Spy novels are a relatively recent genre in fiction writing with Kim by Rudyard Kipling being one of the popular earlier works which dealt with the shadowy world of espionage and intrigue. The political machinations and tussle for power which characterized the Great Game, Europe in the beginning of the twentieth century and the later period of the Cold War provided ample scope for the creation of a genre ranging from the action-oriented spy fiction of Ian Fleming to the more intellectually engaging world of John Le Carre’s novels. This was an era when ‘nations and even people came to believe that clandestine operations were a necessity for maintaining the safety and integrity of a nation’.
October 2023, volume 47, No 10