boobytrapped to sink the Czar on its maiden voyage. One stretch of pages is a nonstop monologue few editors today would sanction, possibly for good reason. It can't be followed...but that's okay because it ends up turning back on itself in a kind of O Henry twist. None of the logic that appears to add up, strains to add up, really adds up.

My quibbles and critical observations notwithstanding, this is an entertaining and well-edited anthology. If you like tales of spying, lying and screwing up the truth, it might be for you.

[CathyMW · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected this book to be a collection of short stories from various authors. Instead, it was a compilation of singe chapters from various spy novels. The description of the book states "Here is an extraordinary collection of the world’s best literary espionage". Nowhere in the description--or in the book's introduction--does it state that these are not complete works. The description does list several titles but I was unaware that these were novels and not short stories, since I was unfamiliar with the works.

It was very disappointing to come to the end of the first selection and realize that I would have to go out and find this book to see how it all worked out. I won't be doing this since the first excerpt that I read wasn't that engaging.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Furst draws highlights from classics of the spy canon here, and my TBR list has expanded accordingly - despite being a fan of the genre, all of the excerpted works have somehow managed to elude me thus far. Thankfully, this anthology gives me inspiration to remedy that defect with all due haste.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

People who like to read spy novels have probably read the books these excerpts are from. If one hasn't read them, it will make one seek these books out, they are the classics. It was nice to revisit Graham Greene especially.

[Nancy]

Never started - had a pile of books here and needed to return to the library

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

good anthology
basics and a couple of not so basics
overall good book

[Lisa]

Anthology includes A Coffin for Dimitrios, Eric Ambler

[Caro · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excerpts from great spy novels. I would have preferred stand-alone stories. Note to self: don't read spy fiction right before falling asleep, you'll be even more confused than usual.

[Roger Lohmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to a variety of short excerpts on literary espionage (spy novels) including some of the hard-to-find earliest works.

[JASON LEMPIERI · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to the genre. Furst picked the best excerpts to hook you in.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well now that I read the last excerpt (from Rebecca West) I must read - or reread - all these fine novels...

[Pam Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focused on Rebecca Wests story and enjoyed it.

[Dr. Barrett Dylan Brown, Phd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some were very good, most were meh. All spy storries written by spies, interesting concept.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not an analysis of spy literature, just excerpts from a bunch of twentieth century novels. BOR-ING!