Spy fiction is having a moment. Critic Tim Shipman, who has already read 27 espionage thrillers published or scheduled for 2026, says there haven't been this many good spy books since the 1970s. Here are the new releases worth your time, what's still on the way this fall, and the classics every one of them is in conversation with.
The new releases to read first
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre. The astonishing true story of Oleg Gordievsky, a senior KGB officer who secretly became one of Britain’s most valuable intelligence sources during the Cold War. Operating at the heart of Soviet intelligence while risking exposure at every turn, Gordievsky helped the West understand the Kremlin’s intentions during one of the most dangerous periods in modern history. Ben Macintyre turns this extraordinary double life into a gripping real-world thriller filled with deception, nerve-racking escapes, and the constant threat of betrayal.
London Station by David McCloskey. Arriving in October, and Shipman calls McCloskey the best spy thriller writer working today. The premise is irresistible: what happens if America and Britain start spying on each other? CIA station chief Artemis Procter, a fan favorite from McCloskey's earlier books, lands in London amid a tangle of Anglo-American intelligence politics.
Spies and Other Gods by James Wolff. A parliamentary researcher investigates a whistleblower complaint against MI6's aging chief, who is beginning to succumb to Alzheimer's, in a sardonic, character-rich novel that flirts with the spirit of Mick Herron's Slow Horses.
Debuts worth watching
A Stranger in Corfu by Alex Preston imagines a Greek island nicknamed "Spyland," where retired spies and traitors drink away their old secrets, until one of them turns up dead. Think Slow Horses for retirees, with Kim Philby wandering through the backstory.
The Silver Fish by Connor Martin, from a former U.S. national security official, follows an American journalist in Ghana who stumbles into a U.S.-China fight over undersea fiber optic cables, a very timely premise.
A Spy in the Blood by Paul Warner features aging MI6 man Mark Wolf, pulled back into the field when his daughter secretly joins the Service and vanishes. A sequel, Funeral for a Spy, is due in January 2027.
Fast, fun, and built for a long flight
Cold Zero by Brad Thor and Ward Larsen is a big-screen Arctic adventure: an advanced jetliner crash-lands at the North Pole, and Washington, Moscow, and Beijing race to the wreckage. A Netflix series is already in the works. Eye Spy by C. M. Ewen unfolds in real time on a Eurostar journey after a four-year-old spots a "Bad Man" during a game, and Icarus 17 by Charles Cumming, the fourth Box 88 novel, is a summer-style chase across Greece and the Balkans.
The classics behind the new wave
If the new books make you want to go back to the source, these are the essentials:
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (1963): a burnt-out British agent takes one last mission in East Germany.
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré (1974): George Smiley hunts a Soviet mole at the top of British intelligence.
- The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (1971): a meticulous assassin plots to kill de Gaulle, in a thriller built on procedure.
- Berlin Game by Len Deighton (1983): the opening of a Cold War trilogy about a double agent and a risky rescue.
- Slow Horses by Mick Herron (2010): MI5's rejects, stuck in Slough House under the miserable Jackson Lamb.
