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158-528: Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by the English author Anthony Horowitz . The novels revolve around a teenaged spy named Alex Rider and are primarily aimed towards young adults . The series currently comprises 14 novels, as well as seven graphic novels , seven short stories , and a supplementary book. The first novel, Stormbreaker , was released in the United Kingdom in the year 2000 and

316-455: A Triad plot to fix the 2001 Wimbledon tennis tournament and befriending Sabina, Alex is in grave danger of assassination. Forced to leave the country, MI6 sends him on a mission to Cuba with two doubtful CIA agents, of whom he is the sole survivor. He encounters former Soviet general Alexei Sarov , who tries to adopt Alex and expresses ideas of a nuclear holocaust and world domination under communist rule. Alex then foils his plans, saving

474-653: A double agent , transmitting false intelligence to Imperial Germany on the eve of the Great War. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) by Baroness Orczy chronicled an English aristocrat 's derring-do in rescuing French aristocrats from the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution (1789–99). But the term "spy novel" was defined by The Riddle of the Sands (1903) by Irish author Erskine Childers . The Riddle of

632-479: A "total war" campaign to mobilise society for the war. As part of the "total war" campaign, the state warned people to be vigilant at all times for spies; alongside this campaign went a mania for spy stories, which likewise warned people to be vigilant against spies. Novels and films with a counterespionage theme became ubiquitous in Manchukuo from 1937 onward. Despite the intensely patriarchal values of Manchukuo,

790-435: A 3D printed plastic gun into the army facility holding Freddy. On Alex's suggestion Freddy holds him hostage and they escape to an airfield. There Alex watches Tom get shot by Freddy after which he leaves with Brother Mike. Alex tries to stop them from flying off, but fails. Tom is revealed to be alive and they discover that Freddy only pretended to kill Tom to save his life and be able to infiltrate Nightshade again. He even left

948-579: A MI6 agent's attempts to uncover a mole in apartheid -era South Africa . 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 . Greene's case officer during World War Two was Harold "Kim" Philby, who

1106-470: A Mossad spy in Greece. The book was published as a novel, but Roth insisted that the book was not a novel as he argued that the book was presented only as a novel in order to give it deniability. At the end of the book, the character of Philip Roth is ordered to publish the account as a novel, and it ends with Roth the character saying: "And I became quite convinced that it was my interest to do that...I'm just

1264-696: A Pale Horse (1984). Manning Coles published Drink to Yesterday (1940), a grim story occurring during the Great War, which introduces the hero Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon . However, later novels featuring Hambledon were lighter-toned, despite being set either in Nazi Germany or Britain during the Second World War (1939–45). After the War, the Hambledon adventures fell to formula, losing critical and popular interest. The events leading up to

1422-598: A Spy (1938), The Mask of Dimitrios (US: A Coffin for Dimitrios , 1939), and Journey into Fear (1940) feature amateurs entangled in espionage. The politics and ideology are secondary to the personal story that involved the hero or heroine. Ambler's Popular Front –period œuvre has a left-wing perspective about the personal consequences of "big picture" politics and ideology, which was notable, given spy fiction's usual right-wing tilt in defence of establishment attitudes. Ambler's early novels Uncommon Danger (1937) and Cause for Alarm (1938), in which NKVD spies help

1580-699: A book later in 1969. In Seventeen Moments of Spring , the story is set in the Great Patriotic War as Isayev goes undercover, using the alias of a Baltic German nobleman Max Otto von Stierlitz to infiltrate the German high command. The plot of Seventeen Moments of Spring takes place in Berlin between January–May 1945 during the last days of the Third Reich as the Red Army advances onto Berlin and

1738-497: A clue for Alex and MI6 to follow him. Still hoping to rescue Mrs Jones' son William from Nightshade, Alex and Ben Daniels travel to Nice. There they meet with Wilbur White, a rich art dealer whose son had an accident while playing 'Eden Fall' Real Time's popular AR game. He hired an investigator, revealed to be the man who was murdered by Nightshade at the start of the novel. White's villa is destroyed by Nightshade after which Alex and Ben travel to San Francisco following Freddy's clue and

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1896-693: A daring spy. In His Last Bow , Holmes himself acts as a double agent , providing Germany with a lot of false information on the eve of WWI . The major themes of a spy in the lead-up to the First World War were the continuing rivalry between the European colonial powers for dominance in Asia, the growing threat of conflict in Europe, the domestic threat of revolutionaries and anarchists, and historical romance. Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling concerns

2054-731: A detective, Joseph Rouletabille , engages in espionage. After the Russian Revolution (1917) , the quality of spy fiction declined, perhaps because the Bolshevik enemy won the Russian Civil War (1917–23). Thus, the inter-war spy story usually concerns combating the Red Menace, which was perceived as another "clash of civilizations". Spy fiction was dominated by British authors during this period, initially former intelligence officers and agents writing from inside

2212-479: A document about at the end of Never Say Die. After the assassination of an MI6 agent in Rio de Janeiro, one of the assassins is caught. It is a 15-year-old boy – Frederick Grey – who was presumed dead. The dead agent's final words tell about a terrorist attack by Nightshade. Mrs. Jones recognizes her daughter, Sofia, when she sees a picture of Grey's escaped partner. Alex is sent by Mrs. Jones to pretend to be Julius Grief at

2370-625: A failed attempt to bomb the Greenwich Observatory in the hope that the revolutionaries will be blamed. Conrad's next novel, Under Western Eyes (1911), follows a reluctant spy sent by the Russian Empire to infiltrate a group of revolutionaries based in Geneva . G. K. Chesterton 's The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is a metaphysical thriller ostensibly based on the infiltration of an anarchist organisation by detectives, but

2528-578: A field agent; he reprised the role in the sequel The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1987). Other important American authors who became active in spy fiction during this period include Robert Littell , The Defection of A. J. Lewinter (1973); James Grady , Six Days of the Condor (1974); William F. Buckley Jr. , Saving the Queen (1976); Nelson DeMille , The Talbot Odyssey (1984); W. E. B. Griffin ,

2686-438: A good Mossadnik". Alex Rider (TV series) Alex Rider is a British spy thriller television series based on the novel series of the same name by Anthony Horowitz . Adapted by Guy Burt , it stars Otto Farrant as the eponymous character , who is recruited by a subdivision of MI6 as a teenage spy to undertake espionage missions. The series is Amazon's first scripted British Amazon Original series. The show

2844-545: A hotel in outer space called "Ark Angel." The hotel was ultimately left unfinished due to high expenses. After Alex's cover is blown, Drevin learns that the CIA is gathering evidence against him and plans to retaliate by attacking the Pentagon . Drevin is killed and Alex is sent into space, moving the bomb to prevent the wreckage from entering the atmosphere. Snakehead was published in 2007. Taking place directly after Ark Angel,

