Editing Spy fiction (section)

=====British=====
With ''Secret Ministry'' (1951), [[Desmond Cory]] introduced [[Johnny Fedora]], the secret agent with a [[Licence to kill (concept)|licence to kill]], the government-sanctioned [[Assassination|assassin]]. [[Ian Fleming]], a former member of naval intelligence, followed swiftly with the glamorous [[James Bond]], secret agent 007 of the British Secret Service, a mixture of counter-intelligence officer, assassin and playboy. Perhaps the most famous fictional spy, Bond was introduced in ''[[Casino Royale (novel)|Casino Royale]]'' (1953). After Fleming's death the franchise continued under other British and American authors, including [[Kingsley Amis]], [[Christopher Wood (writer)|Christopher Wood]], [[John Gardner (British writer)|John Gardner]], [[Raymond Benson]], [[Sebastian Faulks]], [[Jeffery Deaver]], [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]] and [[Anthony Horowitz]]. The Bond novels, which were extremely popular in the 1950s, inspired an even more popular series of films starting in 1962. The success of the Bond novels and films has greatly influenced popular images of the work of spies even though the character of Bond is more of an assassin than a spy.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=381}}

Despite the commercial success of Fleming's extravagant novels, [[John le Carré]], himself a former spy, created [[anti-hero]]ic protagonists who struggled with the ethical issues involved in espionage and sometimes resorted to immoral tactics. Le Carré depicted spies as living a morally grey world having to constantly make morally dubious decisions in an essentially amoral struggle where lies, paranoia and betrayal are the norm for both sides.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=332}} In le Carré best known novel, ''The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'' (1963), the hero Alec Leamas views himself as serving in "...a war fought on a tiny scale, at close range" and complained that he has seen too many "people cheated and misled, whole lives thrown away, people shot and in prison, whole groups and classes of men written off for nothing".{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=332}} Le Carré's middle-class hero [[George Smiley]] is a middle-aged spy burdened with an unfaithful, upper-class wife who publicly [[Cuckoldry|cuckolds]] him for sport.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=230}} The American scholars Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen described Smiley as the fictional spy most likely to be successful as a real spy, citing le Carré's description of him in ''A Murder of Quality'': <blockquote>"Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colorful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonymity and his safety. His fear makes him servile—he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes.<br />But this fear, this servility, this dependence had developed in Smiley a perception for the colour of human beings: a swift, feminine sensitivity to their characters and motives. He knew mankind as a huntsman knows his cover, as a fox the woods. For a spy must hunt while he is hunted, and the crowd is his estate. He could collect their gestures, record the interplay of glance and movement, as a huntsman can record the twisted bracken and broken twig, or as a fox detects the signs of danger".{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=229-230}}</blockquote>

Like Le Carré, former British Intelligence officer [[Graham Greene (writer)|Graham Greene]] also examined the [[morality]] of espionage in left-wing, anti-imperialist novels such as ''[[The Heart of the Matter]]'' (1948), set in [[Sierra Leone]], the [[seriocomedy|seriocomic]] ''[[Our Man in Havana]]'' (1959) occurring in Cuba under the regime of dictator [[Fulgencio Batista]] before his deposition in the [[Cuban Revolution]] (1953–59), and ''[[The Human Factor (novel)|The Human Factor]]'' (1978) about a MI6 agent's attempts to uncover a mole in [[apartheid]]-era [[South Africa]].{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=336}} Greene had worked as a MI6 agent in Freetown, an important British naval base during World War Two, searching for German spies who would radio information about the movements of ships to the ''Kriegsmarine'', experiences which inspired ''The Heart of the Matter''.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=242}} Greene's case officer during World War Two was Harold "Kim" Philby, who was later revealed in 1963 to be a long time Soviet spy, who had been recruited by Soviet intelligence in the early 1930s while he was an undergraduate at Cambridge.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=242}} Greene's best known spy novel ''The Quiet American'' (1955), set in 1952 Vietnam featured a thinly disguised version of the real American intelligence officer, Major General [[Edward Lansdale]] as the villain.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=336}} Greene had covered the Vietnam war in 1951-52 as a newspaper correspondent where he met Lansdale who appears in ''The Quiet American'' as Alden Pyle while the character of Thomas Fowler, a cynical, but goodhearted British journalist in Saigon was partly based on himself.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}}

