7 November, 2024
Heywood Hill’s 50 Greatest Spy Novels published since 1900.
To celebrate TRADECRAFT’s launch Heywood Hill has published a list of the 50 spy novels that most define the genre, from Rudyard Kipling to Rachel Kushner.
Nicky Dunne, our Bookseller-in-Chief says, ‘To celebrate TRADECRAFT we are today publishing a list of the 50 greatest spy novels published since 1900. It is an intriguing form of literary history. What is striking about the list is the very large number of Our list has its roots in the imperial age. It then traverses the conflicts of the twentieth century, hot and cold, into the contemporary world and its different seismology. It is a work in progress and we welcome alternative suggestions.’
Rudyard Kipling – Kim (1901)
Erskine Childers – The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
Emmuska Orczy – The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)
Joseph Conrad – Under Western Eyes (1911)
John Buchan – Greenmantle (1916)
Arthur Conan Doyle – His Last Bow (1917)
Somerset Maugham – Ashenden (1928)
Dennis Wheatley – The Eunuch of Stamboul (1935)
Eric Ambler – The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
Helen MacInnes – Above Suspicion (1941)
J B Priestley – Blackout in Gretley (1942)
Elizabeth Bowen – The Heat of the Day (1948)
Ian Fleming – Live and Let Die (1954)
Agatha Christie – Destination Unknown (1954)
Graham Greene – Our Man In Havana (1958)
Alistair MacLean – The Last Frontier (1959)
Len Deighton – The Ipcress File (1962)
Adam Hall – The Berlin Memorandum (1965)
Anthony Burgess – A Tremor of Intent (1966)
Desmond Bagley – Running Blind (1970
Muriel Spark – The Hothouse by the East River (1973)
John le Carré – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
Jack Higgins – The Eagle has Landed (1975)
Ken Follett – Eye of the Needle (1978)
Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Identity (1980)
Barry Unsworth – Pascali’s Island (1980)
Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park (1981)
Frederick Forsyth – The Fourth Protocol (1984)
Tom Clancy – The Hunt For Red October (1984)
Ian McEwan – The Innocent (1990)
Alan Furst – Dark Star (1991)
David Ignatius – Siro (1991)
Philip Roth – Operation Shylock (1993)
Robert Harris – Enigma (1995)
Gayle Lynds – Masquerade (1996)
John Banville – The Untouchable (1997)
Sebastian Faulks – Charlotte Gray (1999)
Robert Littell – The Company (2002)
William Boyd – Restless (2006)
C J Sansom – Winter in Madrid (2006)
Mick Herron – Slow Horses (2010)
Alan Judd – Uncommon Enemy (2012)
Viet Thanh Nguyen – The Sympathizer (2015)
Helen Dunmore – Exposure (2016)
Natasha Walter – A Quiet Life (2016)
Manda Scott – A Treachery of Spies (2018)
Kate Atkinson – Transcription (2018)
Lauren Wilkinson – American Spy (2019)
Charles Cumming – BOX 88 (2020)
Rachel Kushner – Creation Lake (2024)
To order the full list of books, email us at enquiries@heywoodhill.com.