3002-420: A joint British-Australian attack on Major Yu's oil rig, Ash and Alex find Royal Blue, but are apprehended by Yu, who later reveals his plan to destroy an island hosting an international summit. Ash is revealed to be an employee of Yu and is killed in the conflict over Royal Blue. Before death, Ash confesses to being ordered by Julia Rothman to murder Alex's parents. Yu tries to escape before the bomb detonates but

3160-400: A journalist writing a book on the darkside of McCain, their 2007 Nissan X-Trail falls into the lagoon because of someone shooting into one of the car's wheels. Alex is rescued by a man whose identity is later revealed as Rahim, an Indian RAW agent sent to kill McCain. Indeed, McCain provokes industrial disasters to divert the humanitarian aid his association collects, and is responsible for

3318-642: 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 's 'David Callan' series, written in his own name, beginning with Red File for Callan (1969); 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

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3476-444: A mixed Russian-Han heritage; the implication being that people of "pure" descent from one of the "five races" of Manchukuo would not betray it. In "A Mixed Race Woman", the villain initially appears to Mali, the eponymous character who has a Russian father and a Han mother, but she ultimately is revealed to be blackmailed by the story's true villain, the foreign spy Baoerdun, and she proves to be loyal to Manchukuo after all as she forces

3634-533: A mockup Western town owned by Nightshade's new client: Jon Lucas. He tells Alex he wants the Market Share and power of Real Time for himself and hacked their AG. Tomorrow when the newest update goes live, a bug in the system will lead thousands of players to their deaths. The public outcry of these accidents will bankrupt Real Time, giving Lucas the opportunity to buy it over and merge it with his own company. Freddy meanwhile has been trying to get Number seven, who

3792-580: A moral human being, who remains sociable and kind to all people, including the citizens of the state that his country is at war with. Unlike Bond, Isayev is devoted to his wife who he deeply loves and despite spending at least ten years as a spy in Germany and having countless chances to sleep with attractive German women remains faithful towards her. Through Isayev is a spy for the NKVD as the Soviet secret police

3950-729: 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. 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. MI6 pressed for Greene to be prosecuted for violating

4108-449: A novel and the TV mini-series that has offended Westerners who are more accustomed to seeing spy stories via the prism of the fast-paced Bond stories is the way that Isayev spends much time interacting with ordinary Germans despite the fact these interactions do nothing to advance the plot and are merely superfluous to the story. However, the point of these scenes are to show that Isayev is still

4266-533: A nuclear accident in India. Alex is recruited by MI6 to investigate McCain but is captured by him. He is taken to Kenya where he learns that McCain will poison Kenya, killing its inhabitants and animals and collecting 'charity money' that he will collect for personal benefit. Alex is nearly killed by McCain but saved by Rahim. Alex ultimately foils McCain's plan, but as they escape, McCain kills Rahim, who Alex then kills and then ventures back to England. Scorpia Rising

4424-403: 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

4582-421: A picture of him and his mother in the hope to trigger childhood memories. The next morning people all over the world start playing 'Eden Fall' unaware that the game is leading them to dangerous situations. Freddy and Alex each are given a pistol to shoot one another in a true Western duel; however, Freddy shoots Brother Mike in the head and Alex shoots Lucas's leg. At that moment William shoots the other teachers and

4740-480: A plot involving the US government and the international community but is caught spying and forced into a real-life version of 'Feathered Serpent' which he manages to escape by cheating. He leaves Damian Cray's mansion after stealing a piece of equipment vital to Damian's plan but is forced to give it up because Damian kidnaps Alex's girlfriend, Sabina. The two enter Air Force One, where Damian Cray launches nuclear missiles at

4898-562: A ruthless oligarchy wears the mask of the "serene republic". In nineteenth-century France, the Dreyfus Affair (1894–99) contributed much to public interest in espionage . For some twelve years (ca. 1894–1906), the Affair, which involved elements of international espionage, treason , and antisemitism , dominated French politics. The details were reported by the world press: an Imperial German penetration agent betraying to Germany

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5056-412: A solid entry into the espionage game that the whole family can enjoy." Metacritic , which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Reviewing for The Guardian , Lucy Mangan gave the series three out of five stars, describing it as an "improbable, action-packed romp for all your escapism needs." She described Alex Rider as

5214-518: A spy novel review column. Nevertheless, counting on the aficionado, publishers continued to issue spy novels by writers popular during the Cold War era, among them Harlot's Ghost (1991) by Norman Mailer . In the US, the new novels Moscow Club (1991) by Joseph Finder , Coyote Bird (1993) by Jim DeFelice, Masquerade (1996) by Gayle Lynds , and The Unlikely Spy (1996) by Daniel Silva maintained

5372-510: A teenage James Bond , praising the lead star Otto Farrant for bringing more to the role than was written into what she described as a "serviceable script." She described the series as a blend of Jason Bourne and Spooks . NME 's Will Richards gave the series three out of five stars, describing it as a second-chance for the Alex Rider series following the failure of the 2006 Stormbreaker movie adaptation. Richards observed that

5530-435: A teenager, with most of its members being arrested and executed. Russian Roulette was published in 2013 and fills the role of a prequel to the series. It is told from the point of view of contract killer, Yassen Gregorovich. Gregorovich receives orders from Scorpia to kill Alex Rider, which sparks memories of his teenage years in a small, isolated Russian village where his parents work at a pesticide laboratory. The laboratory

5688-579: A thinly disguised version of the CIA while posing as a journalist. Writing under the pen name Trevanian , Roger Whitaker published a series of brutal spy novels starting with The Eiger Sanction (1972) featuring an amoral art collector/CIA assassin who ostensibly kills for the United States, but in fact kills for money. Whitaker followed up The Eiger Sanction with The Loo Sanction (1973) and Shibumi (1979). Starting in 1976 with his novel Saving

5846-434: 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". Le Carré's middle-class hero George Smiley is a middle-aged spy burdened with an unfaithful, upper-class wife who publicly cuckolds him for sport. The American scholars Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen described Smiley as

6004-626: A very low status. One consequence of the French influence on Russian culture was that the subject of espionage was usually ignored by Russian writers during the Imperial period. Traditionally, the subject of espionage was treated in the Soviet Union as a story of villainous foreign spies threatening the USSR. The organisation established to hunt down German spies in 1943, SMERSH, was an acronym for

6162-554: Is a double-agent. Instead of fleeing he heads to Sharkovsky's dacha. He breaks in, plays Russian Roulette again in front of Sharkovsky—this time with only one empty chamber—before killing Sharkovsky and his bully of a son. He returns to Scorpia, but never works with John Rider again. Back in the present he receives new orders and flies a helicopter to meet Sayle. He finds him threatening Alex Rider and kills Sayle instead of following his orders. He then chooses not to kill Alex Rider remembering how his father had saved his life. Never Say Die