MI6 was outraged by ''Our Man In Havana'' with its story of James Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba, recruited to work for MI6 who bamboozles his employers by selling them diagrams of vacuum cleaners, which he persuades MI6 are really diagrams of Soviet missiles.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}} MI6 pressed for Greene to be prosecuted for violating the Official Secrets Act, claiming that he revealed too much about MI6's methods in ''Our Man in Havana'', but it decided against charging Greene out of the fear that prosecuting him would suggest the unflattening picture of MI6 in ''Our Man in Havana'' was based on reality.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}} Greene's older brother, Herbert, a professional con-man had briefly worked as a spy for the Japanese in the 1930s before his employers realised that the "secrets" that he was selling them was merely information culled from the newspapers.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}} The bumbling vacuum cleaner salesman Wormold in ''Our Man in Havana'' seems to been inspired by Herbert Greene.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}} In ''The Human Factor'', Greene portrayed MI6 again in a highly unsympathetic light, depicting the [[Government of the United Kingdom|British government]] as supporting the ''[[apartheid]]'' regime of South Africa because it was pro-Western while the book's protagonist, the MI6 officer Maurice Castle, married to a [[Black people|black]] South African woman, provides information to the KGB to thwart MI6 operations.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Review of The Human Factor |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/graham-greene/human-factor/ |access-date=10 February 2021 |agency=Kirkus Reviews |date=1 March 1978}}</ref> Much of the plot of ''The Human Factor'' concerned a secret plan by the British, American and West German governments to buy up South African gold in bulk in order to stabilise the [[economy of South Africa]], which Greene presented as fundamentally amoral, arguing that the Western powers were betraying their values by supporting the [[White supremacy|white supremacist]] South African government.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}} Much controversy ensued when shortly after the publication of ''The Human Factor'' it emerged that such a plan had in fact been carried out, which led to much speculation about whether this was a coincidence or whether Greene had more access to secret information than he let on.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=243}} There was also much speculation that the character of Maurice Castle was inspired by Philby, but Greene consistently denied this.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=242}} Other novelists followed a similar path. [[Len Deighton]]'s anonymous spy protagonist of ''[[The IPCRESS File]]'' (1962), ''[[Horse Under Water]]'' (1963), ''[[Funeral in Berlin]]'' (1964), and others, is a working-class man with a negative view of "[[the Establishment]]".{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1997|p=337}}

Other notable examples of espionage fiction during this period were also built around recurring characters. These include [[James Mitchell (writer)|James Mitchell]]'s 'John Craig' series, written under his pseudonym 'James Munro', beginning with ''[[The Man Who Sold Death]]'' (1964); and [[Elleston Trevor|Trevor Dudley-Smith]]'s [[Quiller]] spy novel series written under the pseudonym 'Adam Hall', beginning with ''The Berlin Memorandum'' (US: ''The Quiller Memorandum'', 1965), a hybrid of glamour and dirt, Fleming and Le Carré; and [[William Garner (novelist)|William Garner]]'s fantastic Michael Jagger in ''Overkill'' (1966), ''The Deep, Deep Freeze'' (1968), ''The Us or Them War'' (1969) and ''A Big Enough Wreath'' (1974).{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

Other important British writers who first became active in spy fiction during this period include Padraig [[Manning O'Brine]], ''Killers Must Eat'' (1951); [[Michael Gilbert]], ''Be Shot for Sixpence'' (1956); [[Alistair MacLean]], ''[[The Last Frontier (novel)|The Last Frontier]]'' (1959); [[Brian Cleeve]], ''Assignment to Vengeance'' (1961); [[Jack Higgins]], ''The Testament of Caspar Schulz'' (1962); and [[Desmond Skirrow]], ''It Won't Get You Anywhere'' (1966). [[Dennis Wheatley]]'s 'Gregory Sallust' (1934-1968) and 'Roger Brook' (1947-1974) series were also largely written during this period.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

Notable recurring characters from this era include [[Adam Diment]]'s Philip McAlpine as a long-haired, [[hashish]]-smoking [[fop]] in the novels ''The Dolly Dolly Spy'' (1967), ''The Great Spy Race'' (1968), ''The Bang Bang Birds'' (1968) and ''Think, Inc.'' (1971); [[James Mitchell (writer)|James Mitchell]]'s 'David Callan' series, written in his own name, beginning with ''[[Red File for Callan]]'' (1969); [[William Garner (novelist)|William Garner]]'s John Morpurgo in ''Think Big, Think Dirty'' (1983), ''Rats' Alley'' (1984), and ''Zones of Silence'' (1986); and [[Joseph Hone]]'s 'Peter Marlow' series, beginning with ''The Private Sector'' (1971), set during Israel's [[Six-Day War]] (1967) against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. In all of these series the writing is literary and the tradecraft believable.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

Noteworthy examples of the journalistic style and successful integration of [[fiction]]al characters with historical events were the politico-military novels ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]'' (1971) by [[Frederick Forsyth]] and ''[[Eye of the Needle (novel)|Eye of the Needle]]'' (1978) by [[Ken Follett]]. With the explosion of technology, [[Craig Thomas (author)|Craig Thomas]], launched the [[techno-thriller]] with ''[[Firefox (novel)|Firefox]]'' (1977), describing the Anglo–American theft of a superior Soviet jet aeroplane.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Holland|first=Steve|date=2011-04-13|title=Craig Thomas obituary|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/13/craig-thomas-obituary|access-date=2021-10-05|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

Other important British writers who first became active in spy fiction during this period include [[Ian Mackintosh]], ''A Slaying in September'' (1967); [[Kenneth Benton]], ''[[Twenty-fourth Level]]'' (1969); [[Desmond Bagley]], ''[[Running Blind (Desmond Bagley novel)|Running Blind]]'' (1970); [[Anthony Price]], ''The Labyrinth Makers'' (1971); [[Gerald Seymour]], ''Harry's Game'' (1975); [[Brian Freemantle]], ''[[Charlie M]]'' (1977); [[Bryan Forbes]], ''Familiar Strangers'' (1979); [[Reginald Hill]], ''The Spy's Wife'' (1980); and [[Raymond Harold Sawkins]], writing as Colin Forbes, ''Double Jeopardy'' (1982).

Philip Gooden provides an analysis of British spy fiction in four categories: professionals, amateurs, dandies and literary types.<ref>Gooden, Philip. (2023). "Shadowing Bond." ''The Book Collector'' 72 (Summer): 173-187. </ref>