Why am I passionate about this?
I am the author of six espionage books, 5 featuring allied spy, Eva Molenaar operating at the highest levels of Hitler’s Reich. The 6th The Road of a Thousand Tigers, is my homage to le Carre and Ian Fleming. I have loved the spy genre since I first read The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers and grew up seeing every Bond movie since The Man with the Golden Gun at the cinema.
Robert's book list on spies, spying and cold war thrillers
Why did Robert love this book?
From Russia with Love is a short book and is set at the early stages of the cold war. It shakes up the norm by spending close to a quarter of the opening of the novel describing Donald ‘Red’ Grant’s evolution from Irish thug to Russia’s leading spy killer. Bond is targeted by SMERSH to be eliminated by Grant and the lure; a SPEKTOR coding machine that British Intelligence are keen to get hold of. The final showdown between Grant and Bond on a train is a masterclass in tension and violence, like Eric Ambler, Fleming captures Europe and its mindset, this time in its post-war paranoia. It is my favorite Bond book. For me, Fleming never bettered it.
1 author picked From Russia, With Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
There's no better time to rediscover James Bond.
SMERSH, the Russian intelligence unit, is hell-bent on destroying Special Agent James Bond.
His death would deal a hammer blow to the heart of The British Secret Service.
The lure? The chance for 007 to bring the Spektor decoding machine from Istanbul to London, and for the British to take the upper hand in a chilling new front of the Cold War.
So begins a deadly game of bluff and double bluff, with Bond a marked man as he enters the murky world of Balkan espionage.
'Bond is a hero for all…