6320-612: Is actually Mrs' Jones' son William, to join Alex and him to free the Numbers from the teachers. However the Teachers discover that Tom Harris is alive and that Freddy had lied to them. Forcing Alex and Freddy to have a Shootout at El Dorado the next morning. Ben Daniels got Alex' information and tries to have the CIA help Alex, instead their new boss wants to kill Nightshade in one fell stroke and destroy El Dorado. That Night Alex gives William

6478-535: Is already plotting revenge against Alex. Nightshade Revenge was published in September 2023. In New York an ex-CIA agent is murdered while investigating 'Real Time' a gaming company specialized in Augmented Reality. In London; Alex's best friend Tom Harris is abducted. Alex is blackmailed by Nightshade chief/agent 'Brother Mike' to help them free their agent Freddy Grey. Alex has no choice and smuggles

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6636-479: Is also developing an anthrax strain for biological warfare. An accident in the laboratory contaminates the village, but the teen's parents manage to get a vaccine to him before dying. Gregorovich escapes with his best friend who dies on the way to the train station. He travels by train to Moscow, where he is betrayed by a friend of his parents. He escapes and ends up living with a small group of street thieves, learning their skills. He breaks into an apartment belonging to

6794-488: Is bribed to fake a problem with the helicopter and to bring in a fake mechanic to repair it. The mechanic is an assassin employed by Scorpia. He shoots Sharkovsky and one of the twin bodyguards. Gregorovich knocks out the other bodyguard and the two join the pilot and escape the compound. He is taken to Venice and meets Julia Rothman who tells him that Sharkovsky is still alive, kills the assassin, and sends him to Malagosto, Scorpia's school for assassins. By now 19 years of age he

6952-503: Is captured by Scorpia, and manages to help his long-time friend and caregiver after his uncle's death, Jack, (who has also been captured) escape. Scorpia had anticipated this and had laid a trap for Jack. The news of her killing devastates Alex but he manages to stop Scorpia's plan and kills Julius. The book ends when Alex escapes and moves to San Francisco with Sabina's family, changing him forever and disallowing him to return to his spy life. Scorpia disbands after being beaten three times by

7110-583: Is donating to every school in England . Alex discovers that the Stormbreaker computers contain a lethal variation of smallpox and that Sayle plans to ruthlessly kill thousands of schoolchildren around the country with it. Alex foils the plan and succeeds on his first mission. He is also given the first of many sick notes by MI6 to avoid suspicion at his school in Chelsea. Point Blanc was published in

7268-453: Is going on in the "secret world" of intelligence-gathering affected both non-fiction and fiction books about espionage. The Cold War and the struggle between Soviet intelligence-known as the KGB from 1954 onward-vs. the CIA and MI6 made the subject of espionage a popular one for novelists to write about. Most of the spy novels of the Cold War were really action thrillers with little resemblance to

7426-505: 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. But this fear, this servility, this dependence had developed in Smiley

7584-482: Is jointly produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television , and is the second screen adaptation of the novels, following the 2006 feature film version of the first novel , Stormbreaker . The eight-episode first season, based on the book Point Blanc , premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2020. In November 2020, the series was renewed for a second season, adapting

7742-481: Is keeping the accidents secret. Especially with their newest game update Blue Devil coming up. Lucas helps Alex gain entry to the Arena where he and other players test the newest update of Eden Fall after meeting Klein and confronting him about the accidents. Alex escapes from the arena where Nightshade agents try to kill him. When he figures out what is really going on, he is captured by Brother Mike and taken to El Dorado,

7900-581: Is recruited by the Department of Special Operations, a subdivision of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to infiltrate a controversial corrective academy for the wayward offspring of the ultra-rich. Note: Some character names are spelled differently in the books than in the TV series. In May 2017, Variety reported that Eleventh Hour Films had optioned the film rights for Horowitz's Alex Rider series and would produce

8058-485: Is returned to Scorpia as a double agent and discovers the broadcasting dishes that Scorpia intends to use to kill their targets, including Alex, as he was injected at their training school in Malagosto, which are later lifted into the sky by a hot air balloon. Rothman's henchman, Nile, tries to stop Alex, but he is afraid of heights, causing him to slip and fall to his death after being taunted by Alex. Alex manages to stop

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8216-564: Is taught the skills of an assassin, and is given his first assignment in New York. He is unable to carry out the assignment and newly arrived John Rider is assigned to work with him. The pair travel to Peru to take out a drug lord and in the process Rider saves his life. On the way back to headquarters the pair stop in Paris to carry out another contract. Rider attempts to get Gregorovich to flee and he comes close to doing so but discovers that Rider

8374-467: Is ultimately the sole casualty of Royal Blue's shockwave. Crocodile Tears was published in 2009. It begins with Alex's girlfriend, Sabina, and her family visiting the UK from San Francisco . Alex goes to Scotland with them. They go to millionaire Desmond McCain's mansion for a New Year party, during which Alex offends McCain in a game of poker, McCain in order to stop the work of Sabina Pleasure's father,

8532-677: Is using twenty-three brainwashed children (originally 25 but 2 were killed in a "training accident") to work as mercenaries for a group of four Americans calling themselves the "Teachers". Alex's cover is blown by Nightshade's client, and he is used as a distraction while Frederick, Sofia, and 'Number Eleven' try to kill many at St Paul's Cathedral . Alex prevents that by disabling the Teacher's communication system with their child agents. Alex tries to help Fredrick after his capture and promises Mrs. Jones to help her find 'Nightshade', who still has her son, William, as an agent, not knowing that 'Nightshade'

8690-439: Is usually considered the first American modern (glamour and dirt) spy thriller weighing action and reflection. Richard Helms , the director-general of the CIA from 1966 to 1973 loathed le Carré's morally grey spy novels, which he felt damaged the image of the CIA, and encouraged Hunt to write spy novels as a rebuttal. Helms had hopes that Hunt might write an "American James Bond" novel, which would be adopted by Hollywood and do for

8848-562: The Men at War series (1984–); Stephen Coonts , Flight of the Intruder (1986); Canadian-American author David Morrell , The League of Night and Fog (1987); David Hagberg , Without Honor (1989); Noel Hynd, False Flags (1990); and Richard Ferguson, Oiorpata (1990). The culture of Imperial Russia was deeply influenced by the culture of France, and traditionally spy novels in France had

9006-592: The Anglo – Russian " Great Game ", which consisted of a geopolitical rivalry and strategic warfare for supremacy in Central Asia , usually in Afghanistan . The Secret Agent (1907) by Joseph Conrad examines the psychology and ideology motivating the socially marginal men and women of a revolutionary cell. A diplomat from an unnamed (but clearly Russian) embassy forces a double-agent, Verloc, to organise

9164-720: The COVID-19 pandemic . The series began production in February 2021 in Bristol, England, at the old buildings near Cumberland Basin, The Watershed & Queen Square (with Canary Wharf graphically imposed behind). In February the crew were spotted filming scenes at Goldney Hall . Filming moved to Cornwall in March 2021 and at Widemouth Bay where Otto Farrant was spotted on set. Production also took place in Cardiff in March where

