Spies In Our Midst

Igor Gouzenko was a former clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa who defected to the West in 1945. His story was so astounding that, at first, no one believed him. But the evidence he smuggled from the embassy eventually led to the arrest of a large Soviet spy ring in Canada, and sent Gouzenko into hiding for the rest of his life. His revelations reverberated throughout the world and ignited the Cold War.

In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, former Chief of CIA counterintelligence James M. Olson offers a wake-up call for the American public, showing how the US is losing the intelligence war and how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security and trade secrets.

Ranked #41 on Spycast's list of the Top 50 Best Spy Novels, as voted for by real-life intelligence operatives. The Allies have landed, the liberation of Europe has begun. In the Pas de Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations Executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day. Appalled but determined, Quinn sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. Aided by the Resistance in his search, he makes good progress. But, caught up by the bitterness of the war and its insatiable appetite for revenge, he risks total destruction. Based on real events of the Second World War, this is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception and espionage, perfect for fans of Robert Harris, John le Carré and Len Deighton.

From the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes a thrilling new WWII story about a village busybody—the mighty Mrs. Braithwaite—who resolves to find, and then rescue, her missing daughter Mrs. Braithwaite, self-appointed queen of her English village, finds herself dethroned, despised, and dismissed following her husband’s selfish divorce petition. Never deterred, the threat of a family secret being revealed sets her hot-foot to London to find the only person she has left—her clever daughter Betty, who took work there at the first rumbles of war. But when she arrives, Betty’s landlord, the timid Mr. Norris, informs her that Betty hasn’t been home in days--with the chaos of the bombs, there’s no telling what might have befallen her. Aghast, Mrs. Braithwaite sets her bullish determination to the task of finding her only daughter. Storming into the London Blitz, Mrs. Braithwaite drags the reluctant Mr. Norris along as an unwitting sidekick as they piece together Betty’s unexpectedly chaotic life. As she is thrown into the midst of danger and death, Mrs. Braithwaite is forced to rethink her old-fashioned notions of status, class, and reputation, and to reconsider the question that’s been puzzling her since her world overturned: How do you measure the success of your life? Readers will be charmed by the unforgettable Mrs. Braithwaite and her plucky, ruthless optimism, and find in The Spies of Shilling Lane a novel with surprising twists and turns, quiet humor, and a poignant examination of mothers and daughters and the secrets we keep.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the main drivers of clandestine activity have been wars, crime, and international espionage. The need to obtain and pass along secret information exists so that one group can gain dominance over another, whether through victory in conflicts, seizure of land, or stealing money. Spies may be a constant, but so are the code breakers, those hardworking heroes who use their intelligence and drive to overcome whatever challenges arise from enemies or thieves. This comprehensive collection of New York Times coverage gives a behind-the-scenes look at the high stakes drama created by dangerous secrets, with media literacy terms and questions included to further draw readers in.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler is back with a new anthology that has gathered the intel on the world's greatest secret agents, declassified in these pages for the first time. Statesecrets. Double agents. Leaks. Otto Penzler brings you all this and more with his latest title in the Big Book series. No need to wait for the government to release redacted information, Otto is ready to declassify confidential matters. Great stories from Lee Child and Charles McCarry are pulled from the shadows and into the light. So pull your fedora down, adjust your fake moustache, and get ready to settle in with some of the greats.

In this, the first fully documented study of British and Irish popular reactions to the outbreak of the First World War, Catriona Pennell explores UK public opinion of the time, successfully challenging post-war constructions of 'war enthusiasm' in the British case, and disengagement in the Irish. Drawing from a vast array of contemporary diaries, letters, journals, and newspaper accounts from across the UK, A Kingdom United explores what people felt, and how they acted, in response to an unanticipated and unprecedented crisis. It is a history of both ordinary people and elite figures in extraordinary times. Pennell demonstrates that describing the reactions of over 40 million British and Irish people to the outbreak of war as either enthusiastic in the British case, or disengaged in the Irish, is over-simplified and inadequate. Emotional reactions to the war were ambiguous and complex, and changed over time. By the end of 1914 the populations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland had largely embraced the war, but the war had also embraced them and showed no signs of relinquishing its grip. The five months from August to December 1914 set the shape of much that was to follow. A Kingdom United describes and explains the twenty-week formative process in order to deepen our understanding of British and Irish entry into war.

The United States is losing the counterintelligence war. Foreign intelligence services, particularly those of China, Russia, and Cuba, are recruiting spies in our midst and stealing our secrets and cutting-edge technologies. In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence, offers a wake-up call for the American public and also a guide for how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security secrets. Olson takes the reader into the arcane world of counterintelligence as he lived it during his thirty-year career in the CIA. After an overview of what the Chinese, Russian, and Cuban spy services are doing to the United States, Olson gives a masterclass on the principles and practice of counterintelligence. Readers will learn his ten commandments of counterintelligence and about specific aspects such as running double-agent operations and surveillance. The book also analyzes twelve actual case studies in order to illustrate why people spy against their country, the tradecraft of intelligence, and where counterintelligence breaks down or succeeds. A "lessons learned" section follows each case study, and the book also includes an appendix of recommended further reading. This book will fascinate anyone with an interest in the real world of espionage.