Spybrary Spy Podcast

The James Bond Book Club is back! This is the series where we discuss each Ian Fleming James Bond novel as if we are in the year of publication. Today it's the turn of Quarrel, Strangeways, HoneyChile Rider, and a fiend called Dr No! What is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club exactly and what makes it different from other 007 book clubs? On the James Bond Book Club, we get in our time machine and g...

Our Man in Alabama Matthew Kresal gives us the lowdown on the 2005 video game of From Russia With Love starring Sean Connery in this Spybrary Brush Pass. 'The game was the last James Bond video game released by Electronic Arts before they lost the rights to  Activision  in 2006, as well as Sean Connery's last role before retirement and death.' James Bond Wiki Join your fellow listeners and spy fan...

Smiley is suspicious Percy! Today we kick off the John le Carre movie club series on the Spybrary Podcast. Once a month, our panel will take a deep dive into a John le Carre movie. To start the series, a full debriefing of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Jeff Quest of the Le Carre Cast , Double O Section's Matthew Bradford and Spybrary commentator Martin Reynolds. That and more in this episode of t...

This week we welcome the former Home Secretary and best-selling author Alan Johnson to the Spybrary Podcast. In this informative and fun chat, Spybrary host Shane Whaley asks Alan Johnson how his background as Home Secretary helped him to write his fiction books Late Train to Gipsy Hill and One of Our Ministers is Missing . The Director General of MI5 reports to the Home Secretary, and whilst we k...

This week we welcome Benjamin Cunningham to the show. Cunningham wrote the recently released book The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man a book that the publisher calls "the Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow." It's a wild story of swapping...

Intelligence Historian and Author Nigel West joins Spybrary Spy Podcast host Shane Whaley to share more about his latest book Spies Who Changed History plus, he answers your questions on the Wilson Coup, the Steele Dossier on Trump, meeting Anthony Blunt, Ian Fleming and many more!

Sunday Times Chief Political Commentator and spy book fan Tim Shipman talks with Ben Macintyre about his latest work based on Colditz, Prisoners of the Castle .   The "entertaining yet objective and often-moving account" ( The Wall Street Journal ) of one of history's most notorious prisons—and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried relentlessly to escape their captors, from the  New York Times  be...

Spybrary's man in Station L (Northern Sector) author  Andy Onyx  slipped us this brush pass review of  Javier Marias 's thriller  Your Face Tomorrow: Fever And Spear He shares why spy book readers will enjoy this modern spy novel. "Your Face Tomorrow by the Spanish novelist of note, Javier Maras. I say novelist of note because Maras has sold over 6 million copies of his works worldwide to date. In...

What's life like working as a spy? Spy author Bevan G Roberts chats with former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and MI6 trained agent handler Warren Reed to find out. Most of us are fascinated by the craft of human intelligence. It's a trade as old as time, involving betrayal, secrecy, and most of all, danger! Danger to the operative danger, to the agent, danger, to innocent people a...

Spybrary field agent Chris Lueloff slipped us this brush pass review of Bill Granger's spy thriller November Man series Lueloff shares why spy book readers will enjoy Granger's work and boldly declares that Peter Devereaux is an American Quiller. Agree, disagree? Come and let us know your thoughts in the Spybrary fans community. More About the November Man spy series according to Randall at Spy Gu...

Join Spies and Books, Spybrary host Shane Whaley as he finds outs more about the traitor Robert Hanssen in this interview with author Lis Wiehl   New York Times bestselling author and former federal prosecutor Lis Wiehl delivers a behind-the-scenes account of how FBI agent Robert Hanssen, a church-going father of five, sold national security secrets to Russia for more than two decades--and how Ame...

In this conversation with Spybrary host Shane Whaley, award-winning spy author Dan Fesperman reveals more about the real-life espionage events that inspired his latest novel, set in Berlin 1990, Winter Work. The Berlin Wall has fallen and in the ensuing power vacuum, a former Stasi officer and a CIA agent must fight for their lives. On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin,...

