The Double Game

by Dan Fesperman

  1962 —Cory, Undertow

  —Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me

  —Hamilton, The Silencers

  —Hamilton, Murderers’ Row

  —Deighton, The Ipcress File

  —Le Carré, A Murder of Quality

  1963 —Cory, Hammerhead

  —Deighton, Horse Under Water

  —Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

  —Le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

  —MacInnes, The Venetian Affair

  1964 —Deighton, Funeral in Berlin

  —Fleming, You Only Live Twice

  —Wilkinson, Night of the Short Knives

  1965 —Bingham, A Fragment of Fear

  —Fleming, The Man with the Golden Gun

  —Hall, The Berlin Memorandum (U.S.: The Quiller Memorandum)

  —Hunter, The Expendable Spy

  —Le Carré, The Looking Glass War

  —O’Donnell, Modesty Blaise

  —Semyonov, Petrovka 38

  —Simmel, Dear Fatherland

  1966 —Bingham, The Double Agent

  —Burgess, Tremor of Intent

  —Cory, Feramontov

  —Deighton, Billion-Dollar Brain

  —Fleming, Octopussy and The Living Daylights

  —Garner, Overkill

  —Hall, The Ninth Directive

  —MacInnes, The Double Image

  —West, The Night Is a Time for Listening

  1967 —Cory, Timelock

  —Deighton, An Expensive Place to Die

  —Diment, The Dolly Dolly Spy

  —Gainham, Night Falls on the City

  —Hunter, One of Us Works for Them

  1968 —Diment, The Great Spy Race

  —Diment, The Bang Bang Birds

  —Garner, The Deep, Deep Freeze

  —Hall, The Striker Portfolio

  —Le Carré, A Small Town in Germany

  —MacInnes, The Salzburg Connection

  —Semyonov, The Himmler Ploy (aka Seventeen Moments of Spring)

  1969 —Garner, The Us or Them War

  —Hunter, Spies, Inc.

  —Lemaster, Knee Knockers

  —Wilkinson, The Adventures of Geoffrey Mildmay

  1970 —Simmel, And Jimmy Went Up the Rainbow

  1971 —Cory, Sunburst

  —Diment, Think Inc.

  —Hall, The Warsaw Document

  —Hone, The Private Sector

  —Lemaster, A Lesson in Tradecraft

  —MacInnes, Message from Málaga

  1972 —Ambler, The Levanter

  1973 —Hall, The Tango Briefing

  —Hunt, The Berlin Ending

  —Lemaster, The Double Game

  —Littell, The Defection of A. J. Lewinter

  —McCarry, The Miernik Dossier

  1974 —Allbeury, Snowball

  —Deighton, Spy Story

  —Grady, Six Days of the Condor

  —Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

  —McCarry, The Tears of Autumn

  1975 —Allbeury, The Special Collection

  —Deighton, Yesterday’s Spy

  —Hall, The Mandarin Cypher

  —Hone, The Sixth Directorate

  1976 —Buckley, Saving the Queen

  —Deighton, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

  —Lemaster, The Cutout

  —MacInnes, Agent in Place

  1977 —Latham, Orchids for Mother

  —Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

  —McCarry, The Secret Lovers

  1978 —Allbeury, The Lantern Network

  —Buckley, Stained Glass

  —Grady, Shadow of the Condor

  —Granger, The November Man

  —Greene, The Human Factor

  —Hall, The Sinkiang Executive

  1979 —Allbeury, The Alpha List

  —Hall, The Scorpion Signal

  —Le Carré, Smiley’s People

  —Lemaster, A Spy for All Seasons

  —Littell, The Debriefing

  1980 —Buckley, Who’s on First

  —Tyler, The Man Who Lost the War

  1981 —Allbeury, The Other Side of Silence

  —Granger, Schism

  —Hunt, The Gaza Intercept

  —Lemaster, London’s Own

  1982 —Bingham, Brock and the Defector

  —Granger, The Shattered Eye

  —Tyler, Rogue’s March

  1983 —Deighton, Berlin Game

  —Granger, The British Cross

  —Le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl

  —McCarry, The Last Supper

  —Quammen, The Zolta Configuration

  1984 —Buckley, The Story of Henri Tod

  —Deighton, Mexico Set

  —Lemaster, A Glancing Blow

  —MacInnes, Ride a Pale Horse

  1985 —Buckley, See You Later, Alligator

  —Deighton, London Match

  —Hall, Northlight (U.S.: Quiller)

