A Spy's Life - An Eclectic Selection

An eclectic selection of titles featuring that all time favourite character in novels - the spy.

A Spy's Journey by Floyd Paseman

For thirty-five years, Floyd Paseman served in the Operations Directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency. From spy in the field to the top ranks of the Company's career agents, he experienced it all as well as seven different presidential administrations. While Paseman's account of his long service has enough real-life derring-do to keep the reader engaged, of even greater interest, however, are Paseman's observation on politics and the CIA, especially how change of presidential administrations could bring sweeping, and often negative changes to the agency.

Blowing My Cover: My life as a CIA Spy and Other Misadventures by Lindsay Moran

This is a frothy, lightweight, and highly entertaining memoir of life in the CIA by a female case officer who had absolutely no business being there. Lindsay Moran served in the Agency from 1998 to 2003. She trained as a case officer, served one unsuccessful tour overseas, and has written an account of her adventures that may leave the reader wondering which was worse, Ms Moran as a spy or the CIA as an agency.

Agente: Female Secret Agents in World Wars, Cold Wars and Civil Wars by Douglas Boyd

This book records the lives of the "agentes" and investigates the powerful motives that drove them to undertake such dangerous work—like patriotism, ideology, love and revenge. The book is full of all sorts of trickery and treachery, double and even triple crossing, daring escapades and escapes, and death in the experiences of these women, many of whom are lesser known in the annales of history.

Spy of the Century: Alfred Redl and the Betrayal of Austria-Hungary by John Sadler & Silvie Fisch

Redl was a rare Austro-Hungarian officer who came from quite modest roots, virtual poverty in fact. Gifted with a brilliant mind and with a little luck and influence, Redl secured a commission, and eventually became a staff officer and rose to colonel. At some point Redl began spying for Russia. As the authors note, his motives are unclear, certainly his fondness for high living may have played a role, but he may also have been blackmailed into espionage, as the Russians were early aware of his homosexuality.

The Widow Spy by Martha D Peterson

This is a first hand account of a true Cold War spy operation in Moscow, told exclusively by the CIA case offiicer who lived this experience. She was one of the first women to be assigned to Moscow, a very difficult operational environment. Her story begins in Laos during the Vietnam War where she accompanied her husband, a CIA officer. She describes their life in a small city in Laos, ending with the tragic death of her husband. Then her own thirty year career begins in Moscow, where she walks the dark streets alone, placing dead-drops and escaping the relentless eye of the KGB. Experience her arrest and detention in Lyubianka Prison, as only she can relate it.

Who's Who In espionage by Ronald Payne & Christopher Dobson

MI6, the CIA and SMERSH are amongst the many intelligence services that have been exploited by writers of fiction in recent times. Unlike some of their fictional counterparts, however, intelligence officers have evolved from adventurers to career professionals, mirroring their parent services’ similar shift.  Following years of research into the world of intelligence, Dobson and Payne have profiled over three hundred personalities from the inter-war years to the early 1980s.  From effective spymasters like ‘C’ to the less well-known operatives such as Colonel ‘Z’, their stories are too captivating to remain untold.