9322-568: The "secrets" that he was selling them was merely information culled from the newspapers. The bumbling vacuum cleaner salesman Wormold in Our Man in Havana seems to been inspired by Herbert Greene. In The Human Factor , Greene portrayed MI6 again in a highly unsympathetic light, depicting the British government as supporting the apartheid regime of South Africa because it was pro-Western while

9480-455: 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. Despite the commercial success of Fleming's extravagant novels, John le Carré , himself a former spy, created anti-heroic protagonists who struggled with

9638-589: The Alex Rider novels. The series is being produced by Eleventh Hour Films, with Tutankhamen screenwriter and novelist Guy Burt acting as showrunner. Eleventh Hour Films is run by Horowitz's wife Jill Green. In July 2018, it was reported that Sony Pictures Television had replaced ITV as Eleventh Hour Film's distribution and financial partner for a new Alex Rider television series. Sony Pictures Television's international and worldwide distribution divisions under Wayne Garvie and Keith Le Goy were attached to

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9796-858: The Anglo–American theft of a superior Soviet jet aeroplane. 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 (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. During

9954-540: The Brain (1933) by former intelligence officer Compton Mackenzie was the first successful spy novel satire . Prolific author Dennis Wheatley also wrote his first spy novel, The Eunuch of Stamboul (1935) during this period. In the sham state of Manchukuo , spies often featured in stories published in its government-sponsored magazines as villains threatening Manchukuo. Manchukuo had been presented since its founding in 1931 as an idealistic Pan-Asian experiment, where

10112-649: The Cheka. The frequent name changes for the secret police made no impression with the Russian people who still call any secret policeman a Chekisty . Semichastny felt that the legacy of the Yezhovshchina ("Yezhovz times") of 1936-1939 had given the KGB a fearsome reputation that he wanted to erase as wanted ordinary people to have a more favorable and positive image of the Chekisty as the protectors and defenders of

10270-457: The FBI was as "coolly efficient super-cop" who always successful in performing his duties. The FBI director, J.E. Hoover , had long cultivated the American press and Hollywood to promote a favorable image of the FBI. In 1955, Edward S. Aarons began publishing the Sam Durell CIA "Assignment" series, which began with Assignment to Disaster (1955). Donald Hamilton published Death of a Citizen (1960) and The Wrecking Crew (1960), beginning

10428-429: The Gibraltar prison, where Julius was before escaping at the start of Scorpia Rising, and where Frederick is being held; the mission is to learn about the organization Frederick works for. Unable to get the right information, when Alex becomes friends with Frederick, he decides to escape with Frederick and then infiltrate Nightshade's base of operations, an abandoned military base in Crete . There, he learns that Nightshade

10586-414: The Nazis grew more desperate. In 1973, Semnadtsat' mgnoveniy vesny was turned into a television mini-series, which was extremely popular in the Soviet Union and turned the Isayev character into a cultural phenomena. The Isayev character plays a role in Russian culture, even today, that is analogous to the role James Bond plays in modern British culture. As aspect of Seventeen Moments of Spring , both as

10744-447: The Numbers attack their captors. Ben Daniels arrives to warn them of the air strike that's coming. Alex holds Lucas at gunpoint and orders him to stop the bugs from killing people while the Numbers fight the remaining Nightshade employees. When the airstrike commences Alex, Ben and the numbers escape through an old mine while Lucas stays behind, choosing to die in the airstrike instead of going to jail. When they come up Alex sees that Freddy

10902-421: 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. 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

11060-441: The Palestinians, against the backdrop of continuing Cold War tensions, and the increasing use of terrorism as a political tool. The end of the Cold War in 1991 mooted the USSR , Russia and other Iron Curtain countries as credible enemies of democracy, and the US Congress even considered disestablishing the CIA . Espionage novelists found themselves at a temporary loss for obvious nemeses . The New York Times ceased publishing

11218-489: The Queen , the conservative American journalist and former CIA agent William F. Buckley published the first of his Blackford Oakes novels featuring a CIA agent whose politics were the same as the author's. Blackford Oakes was portrayed as a "sort of an American James Bond" who ruthlessly dispatches villainous KGB agents with much aplomb. The first American techno-thriller was The Hunt for Red October (1984) by Tom Clancy . It introduced CIA deskman (analyst) Jack Ryan as

11376-616: The Sands described two British yachtsman cruising off the North Sea coast of Germany who turned amateur spies when they discover a secret German plan to invade Britain. Its success created a market for the invasion literature subgenre, which was flooded by imitators. William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim became the most widely read and most successful British writers of spy fiction, especially of invasion literature. Their prosaic style and formulaic stories, produced voluminously from 1900 to 1914, proved of low literary merit . During

11534-786: The Second World War, and the War itself, continue to be fertile ground for authors of spy fiction. Notable examples include Ken Follett , Eye of the Needle (1978); Alan Furst , Night Soldiers (1988); and David Downing , the Station series, beginning with Zoo Station (2007). The metamorphosis of the Second World War (1939–45) into the Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91) gave new impetus to spy novelists. Atomsk by Paul Linebarger (later known as Cordwainer Smith ), written in 1948 and published in 1949, appears to be

11692-429: The Soviet Union instead of torturers and killers. As such, Semichastny encouraged the publication of a series of spy novels that featured heroic Chekisty defending the Soviet Union. It was also during Semichastny's time as KGB chairman that the cult of the "hero spies" began in the Soviet Union as publications lionised the achievements of Soviet spies such as Colonel Rudolf Abel, Harold "Kim" Philby, Richard Sorge and of

11850-598: The Soviet writer Yulian Semyonov published a novel set in the Russian Civil War featuring a Cheka agent Maxim Maximovich Isaуev as its hero. Inspired by its success, the KGB encouraged Semyonov to write a sequel, Semnadtsat' mgnoveniy vesny ("Seventeen Moments of Spring"), which proved to one of the most popular Soviet spy novels when it was serialized in Pravda in January–February 1969 and then published as

12008-530: The United Kingdom in 2001, and in North America in 2002 under the alternate title Point Blank . After the deaths of two billionaires, MI6 discovers a connection: the two men who died each had a son attending Point Blanc, a school for rebellious sons of billionaires located in the French Alps , owned by Dr. Hugo Grief. MI6 sends Alex to investigate Point Blanc, where he discovers that Grief is replacing

12166-406: The United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, and released on 21 July 2006. Intended to be the first entry in a film franchise , Stormbreaker grossed between $ 20.7 and $ 23.9 million worldwide upon its theatrical release, failing to recoup its $ 40 million budget and making the film a box office bomb . In May 2017, it was announced that ITV was developing a television adaptation of

12324-572: The United States, where the achievements of Anglo-American intelligence during the Second World War were to a certain extent publicized soon after the war such as the fact that the Americans had broken the Japanese naval codes (which came out in 1946) and the British deception operation of 1943, Operation Mincemeat (which was revealed in 1953), there was nothing equivalent in the Soviet Union until

