How About A Little Espionage This Summer?

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What genre combines action, adventure, romance along with historical and current political events? It’s the spy fiction or espionage genre.

And, while World War II and the Cold War may be the favorite settings for many spy writers, current events leave us with no shortage of material. In fact, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks and technological sabotage are great subjects for spy thrillers.

Books on espionage for your summer reading

Books involving espionage – both fiction and non-fiction – make for great summer reading. With strong characters, dramatic settings and page-turning plot twists, they provide the escapism many of us crave. Here are some recent releases (and one soon to be released title) to satisfy your craving for adventure.

Books on espionage – The English Spy by Daniel Silva (released June 30, 2015)

This is the latest in Daniel Silva’s series of international thrillers featuring his protagonist, Gabriel Allon. Even though this is the 15th book in the series, Silva keeps his characters and his storyline fresh. This plot pairs Gabriel with the recurring character Christopher Keller as they try to solve an international murder case.

Silva weaves in information from the previous books that makes things interesting for fans of the series as well as newcomers. Warning: Following the twists and turns of the clever plot may make you anti-social for a while.

Books on espionage – Code of Conduct by Brad Thor (Released July 7, 2015)

Brad Thor’s popular hero is former Navy seal Scot Harvath, and in this book, the stakes are huge. Scot, a counterterrorism operative, must penetrate one of the world’s most powerful organizations to prevent it from carrying out its terrible agenda.

Thor keeps the action coming with unpredictable and disturbing plot swings and richly-detailed characters.

Books on espionage – The Tide Watchers by Lisa Chaplin (Released June 30, 2015)

Here’s the story of a young woman who risks her life to help stop Napoleon’s invasion of Great Britain in 1803. As the daughter of an English baronet, Lisbeth goes against her family’s wishes when she elopes to France. When her husband abandons her, however, Lisbeth must work in a tavern in order to earn enough money to be reunited with her young son.

She soon finds herself caught up in a spy operation and searching for evidence about Napoleon’s fleet. This book blends the history of the first submarine — David Bushnell’s “turtle” – with an interesting part of Napoleonic history.

Books on espionage – Most Secret Agent of Empire by Taline ter Minassian (Released March 2015)

This is a non-fiction account of Reginald Teague-Jones (aka Ronald Sinclair) who may just be the most important international spy you know nothing about.

Teague-Jones (1889- 1988) participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution and then spent most of his life working undercover for various branches of British secret intelligence.

Taline Ter Minassian is a historian at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris. She specializes in Soviet and Middle Eastern studies.

Now, here is a highly anticipated novel that is scheduled for an October release.

Books on espionage – The Survivor (by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills) (Scheduled to be released October 6, 2015)

In this book, Vince Flynn’s elite operative hero, Mitch Rap, faces his most intense battle to date.

When Rick Rickman, a once a CIA golden boy, provides classified documents to another country, Rapp is up against the clock against a country that has recently acquired nuclear weapons.

As his many fans know, Flynn died in 2013 after a three-year battle with prostate cancer. Kyle Mills writes the following comments on http://www.vinceflynn.com/:

“My goal with The Survivor is to stick very closely to Vince’s style and to try to capture Mitch exactly as he did. I’m lucky that The Last Man included a lot of clues as to where Mitch’s story would go next. The hope is to create a book that even lifelong fans will have a hard time differentiating from the rest of the series. Not an easy task, but I’m working hard to get as close as I can.”

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