Spymaster - My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West by Oleg Kalugin; Fen Montaigne

$16.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: good-very good

Taking the reader into the very heart of the Soviet spy apparatus at the peak of the defining event of our time - the Cold War, this book is by the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to tell his story. It is a personal account of a life in espionage at the highest levels.

Room 40 - British Naval Intelligence 1914-18 by Patrick Beesly

$16.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: good-very good

A Woman of No Importance - The Untold Story of Virginia Hall (WW2's most dangerous spy) by Sonia Purnell

$16.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Series: Virginia Hall from USA who infiltrated Occupied France | Reading Level: very good

In 1942, the Gestapo would stop at nothing to track down a mysterious 'limping lady' who was fighting for the freedom of France. The Nazi chiefs issued a simple but urgent command: 'She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.' The Gestapo's target was Virginia Hall, a glamorous American with a wooden leg who broke through the barriers against her gender and disability to be the first woman to infiltrate Vichy France for the SOE. In so doing she helped turn the course of the intelligence war. This is the epic tale of an heiress who determined that a hunting accident would not define her existence; a young woman who gambled her life to fight for the freedoms she believed in; an espionage novice who helped to light the flame of French Resistance. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall, an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity. ...Show more

The Hidden Hand - Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence by Richard J. Aldrich

$25.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: very good

Paranoia with respect to Russia raged in the wake of World War II, just as Churchill had foreseen: fear of a "nuclear Pearl Harbor" and the growing challenge of political stability in Europe gripped the Western world. The advent of new and terrifying weapons of war and annihilation-atomic bombs, biologi cal and chemical weapons, and intercontinental missiles-contributed to a pervasive atmosphere of menace in the US, Britain, and all the countries of Western Europe. And in the thick of this cold war, it was the Secret Service and its intelligence operations that took action, that was capable of creating early warning systems and making inroads in the years of the cold war. It was a time of what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called "the rise of a religion of secrecy," a time that fostered the clandestine relationships and treachery of such infamous spies as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, and Kim Philby. In what one-time British Ambassador Richard Seitz calls "a superlative record of Anglo-American intelligence collection, cooperation, and competition," noted author Richard Aldrich reveals startling new information about the relationship between Britain and the US during the Cold War: the extent of the US and British covert operation successes-notably in Iran and Guatemala-as well as many costly debacles and follies. Using the formidable mass of material recently declassified by the US, as well as many files released by the British, Aldrich details the "special relationship" of cooperation between the British and the US, as well as the rampant rancor and suspicion that followed public amity and cooperation in the fight against Nazi Germany and Japan. This is a gripping and highly readable history. ...Show more

Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose

$12.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

"Turn: Washington's Spies" - Now a new original series on AMC Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shado wy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors--including the spymaster at the heart of it all. In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy's battle plans and military strategy. Washington's small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn' t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception--and proved an adept spymaster. The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose's thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution-the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners--that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington's Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy. "From the Hardcover edition." ...Show more

No Cloak, No Dagger: Allied Spycraft in Occupied France by Benjamin Cowburn

$14.00 NZD

Category: World War II | Reading Level: very good

The memoir of SOE agent Benjamin Cowburn is rightly regarded as a classic of wartime literature. In simple, gripping detail Cowburn explains the methods of special agents who were dropped into France during the war and the ways that agents would set about establishing secure networks with the French Res istance. He also shows how agents were able to travel across France, how they set up transmitters and contacted their British headquarters for orders, and how they arranged airplane pick-ups and deliveries of supplies. His account sheds light on the views of both the Resistance fighters facing torture at the hands of the Gestapo and their besieged French countrymen. He notes the tensions within the different command centres, in particular between the French leader-in-exile Charles de Gaulle and his British counterparts, who were all eager to control the efforts of the Resistance. Cowburn gives fascinating general lessons in the art of spying from establishing a worthy target to executing an operation but also tells the full story of his own sabotage operations, including the effective destruction of cylinders for thirteen locomotives in the dead of night. As in so many operations, mistakes were made which could have led to numerous arrests. In this case, the details of the operation had accidentally been left on a blackboard in the school where they had planned the raid, but were luckily scrubbed out by the headmaster's wife. On another occasion, Cowburn snuck itching powder into the laundry of Luftwaffe agents to cause a disruption.This new edition contains an Introduction by M.R.D Foot and a Foreword by Sebastian Faulks.A top 500 Amazon title!! ...Show more

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

$14.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: good-very good

With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security. ...Show more

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre

$8.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: good

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"The best true spy story I have ever read."--JOHN LE CARR The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. I f anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carr , it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations. ...Show more

The Spycatcher's Encyclopedia of Espionage by Peter Wright

$10.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: very good

New Spies: Exploring the Frontiers of Espionage by James Adams

$14.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: good

The Deniable Agent: Undercover in Afghanistan by Colin Berry

$10.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: very good

As far as Colin Berry's family were concerned, he'd gone to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban to market low-cost modular housing. The truth was much more complicated. In fact, Berry, a former soldier, had been recruited by British intelligence to secretly buy back weapons systems which had been delivered to the Mujahideen during their struggle against the Soviets. His work involved reconnaissance missions to remote mountain villages where he was able to see first hand the ravaging effects of decades of warfare. Back in Kabul, his attempts to train local men to fight the Taliban came to a horrific end when their mission was compromised and they were massacred before they could reach their target. In February 2003, disillusioned with the work he was doing and concerned for his own security, Berry made preparations to leave the country. He was packing his bags when two armed Afghans showed up at his hotel room. He agreed to a final meeting but by the time it had finished both Afghans were dead and Berry himself was seriously wounded. In "The Deniable Agent", Colin Berry gives a riveting insight into the covert world of intelligence. First published 2006. ...Show more

American Pimpernel by Andy Marino

$10.00 NZD

Category: Espionage | Reading Level: good

Varian Fry was a flawed man who was transformed by the advent of war in Europe, finding his purpose as the saviour of hundreds of people facing death under the Nazis. Marino traces the progress of the rescue operations, revealing the personality of Fry.