12482-729: The United States. In December 2021, season 1 of Alex Rider was aired on E4 in the United Kingdom and became available on its streaming platform All 4 . The second season was released by IMDb TV in the United Kingdom and the United States on 3 December 2021, and on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Latin America, and New Zealand. In Asia, both the first and second seasons are available on SonyLIV (in India) and AXN (in Southeast Asia). The third season

12640-433: The War, John Buchan became the pre-eminent British spy novelist. His well-written stories portray the Great War as a "clash of civilisations" between Western civilization and barbarism . His notable novels are The Thirty-nine Steps (1915), Greenmantle (1916) and sequels, all featuring the heroic Scotsman Richard Hannay . In France Gaston Leroux published the spy thriller Rouletabille chez Krupp (1917), in which

12798-482: The Western powers were betraying their values by supporting the white supremacist South African government. 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. There was also much speculation that

12956-470: The actual work of spies. The writer Malcolm Muggeridge who had worked as a spy in World War Two commented that thriller writers in the Cold War took to writing about espionage "as easily as the mentally unstable become psychiatrists or the impotent pornographers". The city that was considered to be the "capital of the Cold War" was Berlin, owing to its post-war status as the city was divided between

13114-532: The amateur protagonist survive, are especially remarkable among English-language spy fiction. Above Suspicion (1939) by Helen MacInnes , about an anti-Nazi husband and wife spy team, features literate writing and fast-paced, intricate, and suspenseful stories occurring against contemporary historical backgrounds. MacInnes wrote many other spy novels in the course of a long career, including Assignment in Brittany (1942), Decision at Delphi (1961), and Ride

13272-431: The book Eagle Strike . The second season premiered on 3 December 2021 on IMDb TV . In June 2022, the series was renewed for a third season, adapting the book Scorpia . The third and final season premiered on 5 April 2024 on Amazon Freevee . The series has received positive reviews, with praise for the cinematography, score, and performances, particularly for Farrant and Brenock O'Connor . London teenager Alex Rider

13430-473: The book's protagonist, the MI6 officer Maurice Castle, married to a black South African woman, provides information to the KGB to thwart MI6 operations. 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

13588-582: The cast for season 2. Kevin McNally joined the cast for season 3 in an unspecified villainous role. The first season was produced over six months, beginning in March 2019. Filming locations included London and, for the French Alps scenes, around Sinaia in Prahova County , Romania . As it was meant to be renewed earlier, principal photography for the second season was initially set to take place in late 2020 before being pushed to 2021 due to

13746-741: The character of Maurice Castle was inspired by Philby, but Greene consistently denied this. 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 ". Other notable examples of espionage fiction during this period were also built around recurring characters. These include James Mitchell 's 'John Craig' series, written under his pseudonym 'James Munro', beginning with The Man Who Sold Death (1964); and Trevor Dudley-Smith 's Quiller spy novel series written under

13904-401: The character, describing the former as "a teenage schoolboy with a footballer haircut but less of a male-model energy." Cumming also praised the series for aiming at both young adults and adults, inclusion of modern communications technologies like smartphones and social media , and more diverse cast. The Spinoff 's reviewer Sam Brooks praised the TV series for capturing the spirit of

14062-494: The children) so they could become millionaires. In the process, he finds Jack, who then helps him free the children. He then manages to derail a steam locomotive with an improvised bomb (Thermos with diesel in it), thus killing his foes who were chasing after him in it. This is book 11 of the Alex Rider Series. Secret Weapon was published in 2019. A collection of seven adventures that Alex Rider experienced outside of

14220-418: The city was reportedly doubling for London in some shots. In April 2021, it was reported that Alex Rider was filming at Cotswold Airport during the night. Filming was done mostly on an ex British Airways Boeing 747-400 aircraft, the aircraft in question was G-CIVB and was used to shoot the final 2 episodes. In June 2021, author Anthony Horowitz tweeted that filming for Season 2 had concluded. Filming of

14378-487: The counter-spy campaign targeted women who were encouraged to report anyone suspicious to the police with one slogan saying, "Women defend inside and men defend outside". The spy stories of Manchukuo such as "A Mixed Race Woman" often had female protagonists. In "A Mixed Race Woman", it is two ordinary women who break up the spy ring instead of the Manchukuo police as might be expected. The South Korean scholar Bong InYoung noted stories such as "A Mixed Race Woman" were part of

14536-471: The death of the schoolchildren while Rothman herself is killed when the dish equipment falls on top of her. At the end of the novel, Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt tell Alex the truth about his father; he was an MI6 agent working as a double agent in Scorpia attempting to take down the organization. They also explain his parents' death, ordered by Julia Rothman after she was noted of his father's treachery along with

14694-409: The drug-supplying countries. Cray kills Yassen Gregorovich, but soon after Alex pushes Cray to his death. He then stops the missiles before they can hit their targets. Just before dying, Gregorovich tells Alex to look for a criminal organization called Scorpia, a group he claims his father worked for. The book was adapted as the basis for the second season of the Alex Rider television series . Scorpia

14852-687: The early 1960s. Soviet novels prior to the 1960s to the extent that espionage was portrayed at all concerned heroic scouts in the Red Army who during the Great Patriotic War as the war with Germany is known in the Soviet Union who go on dangerous missions deep behind the Wehrmacht's lines to find crucial information. The scout stories were more action-adventure stories than espionage stories proper and significantly always portrayed Red Army scouts rather than Chekisty ("Chekists") as secret policemen are always called in Russia as their heroes. The protagonists of

15010-431: 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. 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

15168-428: The fictional spy most likely to be successful as a real spy, citing le Carré's description of him in A Murder of Quality : "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

15326-486: The film ended with disillusioned British spy Alec Leamas and his lover, the naïve young woman Liz Gold being shot down while trying to cross the Berlin Wall from East Berlin into West Berlin. With Secret Ministry (1951), Desmond Cory introduced Johnny Fedora , the secret agent with a licence to kill , the government-sanctioned assassin . Ian Fleming , a former member of naval intelligence, followed swiftly with

15484-441: The film series. Burt had adapted Point Blanc , the second book in the Alex Rider novel series, for television. Horowitz will serve as executive producer for the series. The first season was released on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2020. In New Zealand, the television series is distributed by TVNZ+ . On 10 November 2020, the series was officially renewed for a second season. It adapted Eagle Strike and

15642-408: The first espionage novel of the dawning conflict. The "secret world" of espionage allowed a situation when writers could project anything they wanted onto the "secret world". The author Bruce Page complained in his 1969 book The Philby Conspiracy : "The trouble is that a man can hold almost any theory he cares to about the secret world, and defend it against large quantities of hostile evidence by

15800-659: 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 (1953). After Fleming's death the franchise continued under other British and American authors, including Kingsley Amis , Christopher Wood , John Gardner , Raymond Benson , Sebastian Faulks , Jeffery Deaver , William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz . The Bond novels, which were extremely popular in