  —Hunt, The Kremlin Conspiracy

  1986 —Allbeury, No Place to Hide

  —Buckley, High Jinx

  —Hood, Spy Wednesday

  —Le Carré, A Perfect Spy

  —Lemaster, Requiem for a Spy

  —Littell, The Sisters

  1987 —Buckley, Mongoose, R.I.P.

  —Quammen, The Soul of Viktor Tronko

  1988 —Allbeury, A Wilderness of Mirrors

  —Deighton, Spy Hook

  —Furst, Night Soldiers

  1989 —Hall, Quiller KGB

  —Deighton, Spy Line

  —Hood, Cry Spy (last non-Lemaster purchase, just afterBerlin Wall came down)

  —Le Carré, The Russia House

  —Lemaster, Render unto Caesar

  Post–Cold War

  1991 —Lemaster, A Final Folly

  1994 —Lemaster, The Sinking of the Bellwether

  1997 —Lemaster, Strength in Numbers

  2000 —Lemaster, Duty, Honor, Betrayal

  2003 —Lemaster, The Tent of the Sheik

  2007 —Lemaster, Remote Control

  Acknowledgments

  When your characters and plot spring not only from your imagination but also from a lifetime of satisfied reading, it is difficult to know where to begin saying thanks. David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, is probably an appropriate starting point, since his Smiley novels were my entrée to the classics of espionage fiction, back when the Cold War was as chilly and gray as a January sky over Berlin. And while I’m not a collector of first editions like, say, Warfield Cage, I am lucky enough to have a true first of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, a copy of which the author was kind enough to sign for me several years ago. The novels of Graham Greene, Len Deighton, and Charles McCarry also marked me at a relatively early age, enough to remind me of the Elvis Costello song lyric that asks, “Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?”

  Yet, for all my voracious reading, I had no inkling of how widely and deeply the genre had cast its nets until I began researching this novel. James Fenimore Cooper, that guy we had to read in high school? Yes, even he was a practitioner. I owe the work of many sources for that sort of information. Among those worthy of specific thanks are Stephen J. Gertz, who is not only an expert on rare books but also an authority on the quirky phenomenon of the book scout; and Otto Penzler, who, when it comes to spy fiction, seems to have collected, read, and assessed everything ever written. In Budapest, Professor Istvan Rev, a historian at Central European University, offered valuable insights on the fortunes of the antiquarian book trade during the Cold War and beyond.

  Thanks are also due to a few dozen former operatives of the CIA, who spoke with me as part of my research for another project, but whose experiences, insights, and, in some cases, authorial forays, helped light my way. I’m particularly grateful for a pleasant afternoon spent chatting with CIA veteran William Hood, whose novel Spy Wednesday earned a cameo in this book’s chapters in Vienna, the city of his greatest Cold
War triumph.

  Finally, although Bill Cage puts little stock in so-called nonfiction, I found many such volumes to be quite helpful, especially Tom Mangold’s Cold Warrior, Evan Thomas’s The Very Best Men, and Genrikh Borovik’s The Philby Files.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dan Fesperman’s travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, and The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.

  ALSO BY DAN FESPERMAN

  Layover in Dubai

  The Arms Maker of Berlin

  The Amateur Spy

  The Prisoner of Guantánamo

  The Warlord’s Son

  The Small Boat of Great Sorrows

  Lie in the Dark