15 Classic Spy Books For Your Reading List

The SPYSCAPE museum & experience has the biggest collection of espionage books in New York City, including many prized, first edition page-turners written by and about real-life spies.

Here are 15 rare books you aren’t likely to find in your local store but why stop there? If you can’t browse our shelves in person, you can always check out our bookshop online.
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Churchill and Secret Service by David Stafford Winston (First Edition)

‍Britain’s wartime PM Winston Churchill believed passionately in the value of secret intelligence. As a young correspondent and soldier in Cuba and South Africa, he experienced its worth first hand. As wartime Prime Minister, he built a centralized intelligence community, responded daily to raw ‘Ultra’ reports, and created the Special Operations Executive to work behind enemy lines. Fans of history and the spy genre will both enjoy Stafford's Churchill and Secret Service.
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Flawed Patriot (First Edition)‍

By Bayard Stockton
William K. Harvey was the CIA’s most daring and successful field operator during the early days of the Cold War. A dedicated martini drinker, he was coarse in manner and appearance, both loved and hated, and larger than life. But just as Harvey reached his zenith, fate and personal flaws caused his swift, dramatic downfall. Stockton provides a rich portrait of the man with many of Harvey’s family, friends, and former CIA colleagues speaking publicly for the first time. 

Espionage: An Encyclopedia of Spies (First Edition)

By Bayard Stockton Richard M. Bennett 
Failure to defend against recent terrorist outrages has drawn unprecedented public attention to modern-day global espionage. This reference resource contains more than 500 entries covering every aspect of modern-day intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism. Espionage focuses in particular on developments in the field of intelligence since the end of the Cold War.

The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Code (First Edition)‍

By Mark Urban
Engraver’s apprentice George Scovell joined the British Army on the Iberian peninsula during the Napoleonic wars and soon changed the course of history. Scovell was assigned to Wellington’s headquarters when he obtained a handwritten copy of an obscure book on ciphering and began cracking the basic codes used in French dispatches. 

The Main Enemy (First Edition) 

By Milton Bearden and James Risen
The dramatic inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars unfolds in this landmark collaboration between a 30-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. 

By Way of Deception (First Edition)

‍By Victor Ostrovsky with Claire Hoy
The first time the Mossad came calling, they wanted Victor Ostrovsky for their assassination unit, the kidon. He turned them down. By Way of Deception is the explosive chronicle of his experiences in the Mossad, and of two decades of their frightening and often ruthless covert activities around the world.

Greek Memories (First Edition)

By Compton Mackenzie
Compton Mackenzie was a celebrated writer at the start of the Great War but he was soon recruited by British Secret Services to be their man in Greece. Later, he broke the rules by writing memoirs that included secret documents naming serving officers and exposing agents' cover. Mackenzie was prosecuted and Greek Memories was banned. Now, for the first time, here is Mackenzie's memoir as it should have been seen, a remarkable document of wartime espionage.

The Mitrokhin Archive (First Edition)

‍By Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin
For years, KGB operative Vasili Mitrokhin risked his life hiding top-secret material from Russian secret service archives beneath his family dacha. When he was exfiltrated to the West he took with him what the FBI called 'the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source'. This extraordinary book is the result.

Journey Into Madness (First Edition)

‍By Gordon Thomas
A chilling and unforgettable investigative journey into mind-control experiments funded by the CIA. Thomas also recounts other abuses right up to the kidnap, capture, and killing of agent William Buckley. The Canadian doctor who created the program is brought into sharp focus by this international correspondent.
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The Quest for C (First Edition)

By Alan Judd
The British Secret Service was founded by the shadow-like figure Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming. In this authorized biography, drawing on never-before-released diaries from the British Secret Intelligence Service, Alan Judd investigates the man and the agency that defined MI5 and MI6 at their inception.

Agent Zigzag  (First Edition)

‍By Ben Macintyre
One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission? To sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and louche, courageous and unpredictable, the traitor was a patriot inside, and the villain a hero. The problem for Chapman, his many lovers, and his spymasters, was knowing who he was. 

Gideon’s Spies (First Edition) 

By Gordon Thomas
A classic history of the Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence agency, updated to include the Arab Spring. Gideon's Spies reveals that all too often the truth exceeds the fantasies about the Mossad.