15958-401: The gun out of Baoerdun's hand at the story's climax. However, Ding's story also states that Baoerdun would not dare to have attempted his blackmail scheme against a Han woman and that he targeted Mali because she was racially mixed and hence "weak". When Japan invaded China in 1937 and even more so in 1941, the level of repression and propaganda in Manchukuo was increased as the state launched

16116-495: The image of the CIA what Fleming's Bond novels did for the image of MI6. In the 1970s, former CIA man Charles McCarry began the Paul Christopher series with The Miernik Dossier (1973) and The Tears of Autumn (1978), which were well written, with believable tradecraft. McCarry was a former CIA agent who worked as an editor for National Geographic and his hero Christopher likewise is an American spy who works for

16274-478: The local concerns in order to defeat the Communists until the modernization process was completed. The Nick Carter-Killmaster series of spy novels, initiated by Michael Avallone and Valerie Moolman, but authored anonymously, ran to over 260 separate books between 1964 and the early 1990s and invariably pitted American, Soviet and Chinese spies against each other. With the proliferation of male protagonists in

16432-566: The location where White's son died. In California Alex and Ben discover that White's son died because the AR showed him a bridge that wasn't really there. Meeting the Pleasure family again; Edward tells Alex about Jon Lucas, a young philanthropist who used to work for Rudolph Klein, the CEO of Real Time. Lucas tells Alex and Edward that the accident involving White's son wasn't the only one and that Real Time

16590-530: The men and women who served in the Rote Kapelle spy network. Seeing the great popularity of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels in Britain and the United States, Soviet spy novels of the 1960s used the Bond novels as inspiration for both their plots and heroes, through Soviet prurience about sex ensured that the Chekisty heroes did not engage in the sort of womanising that Bond did. The first Bond-style novel

16748-509: The missions assigned to him by MI6. These stories occur throughout the series. Four of these short stories were already previously released by author Anthony Horowitz, but "Alex in Afghanistan", "Tea with Smithers" and "Spy Trap" were all written exclusively for this collection. Nightshade was published in 2020. Alex is battling against a new criminal organization, Nightshade (after the downfall of Scorpia) which Mrs. Jones had been reading

16906-424: The novel La Mal Jaune (1965) by the French writer Jean Lartéguy . The Ugly American was written as a rebuttal to The Quiet American under which the idealistic Colonel Barnum operating in the fictional Vietnam-like Southeast Asian nation of Sarkhan shows the way to defeat Communist guerillas by understanding local people in just the same way that Lansdale with his understanding and sympathy for ordinary Filipinos

17064-485: The novel sees Alex crash land in Australia. There, he is recruited by ASIS, Australia's secret service, to infiltrate a Snakehead organization by posing as an Afghan refugee . He meets his godfather, Ash , while preparing in Thailand, and they team up. The Snakehead organization and its leader, Major Winston Yu, a Scorpia board member, reportedly stole a powerful bomb called Royal Blue, which MI6 wants to intercept. During

17222-408: The officially designated "five races" of the Japanese, Han Chinese, Manchus, Koreans and Mongols had come together to build a utopian society. Manchukuo also had a substantial Russian minority who initially been considered as the "sixth race", but had been excluded. The spy stories of Manchukuo such as "A Mixed Race Woman" by the writer Ding Na often linked the willingness to serve as spies with having

17380-404: The original novel series and appealing to both teenagers and adult fans who had grown up reading the novel series. Brooks also praised Farrant's performance as Alex Rider, opining that he nailed the soul of the teenage protagonist by capturing his strengths, moods, and fears. The Telegraph 's Anita Singh gave the series four out of five stars, describing it as "slick and stylish, bringing

17538-1076: 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 's fantastic Michael Jagger in Overkill (1966), The Deep, Deep Freeze (1968), The Us or Them War (1969) and A Big Enough Wreath (1974). 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 (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. Notable recurring characters from this era include Adam Diment 's Philip McAlpine as

17696-466: The real-life experiences of his creator"'. John Le Carré described Ashenden stories as a major influence on his novels as praised Maugham as "the first person to write anything about espionage in a mood of disenchantment and almost prosaic reality". At a more popular level, Leslie Charteris ' popular and long-running Saint series began, featuring Simon Templar, with Meet the Tiger (1928). Water on

17854-497: The scout stories always almost ended being killed at the climax of the stories, giving up their lives up to save the Motherland from the German invaders. In November 1961, Vladimir Semichastny became the chairman of the KGB and sent out to improve the image of the Chekisty . The acronym KGB ( Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti -Committee of State Security) was adopted in 1954, but the organisation had been founded in 1917 as

18012-550: The second season would explore her continuing her role as Alex's guardian while pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer. The eight-episode first season was released on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 4 June 2020, and was released on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, Germany, and Austria later in mid-2020. In New Zealand, the television series is distributed by TVNZ+ . The show premiered on Prime in Canada, Italy, and Latin America, and on Amazon's IMDb TV in

18170-505: The second season would explore the protagonist's struggle with post traumatic stress disorder following the events of the first season, and that the second season would adapt the events of the fourth novel Eagle Strike . Toby Stephens , who played the antagonistic Damian Cray, described his character as less flamboyant than the book version, and drew inspiration from " Big Tech " entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for his character. Returning cast member Ronke Adékoluęjo confirmed that

18328-668: The secrets of the General Staff of the French Army ; the French counter-intelligence riposte of sending a charwoman to rifle the trash in the German Embassy in Paris, were news that inspired successful spy fiction. At least two Sherlock Holmes stories have clear espionage themes. In The Adventure of the Naval Treaty , Holmes recovers the text of a secret Naval Treaty between Britain and Italy, stolen by

18486-415: The series avoided the clichéd James Bond gadgets for the first two episodes. Richards praised Farrant's performance as Alex Rider but opined that the series needed tinkering to identify its target audience. Richards also described co-star Brenock O'Connor 's performance as Alex's best friend Tom Harris as charismatic. While praising Marli Siu 's character Kyra as a worthy addition to the male-centric world of

18644-731: The series featuring Matt Helm , a CIA assassin and counter-intelligence agent. Major General Edward Lansdale , a charismatic intelligence officer who was widely credited with having masterminded the defeat of the Communist Huk rebellion in the Philippines inspired several fictional versions of himself. Besides for The Quiet American , he appeared as Colonel Edwin Barnum in The Ugly American (1958) by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick and as Colonel Lionel Teryman in

18802-532: The series for ITV . Guy Burt was attached as writer. The series is directed by Andreas Prochaska and Christopher Smith . In July 2018, Variety reported that Eleventh Hour Films would be teaming up with Sony Pictures Television to produce an eight-episode adaptation of Point Blanc , the second book in the Alex Rider series. Horowitz served as an executive producer on the series. Sony Pictures Television's international and worldwide distribution divisions under Wayne Garvie and Keith Le Goy were attached to

