Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring, in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, le Carré, Ian Fleming (Bond) and Len Deighton. It is a significant aspect of British cinema, with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions and many films set in the British Secret Service.
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels.
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905-1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder mysteries. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. Under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, they also edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime. Dannay founded, and for many years edited, the crime fiction magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961 onwards, Dannay and Lee commissioned other authors to write thrillers using the Ellery Queen nom de plume, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; some such novels were juvenile and were credited to Ellery Queen, Jr. They also wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross.
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming was a British naval officer who served as the first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
Donald Bengtsson Hamilton was an American writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction, but also crime fiction and westerns, such as The Big Country. He is best known for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency. The noted critic Anthony Boucher wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told."
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by American author Donald Hamilton (1916-2006). Helm is a U.S. government counter-agent, a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in most spy thrillers.
Michael Collins is the best-known pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, an American author who primarily wrote mystery fiction.
Henry Reymond Fitzwalter Keating was an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID.
John Fenwick Anderson Blackburn was a British novelist who wrote thrillers, and horror novels. Blackburn was described as "today's Master of Horror" by The Times Literary Supplement.
Robin Estridge, a.k.a. Robin York and Philip Loraine was a British author of suspense fiction and a screenwriter.
John Michael Ward Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris was a onetime MI5 spy and an English novelist who published 17 thrillers, detective novels, and spy novels.
Len Deighton is an English author known for his novels, works of military history, screenplays and cookery writing. He had a varied career, including as a pastry cook, waiter, co-editor of a magazine, teacher and air steward before writing his first novel in 1962: The IPCRESS File. He continued to produce what his biographer John Reilly considers "stylish, witty, well-crafted novels" in spy fiction, including three trilogies and a prequel featuring Bernard Samson.
Inspector Joseph French is a fictional British police detective created by Irish author Freeman Wills Crofts. French was a prominent detective from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, appearing in twenty-nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. The character was introduced in the 1924 novel Inspector French's Greatest Case, where he investigates a fatal diamond robbery in Hatton Garden. The series relied largely on puzzle mysteries.
Slow Burner is a 1958 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Little Brown. It was Haggard's first novel and the first of many involving his protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the head of the urbane unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counter-intelligence agency clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service, who moves easily and gracefully along C.P. Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. Like most of the other works by Haggard and some by his near contemporaries Victor Canning and Michael Gilbert, it is both a standard novel of suspense and a semi-political thriller about the reactions of those in high government positions who scent potential danger to their own political standing from the on-going events of the novel.
Venetian Blind is a 1959 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Ives Washburn. It was Haggard's second of 21 books involving his urbane protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the head of the unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counter-intelligence agency clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service, where he moves easily and gracefully along C.P. Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. Like all of Haggard's books it has standard elements of suspense thrillers but in addition there is an almost Henry Jamiesian exposition of British establishment mores and character, in both the government and in the world of upper-class financiers, scientists, industrialists, their families, and hangers-on, making it very much a novel of character.
The Antagonists is a 1964 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Ives Washburn. It was Haggard's sixth of 21 books involving his protagonist Colonel Charles Russell, the urbane head of the unobtrusive but lethal Security Executive, a government counter-intelligence agency clearly based on the actual MI5 or Security Service, where he moves easily and gracefully along C.P. Snow's Corridors of Power in Whitehall. Like Haggard's earlier books it has standard elements of suspense thrillers along with detailed examinations of character, but in this case with more scenes of direct action and somewhat less dissection of character and motivation than in the first three books.
Lynn Brock (1877-1943) was the pseudonym of the Irish writer Alister McAllister, who moved to England and wrote a series of mystery novels. Brock is best known for his series of Colonel Gore detective novels, which enjoyed popularity in the 1920s and 1930s during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. His novels employ a complexity of style and are generally set in rural locations. He also wrote several plays under the name Anthony Wharton.
The Kink is a 1927 mystery detective novel by the Irish-born writer Lynn Brock. It was the third novel in his series featuring the character of Colonel Wyckham Gore, one of many investigators active during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It is sometimes referred to as Colonel Gore’s Third Case. The novel is noted for being comparatively sexually explicit for the era. Dashiell Hammett wrote a contemporary negative review of the book in The Saturday Review.
