Otto Penzler - Agents of Treachery – Spy Stories

The international thriller is one of the most successful literary genres in the world, its primary practitioners becoming household names, insofar as any author’s level of fame can compete with an entertainer, sports figure, or world-class criminal. Ian Fleming, John le Carré, Graham Greene, Lee Child, Nelson DeMille, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett, and Eric Ambler, among many others, are familiar to readers around the world. It will come as little surprise to learn that for many years, one of every four novels sold in the United States fell into the espionage or international adventure category.

What may come as a surprise, if not an outright shock, is that there never has been, until now, a collection of original stories devoted to this highly respected and challenging genre. There have been a modest number of collections by individual authors largely devoted to what used to be called cloak-and-dagger stories. Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only contained five James Bond adventures; Peter O’Donnell’s Cobra Trap collected Modesty Blaise stories; E. Phillips Oppenheim, the hugely popular thriller writer who wrote prolifically between the two world wars (as well as before) produced numerous collections. There are a few other volumes, mostly obscure, and quite a few mixed collections by such writers as Greene, Ambler, John Buchan, H. C. McNeile, and Forsyth, in which a small number of spy stories are surrounded by other types of fiction.

The number of important authors in this very large genre who have never written even a single short story is legion. Ludlum never wrote one, nor did Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, Follett, Alan Furst, Robert Littell, Daniel Silva, W. E. B. Griffin, Thomas Gifford, or Trevanian.

The few anthologies devoted to spy and thriller stories are all reprint collections, jostling for the right to reprint le Carré’s lone spy story and several familiar tales along with some obscure (though often very good) narratives. Alan Furst’s excellent anthology, The Book of Spies, is devoted to excerpts from novels.

One could reasonably wonder why this scarcity of short fiction by otherwise often prolific authors persists, and the explanation is simple. Short stories set in the complex world of international espionage and adventure are very, very difficult to write. A disproportionate number of novels in that category, you will have noticed, are big, fat books. Although they are seldom leisurely, they are nonetheless longer than most novels. Establishing characters and places, creating plots within plots within plots, arranging treachery and duplicity in a credible fashion within the political alliances and betrayals of the time, all take subtlety and explanation-and a lot of pages. To attempt to contain all these disparate but necessary elements in a story of twenty or thirty pages is a challenge few can manage. What often captivates the reader of this compelling fiction is not the outcome of whatever the struggle has been. We know World War II will break out. We know de Gaulle will not be assassinated. We know Hitler will not be killed by German officers. What is terrifically engaging is watching the principal characters struggle with the moral compromises they are forced to make through fear or accommodation.

Every story you are about to read, to a greater or lesser degree, deals with these issues. Some adopt a fundamental theology of right and wrong, home country versus enemy state, while others assume the philosophical position of much contemporary espionage fiction, filled with ambiguity and relativism. One country’s traitor is another’s hero, a duplicitous lying swine to one organization is viewed as a stalwart figure of brilliance and courage by another. There is a broad spectrum of political and philosophical ideology represented on these pages, but it is rarely overt or obvious. The single quality that the contributors to this unique collection share is an ability to tell a complex story in a simple manner. I once asked Eric Ambler what he regarded as the most difficult element of writing the kind of novels he wrote, and he said, “to make it simple.” Mr. Ambler, I believe, would have approved of the stories collected here by these distinguished authors, a veritable who’s who of today’s most highly regarded thriller writers, as well as the most widely read.

In a relatively brief time, Lee Child has established himself as one of the best-selling thriller writers in the world. His novels about Jack Reacher, the powerful giant of a man who fearlessly behaves heroically, consistently achieve the number-one spot on the best-seller list of The New York Times and are equally successful in Great Britain.

Dan Fesperman has had a distinguished career as a journalist, covering events in thirty countries, beginning with the first Gulf War in 1991. The (British) Crime Writers’ Association named Lie in the Dark the best first novel of 1999 and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows the best thriller of 2003; USA Today named The Prisoner of Guantanamo the best thriller of 2006.

The first career choice of Joseph Finder was to be a spy and he was even recruited by the CIA but quickly deduced that life in the bureaucratic world was less exciting than it was portrayed in fiction. His first novel, The Moscow Club, was named one of the ten greatest espionage novels of all time by Publishers Weekly. “Neighbors” is his first short story.

One of the half dozen most famous espionage novels of all time is James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor, successfully filmed with Robert Redford as Three Days of the Condor. Working as an investigative reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson and for Senator Lee Metcalf helped provide the background information that makes his fiction so realistic.

As one of America ’s most distinguished film critics, Stephen Hunter won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003, but he is even better known for his best-selling, intricately plotted thrillers, especially those about macho Vietnam veteran sniper Bob Lee Swagger, known as “The Nailer.” The first Swagger novel, Point of Impact, was filmed in 2007 as Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg.

The controversial Andrew Klavan writes blogs and op-ed pieces at a prodigious rate, but it is crime fiction, notably such novels as Don’t Say a Word, which was later filmed starring Michael Douglas, and True Crime, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, that has put him atop the best-seller lists around the world. His first politically incorrect thriller was Empire of Lies.

Although John Lawton’s Chief Inspector Troy works for Scotland Yard, he mainly finds himself caught up in international intrigue. His first case, Black Out, won the WHSmith Fresh Talent Award. A Little White Death was a 2007 New York Times Notable Book. London ’s Daily Telegraph’s “50 Crime Writers to Read Before You Die” included Lawton, one of only six living English writers on the list.

A member of the U.S. Association for Intelligence Officers, Gayle Lynds is a cofounder (with David Morrell) of the International Thriller Writers. Among her best sellers are Masquerade, named one of the ten best spy novels of all time by Publishers Weekly; Mosaic, picked as the thriller of the year by Romantic Times; and three volumes in the Covert-One series coauthored with Robert Ludlum.