18960-424: The series was confirmed to end with the third season. It was announced on 23 April 2019 that Otto Farrant would star as the titular character. More cast members were announced the following day, including Brenock O'Connor , Stephen Dillane , Vicky McClure , Jon Brackenridge, Andrew Buchan , Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo , Ace Bhatti and Nyasha Hatendi . Toby Stephens , Rakie Ayola , and Charithra Chandran joined

19118-520: The series, he expressed disappointment that Vicky McClure and Stephen Dillane's characters were under-utilised. Ed Cumming of The Independent awarded the series three out of five stars, describing it as "stylish but not sanitised, catching more of the books' momentum and bringing them up to speed with the 21st century". He regarded Alex Rider as more faithful to the series than the 2006 Stormbreaker film. He also praised Farrant's version of Alex Rider as more plausible than Alex Pettyfer 's version of

19276-495: The series, lead star Otto Farrant praised the show for addressing societal shifts which allowed men to talk about their feelings, sensitivities, and vulnerabilities. He also stated that the series would appeal to a new teenage audience that was discovering the Alex Rider novel series for the first time by avoiding darker themes. In early December 2021, Alex Rider creator and executive producer Anthony Horowitz confirmed that

19434-559: The series. Sony was responsible for funding and looking for broadcasting or platform distributors. On 10 November 2020, the series was renewed for a second season that adapted the fourth book in the Alex Rider series, Eagle Strike . As of 12 May 2021, a third season was in development. In August 2022, the series was renewed for its third season that adapted the fifth book in the Alex Rider series, Scorpia with production reportedly having begun in October 2022. In February 2024,

19592-573: The signs of danger". Like Le Carré, former British Intelligence officer 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 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 (1978) about

19750-465: The simple expedient of retreating behind further and further screens of postulated inward mystery. Secret services have in common with Freemasons and mafiosi that they inhabit an intellectual twilight-a kind of ambiguous gloom in which it is hard to distinguish with certainty between the menacing and the merely ludicrous. In such circumstances the human affinity for myth and legend easily gets out of control". This inability to know for certain about what

19908-453: The spies sent by General Joshua into the city of Jericho did much the same with Rahab the Harlot. " Spy fiction as a genre started to emerge during the 19th Century. Early examples of the espionage novel are The Spy (1821) and The Bravo (1831), by American novelist James Fenimore Cooper . The Bravo attacks European anti- republicanism , by depicting Venice as a city-state where

20066-476: The spy fiction genre, writers and book packagers also started bringing out spy fiction with a female as the protagonist. One notable spy series is The Baroness , featuring a sexy female superspy, with the novels being more action-oriented, in the mould of Nick Carter-Killmaster. Other important American authors who became active in spy fiction during this period include Ross Thomas , The Cold War Swap (1966). The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971) by Robert Ludlum

20224-517: The spy novel in the post– Cold War world. Other important American authors who first became active in spy fiction during this period include David Ignatius , Agents of Innocence (1997); David Baldacci , Saving Faith (1999); and Vince Flynn , with Term Limits (1999) and a series of novels featuring counter-terrorism expert Mitch Rapp. In 1993, the American novelist Philip Roth published Operation Shylock , an account of his supposed work as

20382-458: The state's campaign to take over "...the governance of private and family life, relying on the power of propaganda literature and the nationwide mobilization of the social discourse of counterespionage". At the same time, she noted "A Mixed Race Woman" with its intelligent female protagonists seemed to challenge the patriarchal values of Manchukuo which portrayed women as the weaker sex in need of male protection and guidance. However, Bong noted that

20540-465: The stories up-to-date with smartphones and cybertechnology while sticking to the spirit of Boy's Own adventures". She regarded it as far superior to the 2006 film and praised the series for its unique cinematography of London. Singh also positively compared it to the Bourne franchise and praised the series for being able to entertain adults and teenagers alike. Emmy Griffiths of Hello! magazine compared

20698-548: The story is actually a vehicle for exploring society's power structures and the nature of suffering. The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes , created by Arthur Conan Doyle , served as a SpyHunter for the British government in the stories " The Adventure of the Second Stain " (1904), and " The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans " (1912). In " His Last Bow " (1917), he served Crown and country as

20856-425: The students with clones of himself, who are altered through plastic surgery to resemble the students, including Alex himself, so Grief can inherit the fortune and gain the power to control the whole world. However, Alex foils his plan and is given a second sick note by MI6 . The book was adapted as the basis for the first season of the Alex Rider television series . Skeleton Key was published in 2002. After foiling

21014-629: The third season began in Bristol during October 2022, with production expected to take place over six months in the United Kingdom and Croatia . In November 2022, production reportedly took place at Cardiff Bay Barrage . Filming was also conducted in Gloucester in December 2022, with production reportedly due to finish in March 2023. Location filming also took place in Malta . While promoting

21172-518: The trade. Examples include Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham , which accurately portrays spying in the First World War, and The Mystery of Tunnel 51 (1928) by Alexander Wilson whose novels convey an uncanny portrait of the first head of the Secret Intelligence Service , Mansfield Smith-Cumming , the original 'C'. In the book Literary Agents (1987), Anthony Masters wrote: "Ashenden's adventures come nearest to

21330-415: The true details of the event that happened on Albert Bridge. As Alex leaves Liverpool Street, a Scorpia sniper shoots him. The book was adapted as the basis for the third season of the Alex Rider television series . Ark Angel , published in 2005, follows Alex's second mission for the CIA . After recovering from a Scorpia assassination attempt, he is sent to investigate businessman Nikolei Drevin, who built

21488-471: The true heroine of "A Mixed Race Woman", Shulan is presented as superior to Mali as she is Han and the story is one "...of female disempowerment in that Mali is completely subordinate to the racial order Shulan sets". The growing support of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain , and the imminence of war, attracted quality writers back to spy fiction. British author Eric Ambler brought a new realism to spy fiction. The Dark Frontier (1936), Epitaph for

21646-411: The two German states while Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States all had occupations zones in Berlin. As a result, Berlin was a beehive of espionage during the Cold War with the city full of American, British, East German, French, Soviet and West German spies; it was estimated that there was an average of about 8,000 spies in Berlin at any given moment during the Cold War. Because Berlin

21804-570: The war E. Howard Hunt wrote his first spy novel, East of Farewell (1943). In 1949 he joined the recently created CIA and continued to write spy fiction for many years. Paul Linebarger , a China specialist for the CIA, published Atomsk , the first novel of the Cold War, in 1949. During the 1950s, most of American spy stories were not about the CIA, instead being about agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who tracked down and arrested Soviet spies. The popular American image of

21962-444: The wartime slogan Smert shpionam! ("Death to Spies!"), which reflected the picture promoted by the Soviet state of spies as a class of people who deserved to be killed without mercy. The unfavorable picture of spies ensured that before the early 1960s there were no novels featuring Soviet spies as the heroes as espionage was portrayed as a disreputable activity that only the enemies of the Soviet Union engaged in. Unlike in Britain and

