David McCloskey is hailed as the best spy novelist around… And with a brand new book hitting the shelves on 8^th October, we had to see about it!

OVERVIEW

London Station, McCloskey’s fifth novel, what if the CIA and MI6 started spying on each other?

We see the return of a fan-favourite character, Artemis Procter from Damascus Station (don’t worry, though – it’s a standalone story!). The fiery CIA agent is hoping to get her hands dirty in the field but instead, thanks to a turn of bad luck and the introduction of a new and unconventional CIA Director, she is sent to London to act as Chief of Station there. It’s a role she does not particularly enjoy.

Soon, alliances shift, colleagues clash, old friends become adversaries and the special relationship isn’t feeling so special. When agents on both sides start dying, and secrets start leaking out to hostile foreign actors, everyone is forced to think carefully about who can and can’t be trusted.

London Station offers incredible insider knowledge brought to life in the skilled hands of a bestselling novelist. It’s tense, political, and a refreshing take on the modern spy novel.

WHY WE CHOSE IT

David McCloskey is a major voices in contemporary espionage fiction, and we’re excited that he has brought his latest spy thriller to London, the home of James Bond.

There is an interesting similarity between Ian Fleming and David McCloskey: both draw on first-hand experience of the intelligence world in their fiction, albeit in very different ways. Fleming served in British Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, while McCloskey worked as a CIA analyst before turning to fiction.

Fleming transformed the world of intelligence into the mythology of James Bond: exotic locations, elaborate schemes, glamorous love interests, larger-than-life villains… His books capture the excitement and fantasy of espionage, creating a world where the extraordinary feels entirely natural.

McCloskey takes almost the opposite approach. His novels are firmly rooted in the contemporary world of intelligence, drawing on real geopolitical tensions, institutional relationships and the complexities of modern espionage so, rather than escaping from reality, London Station gets its tension from how close to reality it feels.

What better way to explore how the spy novel has changed, and whether the reality of espionage is any less exciting than 007?

THEMES TO CONSIDER

– Tradition – What does the novel suggest about the changing nature of the “special relationship” and the way modern espionage differs from the Cold War model?

– Anger – How do anger, resentment and revenge influence the characters’ decisions?

– Love – Think about the roles love and relationships play with the espionage-heavy plot.

REVIEWS

Antony Beevor – ‘Quite literally, this is not just McCloskey’s best book by far, it is the best spy novel I have ever read: brilliantly written and plotted’

Simon Sebag Montefiore – ‘Brilliant, wildly compelling, thrilling read that I couldn’t put down. One of the best thrillers I’ve ever read, propulsively realistic & prophetic. His creation Artemis is becoming a classic. David McCloskey is the top spy thrillerist of our lethal era’

Charles Beaumont – ‘An immensely enjoyable and gripping read, but also an essential account – perhaps the first one – of a major shift in world politics: the end of the transatlantic alliance. Right on the nose, very funny and hugely insightful. We are lucky to have a writer of David’s quality to be the person writing it’

Alex Gerlis – ‘A real treat for all espionage fans: a stylish and clever thriller which poses the question “what if the CIA and MI6 began spying on each other” and answers it with a gripping plot featuring the welcome return of Artemis Procter. Highly recommended for all spy fiction fans and beyond’

Tim Shipman – ‘Superbly written, with atmosphere, intelligence and tension, it reminds you of the best of Graham Greene. There can be no higher praise’

Sunday Times – ‘McCloskey is the best spy thriller writer working today’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David McCloskey is a former CIA analyst. While at the CIA, he wrote regularly for the President’s Daily Brief during President Obama’s tenure, delivered classified testimony to Congressional oversight committees, and briefed senior White House officials, Ambassadors, military officials, and Arab royalty. He worked in CIA field stations across the Middle East throughout the Arab Spring and conducted a rotation in the Counterterrorism Centre focused on the jihad in Syria and Iraq. David holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he specialized in energy policy and the Middle East.  He is the co-host with Gordon Corera of the successful The Rest is Classified podcast and lives in Texas with his wife and three children.

His first novel, Damascus Station, set in Syria, was the bestselling debut spy novel of its year and shortlisted for a British Book Award. His second, Moscow X was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and a Sunday Times Thriller of the Year. And his third, The Seventh Floor, was a Sunday Times Bestseller. His most recent novel, The Persian, entered at no 3 in the Sunday Times Bestsellers chart in January and is out in paperback on 2 July. London Station is his fifth novel. His novels are in print in more than fifteen countries and are under development for film and television.

