The Greatest Spy Stories Ever Told

Stories from the Civil War through WWII In The Greatest Spy Stories Ever Told, our editor has pulled together some of the finest writings about spies that capture readers imaginations. The one thing the heroes in this collection have in common is the ability to seamlessly shift identities. Each of the men and women in these stories had the courage to meet and study their enemies, gather critical intelligence, and then relay those secrets at risk of being exposed—to do what they had to because that was their duty and the lives of others meant more to them than their own. Chosen from hundreds of accounts of singular devotion to duty, the stories in Greatest Spy Stories stand out for their jaw-dropping tales of bravery. They are the best. No small feat.

George Smiley’s deadly game Smiley and his people are facing a remarkable challenge: a mole—a Soviet double agent—who has burrowed his way in and up to the highest level of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of their vital operations and their best networks. The mole is one of their own kind. But who is it?

Meet Hugo Dare. Schoolboy turned super spy. Both stupidly dangerous and dangerously stupid. Thirteen year old Hugo's life is turned upside down when his part-time job as a toilet boy in secret organisation, SICK, is unexpectedly upgraded eight levels to that of a spy. His first assignment - to go deep undercover with Agent One and assist him in any way he can. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Very wrong. A robbery at the Bottle Bank. Diamond smuggling at the Pearly Gates Cemetery. The theft of priceless artifact, Coocamba's Idol. Hugo is there on each and every occasion, but then so, too, is someone else. Wrinkles, the town of Crooked Elbow's oldest criminal mastermind. She needs to be stopped and fast. No, quicker than that. Double fast. Before it's too late. In a battle of good versus evil, young versus old, ugly versus even uglier, there can only be one winner ... and it better be Hugo otherwise we're all in trouble! A laugh-out-loud, thrill-a-minute adventure story for children aged 7+.

From soldier to journalist, twenty-four epic tales of war from those who know it best.

In Spy Runner, a noir mystery middle grade novel from Newbery Honor author Eugene Yelchin, a boy stumbles upon a secret that jeopardizes American national security. It's 1953 and the Cold War is on. Communism threatens all that the United States stands for, and America needs every patriot to do their part. So when a Russian boarder moves into the home of twelve-year-old Jake McCauley, he's on high alert. What does the mysterious Mr. Shubin do with all that photography equipment? And why did he choose to live so close to the Air Force base? Jake’s mother says that Mr. Shubin knew Jake’s dad, who went missing in action during World War II. But Jake is skeptical; the facts just don’t add up. And he’s determined to discover the truth—no matter what he risks. Godwin Books

The celebrated author of A Spy Among Friends and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Cold War-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union. If 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 Carré, 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.

*The No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller* *Shortlisted for the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize* *Bill Gates' Top 5 Books for 2020* 'THE BEST TRUE SPY STORY I HAVE EVER READ' JOHN LE CARRÉ A thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians - now with a new afterword On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever... BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT BOOK, COLDITZ, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW

"I don't regard nature as a spectator sport." -Ed Zern, 1985 Hunting is a serious business-but it's also about camaraderie, achievements and failures, seeing new places, and revisiting cherished ones. The true stories here feature a variety of game, in locations that range from high Yukon Territory mountain peaks to lowland swamps off of Mobile Bay, Alabama. This is an indispensable volume for all lovers and students of the natural world. If your definition of home includes fields and marshes, creeks and river bottoms, plains and mountains, consider this required reading.