22120-470: The wealthy Vladimir Sharkovsky who catches him and takes him to his dacha outside Moscow. Sharkovsky forces him to play Russian Roulette with a single bullet to demonstrate that the boy is a slave. Yassen is put to work as Sharkovsky's food taster and general dogsbody to the dacha with no indication that he will ever escape. After several years he discovers that Sharkovsky was responsible for the laboratory accident and swears revenge. Sharkovsky's helicopter pilot

22278-431: The world for a third time. Eagle Strike was published in 2003. Popstar Damian Cray hopes to destroy the drug-making countries of the world by hijacking the United States nuclear arsenal . Suspicious of him, Alex takes Cray on without the help of the sceptical MI6. Cray releases a state-of-the-art games console called the 'Gameslayer.' with its first game, 'Feathered Serpent', being much more than it seems. Alex uncovers

22436-490: The writing is literary and the tradecraft believable. Noteworthy examples of the journalistic style and successful integration of fictional characters with historical events were the politico-military novels The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth and Eye of the Needle (1978) by Ken Follett . With the explosion of technology, Craig Thomas , launched the techno-thriller with Firefox (1977), describing

22594-596: Was The Zakhov Mission (1963) by the Bulgarian writer Andrei Gulyashki who had commissioned by Semichastny and was published simultaneously in Russian and Bulgarian. The success of The Zakhov Mission led to a follow-up novel, Zakhov vs. 007 , where Gulyashki freely violated English copyright laws by using the James Bond character without the permission of the Fleming estate (he had asked for permission in 1966 and

22752-411: Was a center of espionage, the city was frequently a setting for spy novels and films. Furthermore, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 made the wall into a symbol of Communist tyranny, which further increased the attraction for Western writers of setting a Cold War spy novel in Berlin. Perhaps the most memorable story set in Berlin was The Spy Who Came In From The Cold which in both the novel and

22910-509: Was adapted into a film in 2006, starring Alex Pettyfer as the titular protagonist. The second , fourth , and fifth books were adapted into a TV series in 2020, 2021, and 2024, respectively, this time starring Otto Farrant . Walker Books published the first novels in the United Kingdom alongside Puffin in the United States. More recent entries in the series were published by Philomel Books , an imprint of Penguin Books . Stormbreaker

23068-438: Was credited with defeating the Communist Huk guerrillas. The Ugly American was greatly influenced by the modernization theory, which held Communism was something alike to a childhood disease as the modernization theory held that as Third World nations modernized that this created social-economic tensions which a ruthless minority of Communists exploited to seize power; what was required from the United States were experts who knew

23226-513: Was denied). In Zakhov vs. 007 , the hero Avakoum Zakhov defeats James Bond, who is portrayed in an inverted fashion to how Fleming portrayed him; in Zakhov vs. 007 , Bond is portrayed as a sadistic killer, a brutal rapist and an arrogant misogynist, which stands in marked contrast to the kindly and gentle Zakhov who always treats women with respect. Zakhov is described as a spy, he more of a detective and unlike Bond, his tastes are modest. In 1966,

23384-433: Was first published in the year 2000, in the United Kingdom, and then in the year 2001 in the United States. Alex, the main character, is recruited by MI6 after discovering the truth about his uncle's life and death. He is sent to complete his uncle's latest mission: to investigate a Lebanese multimillionaire named Herod Sayle and his creation: the revolutionary and newly developed computer called Stormbreaker – which Sayle

23542-465: Was included in Secret Weapon , along with new material published on 4 April 2019, and which were made available on Anthony Horowitz's website. Resistance to Interrogation and Coda are available on the author's website and have all been included in certain editions of that book except Resistance to Interrogation , which was included in certain editions of Never Say Die . The White Carnation

23700-530: Was known from 1934 to 1946, it is stated quite explicitly in Semnadtsat' mgnoveniy vesny (which is set in 1945) that he left the Soviet Union to go undercover in Nazi Germany "more than ten years ago", which means that Isayev was not involved in the Yezhovshchina . The June 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbours introduced new themes to espionage fiction - the conflict between Israel and

23858-419: Was later included in the short story collection Alex Rider: Undercover, which was published exclusively for World Book Day 2020. A video game based on the film was released on 7 July 2006, which received negative reviews. Horowitz wrote the screenplay for the feature film Stormbreaker , directed by Geoffrey Sax . Stormbreaker was an international co-production between companies and financiers from

24016-477: 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. 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. Greene had covered the Vietnam war in 1951-52 as

24174-563: Was published in 2004. Following the advice of the assassin Yassen Gregorovich , Alex seeks the criminal organization Scorpia to find the truth about his father . He is soon recruited by Scorpia executive Julia Rothman , and he is trained as an assassin before being ordered to kill Mrs. Jones. He fails in this mission but realigns with MI6 after learning that thousands of schoolchildren in London would die if he did not help them. Alex

24332-718: Was published in 2011. A Greek trillionaire, Yannis Ariston Xenopolos hires Scorpia to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece . Scorpia's plan includes the laying of a false trail to Cairo, Egypt , and blackmailing MI6 into returning the Marbles. MI6 falls for the trap and Alex is sent to Cairo, where he is dismayed to find that Scorpia has been pulling the strings all along. He also meets Julius Grief, his clone from Point Blanc who escaped from an MI6 prison in Gibraltar . He aims to personally kill Alex to avenge Dr Grief's death. Alex

24490-621: Was published in June 2017 with a US release in October 2017. After the events of Scorpia Rising, Alex is left traumatized by the death of his caregiver and close friend, Jack Starbright. After being given a glimmer of hope about her survival, through an unknown email, Alex is thrust into the horrors of his past in a battle to recover his friend from the dead. Along the way, he encounters new foes (associated with Scorpia) who are nothing like anyone he has battled before. He foils their plans of making rich parents pay to get their children back (after kidnapping

24648-408: Was released on Amazon Freevee in the United Kingdom and the United States on 5 April 2024. For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.4/10 based on 27 reviews. The website's consensus reads, " Alex Rider ' s first season takes a minute to find it's [ sic ] footing, but once it does, it proves

24806-464: Was released on 3 December 2021. The third and final season adapted Scorpia and was released on 5 April 2024. Spy fiction Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua might count as the first Spy Story in world literature. (...) Three thousand years before James Bond seduced Pussy Galore and turned her into his ally against Goldfinger ,

24964-465: Was shot during the fight. He tells them that he didn't believe that he would make it in the world after all that Nightshade made him do and is glad that Alex was his friend. He dies in Alex's arms. In the aftermath Mrs Jones decides to resign so she can be there for her children who are both being treated. Alex walks out hoping to never have to work for MI6 again. Christmas at Gunpoint was later published as part of The Mission Files , material from which

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