Larry Loftis’ 5 Favorite Spy Books: A Guest Post from Larry Loftis, Author of The Princess Spy, Our Monthly Nonfiction Pick
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Larry Loftis is back with another captivating spy story that will have readers racing to read the full account of Aline Griffith, the Countess of Romanones. A true story, The Princess Spy is the story of a bright-eyed young woman determined to help her country through deep-cover espionage. Infiltrating the high society of titled Europeans, Aline risked everything to serve her country, and readers won’t be able to get enough of this vivid recounting of her dazzling adventures. Keep reading to hear from Larry Loftis about his favorite spy books and how he uses them for research!
My aim from the beginning has been to write nonfiction World War II spy thrillers. That is, I combine two genres: WWII nonfiction and thriller fiction. In my research, I read nonfiction for facts, fiction for style. Here then are my five favorite spy books — three nonfiction, two fiction.
Nonfiction Spy Books
The Memoirs of Hitler’s Spymaster by Walter Schellenberg
Research with primary sources is critical for any nonfiction writer, and Walter Schellenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief foreign intelligence officer, is one of the best. His vivid description of the intrigue in Hitler’s regime, and his part in it, is daunting. “My desk was like a small fortress,” he wrote in his memoir. “Two automatic guns were built into it which could spray the whole room with bullets. … I could press another button and a siren would summon the guards to surround the building and block every exit.”
A must-read for understanding espionage from the German side.
{{ product: 9781599211701 }}A classic within espionage circles, A Man Called Intrepid is an authorized biography of Sir William Stephenson [no relation to the author], head of MI6’s British Security Coordination and code-named INTREPID.
The book also contains excellent material on MI6 agent Dusko Popov (subject of Into the Lion’s Mouth), J. Edgar Hoover, William Donovan (OSS chief), and British naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming. Fleming, who observed and participated in some OSS/BSC training, said of him: “Bill Stephenson worked himself almost to death carrying out undercover operations and often dangerous assignments that can only be hinted at.”
After primary sources (memoirs and official archives), the principal aid for military studies is the work of scholars like David Kahn. His 650-page tome, Hitler’s Spies, is the finest overview of German espionage in World War II.
Here you’ll find useful details on intelligence chiefs Schellenberg (S.D.) and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (Abwehr), lists of German officers working in various countries (one of which helped me to identify a Madrid Abwehr agent in The Princess Spy), as well as in-depth discussions of Britain’s most valuable double agents.
Kahn spent eight years researching this book and it’s a treasure trove for WWII buffs.
Fiction Spy Novels
{{ product: 9780199537877 }}This 1915 novel is considered the first thriller (although some would contend that title belongs to Erskine Childers’s 1903 work, The Riddle of the Sands). Another classic, Buchan’s book has been adapted for film three times: in 1935 (directed by Alfred Hitchcock), 1959, and 1978.
Although considered a novella by today’s standards, the book’s staying power and popularity is due to a tight, tension-filled story, complimented by the first McGuffin: “thirty-nine steps.” Like “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane, the reader doesn’t find out the meaning of the thirty-nine steps until the end of the story.
The Kobra Manifesto is the best book you’ve never read.
For my money, Elleston Trevor (the real name behind the pseudonym Adam Hall) is the most gifted writer this side of Shakespeare. With due respect to Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Wilde, and many others, no one handles all the elements of exquisite writing better than him. Only with Trevor do you find sublime and tight prose, oblique dialogue, memorable metaphors, vivid descriptions, intrigue, pace, suspense, cliffhangers, McGuffins, and avoidance of “on the nose” passages, all packaged within poetic alliteration.
Perfection is generally understood as unattainable, but The Kobra Manifesto is the only novel I’ve read without a single flaw.