London Station comes out on 8^th October, so be sure to order a copy in time to read along with us! And stay tuned for an interview with the author coming soon…

Did you know that the most recent biographer of Ian Fleming, Nicholas Shakespeare, also writes a mean thriller? Welcome to September at the James Bond Book Club.

OVERVIEW

Ex-journalist John Dyer has settled into a quiet life when he receives news that his old university friend, Lia, has been murdered. Decades have passed since they last spoke, but the circumstances of her death draw Dyer into an investigation of his own.

His search takes him back forty years to the night when he and three friends witnessed a terrible crime – and to the evidence that was lost in its aftermath. Somewhere is a Leica camera containing the proof of what happened all those years ago and if Dyer can find it, he may be able to expose the truth. But someone else is determined to make sure he never gets the chance.

Following his leads from Tasmania to Argentina and finally to Michigan, where the story began, Dyer finds himself confronting an adversary whose reach and power are greater than he could have imagined. A personal investigation becomes a race against time, with Dyer increasingly isolated and the stakes rising with every step.

WHY WE CHOSE IT

When discussing crime fiction today, we can often find ourselves remarking on the irony that some of the most powerful people in the real world seem to have stepped straight out of a Bond novel, with their wealth, influence, corruption and willingness to abuse power. Frame 37 captures this idea that the villains of Fleming’s imagination no longer seem quite so far removed from the people who wield real power. What once belonged to the world of espionage fiction can, at times, be all too familiar.

Ian Fleming was, in his own way, responding to the political realities of his time, turning the anxieties of the Cold War into larger-than-life villains and conspiracies. Frame 37 approaches similar territory from a more grounded perspective, asking what happens when hidden power and political corruption are not exaggerated for the page, but feel uncomfortably close to reality.

For Bond fans, there is plenty here to get our teeth into: international intrigue, dangerous secrets, powerful adversaries and a protagonist who finds himself in increasingly deep water. But Frame 37 also gives us something different. Whether you have been reading Bond for decades or are new to Fleming and the wider world of espionage fiction, we hope it offers a fresh perspective on one of the things that makes Bond so enduring: the idea that, beneath all the fantasy, his villains are often reflections of very real fears about power, politics and the people who wield them.

THEMES TO CONSIDER

– Power and corruption – What happens when the people with the most power also have the most to hide?

– Truth, proof, photography – How much is the truth worth if you cannot prove it? What role do cameras play in espionage fiction?

– The ordinary man in extraordinary danger – What makes Dyer an effective thriller protagonist, and how does his vulnerability change the way we experience the danger?

REVIEWS

William Boyd – ‘A remarkable contemporary thriller… A triumph’

Evening Standard – ‘An absorbing thriller with shades of John le Carré’

The Times – ‘One of our best and truest novelists’

Spectator – ‘An intelligent, suspenseful take on classic thriller tropes that is nonetheless rooted in the mess of the here and now’

Daily Mail – ‘Superbly written, with atmosphere, intelligence and tension, it reminds you of the best of Graham Greene. There can be no higher praise’

Sunday Times – ‘If you’re not averse to a slow-burn literary thriller, this globe-trotting saga is a first-rate example: nothing is stereotypical’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicholas Shakespeare is a prize-winning novelist and biographer, described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘one of the best English novelists of our time’. One of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 1993, his books have been translated into 22 languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and The Dancer Upstairs, which was made into a film by John Malkovich and named Best Novel of 1995 by the American Libraries Association. His nonfiction includes the critically acclaimed authorised biography of Bruce Chatwin, In Tasmania, and Priscilla: the hidden life of an Englishwoman in Occupied France. He has been longlisted for the Booker Prize twice, was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

In 2023, Shakespeare released Ian Fleming: The Complete Man – the first authorised biography of the author since 1966 – and received the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for that year’s best non-fiction.

We hope you enjoy Frame 37. Stay tuned for more content and please share your thoughts with us if you read along!

Ian Fleming’s wartime career at Naval Intelligence meant he moved in the same circles as many extraordinary and mysterious figures. For our August Book Club selection, we’ve chosen a novel inspired by one of the most remarkable espionage partnerships of the twentieth century, Edith and Kim (2022) by Charlotte Philby, the granddaughter of notorious double agent Kim Philby.

OVERVIEW

Set against the backdrop of the Second World War and its aftermath, Edith & Kim tells the story of Edith Tudor-Hart and Kim Philby, two people whose lives became entwined through espionage and betrayal.

