Apple TV’s Slow Horses is back for its sixth season this week, and its character-driven story of misfit spies and MI5 cast-offs is as appealing and entertaining as ever. Based on a series of novels by author Mick Herron, the show eschews a traditional James Bond-style approach to spycraft by focusing on the gritty, relatable details of bureaucracy, often feeling like a workplace drama set at an intelligence agency as much as it does an espionage thriller. (It also certainly doesn’t hurt that Slow Horses is one of the few series that consistently drops a new season every year.)
But if you can’t get enough of this kind of story, you’re in luck. Spy novels have been popular for well over a century, since long before James Bond ever ordered his martini shaken, not stirred. Here are our recommendations for nine books in this genre that will appeal to those who love Jackson Lamb and his friends.
Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron
It goes without saying that Herron’s Slow Horses series of novels should be on the reading list of any fan of the Apple TV series. But his first set of books belongs there too. Dubbed The Oxford Investigations Series, the first installment, Down Cemetery Road, follows the story of an unhappy housewife who becomes obsessed with the search for a girl who goes missing after an explosion in her neighborhood. She enlists the help of a prickly Oxford private investigator named Zoë Boehm, and the two find themselves enmeshed in a dangerous conspiracy. Cynical and abrasive, Zoe goes on to star in three more books and a novella, and is delightfully disagreeable throughout. Apple TV has also adapted these books into a series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carré
Herron’s books regularly reference the works of John Le Carré (given name: David Cornwell), who is widely considered one of the greatest spy novelists of all time. Critics and fans alike have long debated which of his novels is Le Carré’s best, but his third, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, was the book that made him an international sensation.
A taut, tense thriller that follows a British intelligence officer who is sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation, the book eschews James Bond-style glamour in favor of depicting the entire concept of spycraft as cynical and morally bankrupt. The ending is a true gut-punch. The book was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Richard Burton in 1965.
Box 88 by Charles Cumming
This dual-timeline spy thriller is the first in Cumming’s ongoing series of novels, whose most recent installment hit shelves in July. The story follows Lachlan Kite, an operative for the titular transatlantic black-ops agency, a group so secret even MI-6 and the CIA don’t know for sure if it’s real. The story shifts between a teenage trip to a friend’s French villa in 1989, where Kite must gather information on a businessman who may have been involved in the Lockerbie bombing, and the present day, where an adult Lachlan is abducted by Iranian intelligence, who threaten to kill his pregnant wife if the secrets from that trip aren’t revealed. Complex relationship dynamics help this twisty thriller stand out.
The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen
The idea of a bunch of former spies and/or military types coming together to swap war stories or bail each other out of danger has given rise to film franchises as distinct as Red and The Expendables, and it’s also the basic premise behind Gerritsen’s delightfully named Martini Club series.
The story follows Maggie Bird, an ex-spy who retired to a quiet life in a seaside town in Maine after a dreadful mistake cost her more than just her job. But when a dead body is left in her driveway, she’ll have to count on her fellow members from book club—all former spies themselves—to help her figure out what part of her former life has slipped back into her present. Full of small-town coziness and flashbacks to Maggie’s time as a spy, it’s both fast-paced and entertaining.
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby And The Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre
A non-fiction book that reads like the most propulsive of novels, Macintyre’s bestseller tells the true story of Kim Philby, a high-ranking British intelligence officer who secretly worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union as part of the notorious spy ring The Cambridge Five. Among other things, the book focuses on Philby’s close friendships with British spy Nicholas Elliott and CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, both of whom trusted him completely and were devastated by the revelation of his secret. (Philby and Elliott entered MI-6 the same year and rose through its ranks together.)
All The Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer
A slim, intense read, All The Old Knives offers a truly unusual twist on the traditional spy novel. Essentially an espionage-themed take on a locked-room mystery, its story takes place almost entirely over dinner.
Six years after a terrorist hijacking in Vienna, CIA agent Henry Pelham arrives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, ostensibly to visit an old flame. He and Celia Harrison were colleagues—and lovers—back when the attack took place. She retired, he stuck around, and now he’s been tasked with finding out which agent from their station leaked the information that cost 100 people their lives. But to do so, they need to talk. What follows is a shifting recounting of their lives from both characters’ perspectives, interspersed with twisty flashbacks to their shared past as they dance around what really happened. A story where truly nothing is as it seems.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Swapping disgraced MI5 agents for an American undercover operative in France, Kushner’s novel follows the cunning Sadie Smith, a freelance secret agent charged with infiltrating a commune of radical eco-activists who believe humanity’s salvation requires a return to a primitive state. But things become more complicated as she becomes drawn further into the orbit of the group’s charismatic leader, and the story boasts plenty of double-crossing, seduction, and even death. Smart, stylish, and darkly funny, Creation Lake is truly unlike anything else on this list, but it sure does make you think.
Berlin Game by Len Deighton
Berlin Game is the first installment in author Len Deighton’s classic series of novels about MI6 agent Bernard Sampson. Deighton’s works share a similar interest in workplace politics, internal rivalries, and bureaucratic espionage with Herron’s, and Sampson’s exhausted, cynical exterior will feel familiar to Slow Horses fans. This first book follows Sampson as he works to rescue a valuable agent behind the Iron Curtain and suss out a traitor among his colleagues.
Alias Emma by Ava Glass
A high-stakes thriller that follows newly minted British spy Emma Makepeace on her first mission to smuggle the son of two influential Russian dissidents across London without being seen. The Russian government has hacked London’s extensive CCTV system, so they can’t take public transportation or use bank cards that might give away their location. Instead, they’ll have to cross the city on foot, dodging assassins and avoiding the hundreds of thousands of cameras watching them everywhere. Emma makes for an appealingly resourceful heroine who relies on her wits to survive rather than strength or firepower.
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