Listen in to our first ever live episode of Spybrary. A panel to discuss Tim Shipman's list of the best 125 spy writers. Tim reveals more about his method and criteria for selecting this monster list of spy authors. Joining us are Professor Penny Fielding , author and critic  Jeremy Duns , spy blogger  Matthew Bradford , and John le Carre book collector  Steven Ritterman  to run the rule over Tim'...

Spybrary field agent Erich Wagner slipped us this brush pass review of the nonfiction spy book The Spy Who Changed History by Svetlana Lokhova Erich tells us that the book will especially appeal to those of us with an interest in pre cold war Soviet deep cover espionage. More about the book:   On the trail of Soviet infiltrator Stanislav Shumovsky, codenamed Agent BLÉRIOT, Svetlana Lokhova takes t...

Shane shares a quick announcement on upcoming episodes and explains why there has been a lull in episodes of late.

James Bond fan and Spybrary's Head of Station SA, Matt Raubenheimer gives us his spoiler-free thoughts on the latest James Bond 007 novel With A Mind To A Kill written by Anthony Horowitz. It is M's funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M's murder - James Bond. Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former Smersh agent...

Shane Whaley delivers a brush pass review on Agent in Berlin by Alex Gerlis To live among wolves, first, you must become one... An unmissable new spy thriller from best-selling master of the genre, Alex Gerlis. War is coming to Europe. British spymaster  Barnaby Allen  begins recruiting a network of agents in Germany. With diplomatic relations quickly unravelling, this pack of spies soon comes int...

This week, Spywrite 's Jeff Quest welcomes Otto Penzler to the show. Otto shares stories from his many years of collecting books and meeting spy fiction authors. You'll hear stories about Eric Ambler, Charles McCarry, John le Carré and many more. ,  Plus, hear about his meeting with Len Deighton, how Ross Thomas nearly lost out on a million dollars, and a shocking revelation about a piece by Quill...

The year is 1957 and our guests share their thoughts on the latest James Bond novel From Russia With Love written by Ian Fleming.

On April 8th, Amazon releases the movie adaptation of Olen Steinhauer's All the Old Knives. In today's episode, two of our most knowledgable spy movie experts and Spybrary agents Matthew Bradford and Jack Lescamela chat with author and screenwriter Olen Steinhauer and the director of All The Old Knives, Janus Metz . Hello, and welcome to episode 181 of the Spybrary podcast. Today, I'm delighted to...

Spybrary joins forces with the Barbican Station podcast to discuss Apple TV's Slow Horses series starring Gary Oldman which airs today. The first half of this episode is spoiler-free. Today is the day many of us have been waiting for, the Apple TV's Slow Horses series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb is now airing. Through one of our agents I was able to get an early screening of Slow Horses a...

Today, we bring you a spy author interview. Spybrary hosts Shane Whaley and Peter Newman find out more about Charlotte Philby's latest novel, Edith and Kim . Charlotte also shares memories of her grandfather, Kim Philby, and reveals some interesting responses in the world-famous Spybrary Quickfire Round!

We get in our time machine and head for 1956 to review the latest Ian Fleming James Bond 007 novel, Diamonds Are Forever . With David Craggs, author Andy Onyx and Spybrary Host Shane Whaley. What is the Spybrary James Bond Book Club exactly and what makes it different from other 007 book clubs? On the James Bond Book Club, we get in our time machine and go back to the year of publication. We disse...

And now for something completely different. We just decoded a brush pass from, author Clarke Mayer who shares his thoughts on a spy video game called Metal Gear Solid.

Welcome to Episode 176 of the Spybrary Spy Book podcast. Spywrite's Jeff Quest speaks to author Alma Katsu , formerly with the NSA and CIA. Katsu's latest book, Red Widow , follows a CIA mole hunt. It's been optioned for television and is out in paperback on March 1st.  They discuss switching from NSA to CIA and back again, the explosive growth of social media and its effect on espionage, and the...