18 books like The three hostages
Mr. Standfast
Published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is a thriller set in the latter half of the First World War, and the third of John Buchan’s books to feature Richard Hannay.
Richard Hannay is called back from serving in France to take part in a secret mission: searching for a German agent. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland to track down the spy at the center of a web…
Shares: Hannay, Richard Hannay, Intelligence service, Great Britain
Greenmantle
In Greenmantle (1916) Richard Hannay, hero of The Thirty-Nine Steps, travels across war-torn Europe in search of a German plot and an Islamic Messiah. He is joined by three more of Buchan's heroes: Peter Pienaar, the old Boer Scout; John S. Blenkiron, the American determined to fight the Kaiser; and Sandy Arbuthnot, Greenmantle himself, modelled on Lawrence of Arabia. The intrepid four move in…
Shares: Hannay, Richard Hannay, Intelligence service, Great Britain
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay goes on…
Shares: Hannay, Richard Hannay, Intelligence service, Missing persons
Thunderball
"When a stranger arrives in the Bahamas, the locals barely turn their heads, seeing another ex-pat with money to burn at the casino tables. But James Bond has more than money on his mind; he's got less than a week to find two stolen atom bombs hidden among the coral reefs. While acting the playboy, Bond meets Domino, sultry plaything of secretive treasure hunter Emilio Largo. In getting close to…
Shares: Intelligence service, Great Britain, Spy Fiction, Adventure
The Runagates Club
John Buchan’s The Runagates Club is a classic of British interwar short fiction. These twelve stories appeared from 1913 to 1927, when he was at the peak of his powers, and feature Richard Hannay, Edward Leithen, and many newcomers to the Buchan canon.
John Buchan designed The Runagates Club as a showcase for the best of his 1920s magazine fiction. He repurposed these stories with new…
Shares: Intelligence service, Great Britain, Spy Fiction
The Chancellor Manuscript
Did J. Edgar Hoover die a natural death? Or was he murdered? When a group of high-minded and high-placed intellectuals known as Inver Brass detect a monstrous threat to the country in Hoover’s unethical use of his scandal-ridden private files, they decide to do away with him—quietly, efficiently, with no hint of impropriety. Then bestselling thriller writer Peter Chancellor stumbles onto…
Shares: Intelligence service, Spy Fiction
From Russia with Love
James Bond is marked for death by the Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH in Ian Fleming’s masterful spy thriller, and the novel that President John F. Kennedy named one of his favourite books of all time.
SMERSH stands for ‘Death to Spies’ and there’s no secret agent they’d like to disgrace and destroy more than 007, James Bond. But ensnaring the British Secret Service’s most lethal…
Shares: Intelligence service, Great Britain, Spy Fiction, Adventure
Death Divided
Young lawyer Joe McGrath faces a floodtide of memories when he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a childhood friend in this gripping thriller from international bestselling author Clare Francis
Jenna had always been Joe McGrath's best friend and secret crush . . . until he introduced her to the enigmatic but charming Jamie Chetwood. After Jenna and Jamie married, Joe moved on…
Shares: Missing persons, Great Britain
Watchman (Crime Club)
From #1 international bestseller Ian Rankin, an unlucky spy gets one last chance at redemption. Miles Flint is a spy who has been making some serious mistakes. His last assignment led to the death of a foreign official in London, and after getting too close to his current subject he wound up in police custody. But something is wrong at the agency that has nothing to do with Miles' errors. Why did…
Shares: Intelligence service, Spy Fiction
Trigger Mortis
It's 1957 and James Bond (agent 007) has only just survived his showdown with Auric Goldfinger at Fort Knox. By his side is Pussy Galore, who was with him at the end. Unknown to either of them, the USSR and the West are in a deadly struggle for technological superiority. And SMERSH is back.
The Soviet counter-intelligence agency plans to sabotage a Grand Prix race at the most dangerous track in…
Shares: Intelligence service, Great Britain, Spy Fiction, Adventure
Devil May Care
An Algerian drug runner is savagely executed in the desolate outskirts of Paris. This seemingly isolated event leads to the recall of Agent 007 from his sabbatical in Rome and his return to the world of intrigue and danger where he is most at home. The head of MI6, M, assigns him to shadow the mysterious Dr. Julius Gorner, a power-crazed pharmaceutical magnate, whose wealth is exceeded only by…
Shares: Intelligence service, Great Britain, Spy Fiction, Adventure
Mysterious Mr. Sabin
"The mysterious Mr. Sabin is an unscrupulous French royalist who aids the German government in a conspiracy of war against England. His part in the plot is that of securing valuable papers recording the coast defenses of England, for which services he demands Germany's conquest of France and the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Prince Henri and his cousin, Helene of…
Shares: Spy Fiction
Pray for Brave Heart
About the undeclared and ever-waging war of our time, the war for men's minds, and the action takes place in Switzerland.
Shares: Spy Fiction
Windmills of the gods
A college professor, a naive Kansan, becomes the US ambassador to Romania and learns a lot about life.
Shares: Spy Fiction
The Whip Hand
A 1960s London PI's search for a missing au pair leads to sinister evil in this classic spy series opener by the author of The Rainbird Pattern.Meet Rex Carver, the suave and laconic private investigator.His job is to track down a German au pair, Katerina Saxmann, who has gone missing in Brighton. But when the security services show up at his apartment within hours of him accepting the…
Shares: Spy Fiction
If you can't be good
An old CIA connection brings trouble for a Washington, DC, barman in this thriller from "America's best storyteller" (The New York Times Book Review).
 
As the saying goes, you can't pick your friends. If you could, Mac McCorkle would disown Padilla. They owned a bar together in Bonn, the West German capital, and stayed partners even after Padilla's sideline as a CIA operative got the bar…
Shares: Spy Fiction
The man who lost the war
Set in post-war Berlin, a disillusioned former CIA operative and a Russian spy cross paths in their search for an elusive double agent.
Shares: Spy Fiction
The second lady
On a state visit to Moscow, Billie Bradford, the beautiful and brilliant wife of the President of the United States, is abducted by the Soviets and replaced by Vera Vazilova, a superbly trained Russian undercover agent and actress who is the First Lady's physical double.The impostor's mission--to induce the President to reveal a U.S. secret that will drastically tip the world balance toward…
Shares: Spy Fiction