That's either a very bad joke or you have a very poor knowledge of tawdry spy fiction.

The greatest writers of spy fiction have, in almost every case, worked in intelligence before turning to writing.

In so evocatively capturing the art of spying, he is the writer who turned spy fiction into an art form.

We also return to the business of psychological manipulation that gave literary urgency to le Carré's new species of spy fiction.

But since 1989, their spooks have begun looking like villains too Spy fiction is narratively paranoid.