Edith Tudor-Hart, an Austrian-born photographer living in Britain, appears at first to lead an unassuming life. Beneath the surface, however, she is committed to a clandestine cause, using her extensive social network to identify promising young recruits sympathetic to the Soviet Union.

One of those recruits is Harold “Kim” Philby, an ambitious and intelligent Cambridge graduate whose charm and social standing make him an ideal candidate for Soviet intelligence. As Philby’s career takes him deeper into the heart of Britain’s intelligence establishment, Edith watches from the margins, both proud of what she has set in motion and increasingly troubled by its consequences.

Moving across the shadowy world of wartime espionage, Charlotte Philby blends historical fact with fiction to explore one of history’s most consequential spy relationships and shed light on a fascinating yet often-forgotten woman.

WHY WE CHOSE IT

The world of James Bond has always existed somewhere between fantasy and reality. Ian Fleming transformed the secret world of intelligence into a landscape of exotic locations and larger-than-life adversaries, but the foundations of that world came from the real institutions and personalities of twentieth-century espionage.

The use of real events and historical figures is woven into the fabric of espionage fiction. Spy novels have always existed in conversation with politics, international affairs and real intelligence operations, blurring the line between fact and fiction. One name that appears again and again is Kim Philby.

One of the infamous Cambridge Five, Philby rose to become one of Britain’s most senior intelligence officers while secretly working for the Soviet Union. For decades, he passed some of Britain’s most closely guarded secrets to Moscow before his eventual defection in 1963 exposed one of the greatest betrayals in intelligence history.

Rather than focusing on Philby himself, Charlotte Philby turns her attention to Edith Tudor-Hart, the woman who introduced him to his Soviet recruiter, exploring the personal relationships that shaped one of the twentieth century’s defining espionage stories.

Ian Fleming was actually introduced to Philby in 1932 by their mutual friend Harold Alaric Jacob, and later gave him a small literary nod in Goldfinger: ‘Miss Philby is secretary of the Bank Women’s Hockey Team of England.’ While Philby’s story is very different from the adventures of James Bond, it belongs to the same intelligence world that inspired Fleming’s fiction.

Espionage has always been about more than secrets. It is about people. For fans of James Bond and Ian Fleming, Edith & Kim offers a fascinating glimpse at the history behind the fiction: the complicated human stories that helped shape the stories we read today.

THEMES TO CONSIDER

– The hidden figures of history – Kim Philby’s name is famous, but Edith Tudor-Hart’s story has remained far less familiar. Why do some people become central figures in history while others disappear?

– Truth and invention – Historical fiction must fill the gaps left by the archive. How does Charlotte Philby use imagination to explore the lives behind the known facts?

– The intelligence world behind Bond – How does the reality of espionage compare with the world created by Ian Fleming?

REVIEWS

William Boyd – ‘Completely fascinating. A sophisticated and brilliantly constructed fictional retelling of a crucial relationship in 20th century espionage history. A tremendous achievement.’

Charles Cumming – ‘A fascinating contribution to the literature of the Cambridge spies by a clever, nimble writer with some genuine skin in the game.’

Mick Herron – ‘Completely absorbing.’

Sarah Vaughan – ‘Blending SIS files and imagined letters from her grandfather, Philby shines a spotlight on Edith Tudor-Hart as activist, spy and often desperate single, working mother.’

New Statesman – ‘A dextrous writer who gives her tale a quickening, thrillerish propulsion.’ 

Literary Review – ‘Persuasive… involving… impressive.’ 

Sunday Times – ‘Atmospheric and rigorously researched… we’re slyly induced to fear that Edith (who is also juggling roles as a single mother and photographer) could be arrested or prevented from working, before realising that we’re rooting for a Stalinist enemy of Britain.’ 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlotte Philby is a critically acclaimed author of six novels. As a journalist, she worked for eight years as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist at the Independent, where she was shortlisted for the Cudlipp Prize for investigative reporting. She is a former contributing editor and features writer at Marie Claire, and has written for publications including the Sunday Times, New Statesman and Financial Times. 

She is the granddaughter of Kim Philby whose life she reimagines in Edith & Kim.

Alongside Edith & Kim, her novels include Part of the Family, A Double Life and The End of Summer.

We hope you’ll join us as we explore another compelling work of espionage fiction. Stay tuned for more content and please share your thoughts with us if you read along!