Espionage - A Crash Course

The Think Like A Spy alternative reading list.

‘If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sight.’ The Tempest, Act 5, Sc. 1, William Shakespeare

Just when you thought you were safe from recommended reading lists for the New Year, along comes another. But this one is a little different from the norm. We all love a good spy-yarn, be it from the pens of Mick Herron, Charles Cumming or William Boyd. However, they don’t always provide the most accurate picture of how spying works in the real world. Would we want them to? Probably not, when we are in the market for entertainment.

Often, though, we start a new year with a thirst for fresh knowledge and insights. If this includes you, when it come to the espionage world, welcome. What follows is a short selection of works – fact and fiction – that amount to a crash course in espionage. Or, at least, a set of recommendations that will give you a better understanding of how the intelligence world functions than would any number of Bond viewings.

I could, of course, start with my own work, Think Like A Spy. After all, no less a figure than Charles Cumming wrote that it is ‘as close as readers are likely to get to the secrets of intelligence recruitment.’ But such self-promotion might be considered unseemly. So, instead, I offer you the following eight suggestions:

• The Psychology of Spies and Spying: Trust, Treason, Treachery, by Adrian Furnham and John Taylor (Matador, 7th June 2022). I recommend this book for reasons beyond my taste for alliteration. It has high notes of operational wisdom, with academic insight lingering on the palate. Perhaps a little on the dry side but full-bodied, well-structured and balanced. This book will age well on any intelligence expert’s shelves. Highly recommended.

Soldier Spy: The True Story of an MI5 Officer Risking His Life to Save Yours, by Tom Marcus (Michael Joseph, October 2016). Despite the off-putting, self-satisfied subtitle, there are some interesting insights in this book. Not least into the psyche of one type of person attracted to a career that involves following people around and going through their bins.

Surveillance Tradecraft: The Professional’s Guide to Covert Surveillance Training, by Peter Jenkins (Intel Publications, January 2010). Recommended if, after reading Soldier Spy, you want to learn how surveillance really works. This book covers the lot, from foot and mobile drills, through traps and funnels and onto comms protocols. And it’s illustrated, which makes it even more fun.

The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security, by Richard Tomlinson (Harper Collins, January 2001). Originally banned by HMG, Tomlinson’s part-memoir, part-polemic is now widely available. We have no way of knowing which of its contents (if any) is true and which (if any) is the product of imagination. So, you can test your skills of intelligence analysis to work out which parts of the book bear the weight of plausibility. It’s also fun to spot sections that spy-novelists have drawn on to lend authenticity to their own works.

Permanent Record: A Memoir of a Reluctant Whistleblower, by Edward Snowden (Macmillan, September 2019). Another tell-all memoir, from another former officer who fell foul of the authorities, this time a refugee from the SIGINT world in the US. One to be read alongside Tomlinson’s book, if only to reflect on what lessons vetting officers on both sides of the Atlantic might learn.

How to Tell if Someone is Lying, by Gavin Stone (July 2022). The techniques taught in this book might help to disentangle fact from fiction in some of the others on this list. Written by a man who has worked with agencies the world over, this is a fascinating distillation of expertise gleaned from them all. Practical as well as thoroughly entertaining, Stone is not making any of it up.

Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Espionage, Murder and Justice in Northern Ireland, by Henry Hemming (Quercus, March 2024). It is difficult to pigeonhole Hemming’s style in this superb book, my runaway favourite of 2024. The best I can do is ‘academic-cum-novelistic journalese’. It is a highly readable account of the murder of a British agent during the Troubles, burnished with terrific insights into the workings of the intelligence and security machinery at the time. Just read it.

The IRA Green Book (Desert Publications, March 1981). This is a wildcard, to finish my short list, and it continues the theme of the Troubles. The manual, reportedly used to train inductees to the terror organisation, bears the more formal title of The Irish Republican Army Handbook, saving it from being confused with Muammar Gaddafi’s Green Book. It is a short read, which delivers the mental equivalent of a shot of ginger. There are few better ways to understand what the security services were up against during that dark period of the UK’s history.

I have purposely chosen a diverse range of books. Some, you might read in one sitting. Others, you may choose to dip into on occasion. They are all very different. But they have a common thread of authenticity, even if sometimes accompanied by hyperbole and, possibly, invention. I hope you enjoy them. I hope they help you better understand the intelligence world. And, of course, I invite you to continue reading my Substack, where I will explore the use of HUMINT techniques in popular movies, books and IRL throughout 2025. I’ll also throw in occasional lists of recommendations, like this one.

Happy New Year!