True Spies

One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and set in train a course of events that would change the course of the Second World War. Ben Macintyre, bestselling author of Agent Zigzag, weaves together private documents, memories, letters and diaries, as well as newly released material from the intelligence files of MI5 and Naval Intelligence, to tell for the first time the full story of Operation Mincemeat.

Known as Fritz to his German spy-handlers and Zig-Zag to the British secret service, Eddie Chapman was a man of many faces. While his early life was rife with petty crime, gang activity and a dishonorable discharge from the British military, Chapman’s unique skills were eventually sought out by Nazi Germany, and after convincing them he could use his criminal contacts to sabotage the English forces, he was quickly recruited.

Michal Goleniewski, cover name Sniper, was one of the most important spies of the early Cold War. For two and a half years at the end of the 1950s, as a Lt. Colonel at the top of Poland’s espionage service, he smuggled more than 5,000 top-secret Soviet bloc intelligence and military documents, as well as 160 rolls of microfilm, out from behind the Iron Curtain. In January 1961, he abandoned his wife and children and made a dramatic defection across divided Berlin with his East German mistress to the safety of American territory.

The Secret Side of the Civil War John Scobell, a former slave, works as a spy for the Union, collecting secrets in northern Virginia as the Civil War marches down upon the land. But he has no idea that Peg, the wife he left behind in Richmond, has also become a Union spy operating in the heart of the Confederacy. The Lincoln League is based on the true story of John Scobell, the first African-American spy in the U.S. intelligence service. This thrilling novel also tells the little-known story of the Lincoln League, a network of African-American spies. In the beginning, John saw the war as a...

1st PLACE WINNER, C.I.B.A. HEMINGWAY AWARD BEST 1st BOOK, INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARDS "An inherently compelling read from start to finish that deftly combines the elements of espionage and romance." —MBR Bookwatch "Absolutely enthralling and entertaining. Kept me engaged to the very end." —Bare Books Podcast"Absolutely enthralling and entertaining. Kept me engaged to the very end." —Bare Books Podcast "This would make a great, great film." —On the Bookshelf with Doc Kirby, WTBF "A wonderfully rendered story." —Denton Record-Chronicle "The politics and historical events are ...

As seen on TV! Internationally known espionage expert Chris Simmons has appeared on CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, Univision, Telemundo, France TV, the CW, Lifetime, Discovery, NPR and numerous other outlets. He has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, El Pais (#1 paper in Spain), ESPN Magazine and countless other print media. CASTRO’S NEMESIS: True Stories of a Master Spy-Catcher interweaves the amazing tale of the ego-driven Celia, one of Havana’s highest-ranking American agents, and La Red Avispa, the ...

Revolutionary War Period Romance Based on a True Story Would you have the courage to traverse over five miles in the middle of the night crossing a rushing swollen river to save your friends from certain death? If villains held your family at gunpoint, what would you do? Would you step forward and save them? "Dicey" Langston, who lived during the Revolutionary War, was a patriot who carried messages from the Loyalists to the Patriots. By doing so, she saved many lives and helped to win the fight for freedom. During the Revolutionary War, fifteen-year-old Dicey Langston overheard that a band...

When Miss Mary Bennet is assigned to London for the Season, extravagant balls and eligible men are the least of her worries. A government messenger has been murdered and suspicion falls on the Radicals, who may be destabilizing the government in order to compel England down the bloody path of the French Revolution.

A tale of terrorism, espionage, and an epic struggle for justice in an America on the verge, sparked by a massive and mysterious explosion in New York Harbor in 1916.

That year, while the Allied and Central forces waged war in Europe, a group of German saboteurs blew up Black Tom Island, a spit of land in New York Harbor within earshot of downtown Manhattan. The subsequent hail of missiles and gunpowder devastated much of lower New York City.

As a tough but smart Italian American kid, Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a city hall lawyer and “Brain Trust'' aide to President Roosevelt. He was on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell and mingled with the famous and powerful. But his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight. During this time, Cuneo began a close friendship with British spy Ian Fleming and helped inspire Fleming's James Bond novels.

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring. Yet little is known of this shrewd, secretive man. The full extent of his betrayal has never been documented - until now. Drawing on the recent release of previously classified files, A Spy Named Orphan meticulously documents the extraordinary story of a man leading a chilling double life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

Call me naïve, but when I was a girl - watching James Bond and devouring Harriet the Spy - all I wanted was to grow up to be a spy. Unlike most kids, I didn't lose my secret-agent aspirations. So as a bright-eyed, idealistic college grad, I sent my resume to the CIA. Getting in was a story in itself.

Andrew and Jihi Bustamante were a “tandem couple”: married spies who’d dedicated their lives to the CIA. They met as trainees at Langley, and got married while hunting terrorists across the globe. Then, suddenly, they were assigned to a mission so sensitive and explosive that the CIA still has never acknowledged it.

In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe.

Written by one of its own graduates, Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class is an insider's view of the first CIA training class after September 11, 2001 - a look at the most elite and secretive espionage training program in the country.

In 2017, a routine network television investigation led to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move, and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.

Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI.

Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little-known aspects of the Civil War: The stories of four courageous women - a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow - who were spies. After shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle Boyd became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation's military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lamphere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage - the atomic bomb.

Drawing on a wealth of previously classified intelligence archives, in multiple countries and languages, it reveals how Western and Eastern governments used spies, sabotage, subversion, and information warfare to battle each other during the conflict that dominated the twentieth century. Far from being a closed historical chapter, however, it shows that conflict's ghosts are still alive.