Adam LeBor

Barry Forshaw and Adam LeBor select their must-read titles

Beyond the bonkers plot twists, didactic exposition and barely developed characters, a deft storyteller is at work

Tales from the Ottoman Empire and 1930s Moscow, to the latest in the Slow Horses series

Former spooks or sleuths can’t shake off their old lives in books by Paul Vidich, Alan Parks, Graham Hurley and Mark Ezra, while Mark Ellis and Lily Samson delve into secret worlds

The return of investigators Horst Schenke and Tom Wilde, Charles Beaumont’s follow-up to ‘A Spy Alone’ — plus the latest from Stella Rimington

David McCloskey cements his place in the top division of spy writers; tradecraft secrets around the world; and arson in the London art world

Capers in Constantinople and Cornwall — plus a chilling story of espionage set in 1930s Vienna — are among the most compelling new spy novels

A posthumous and seamless completion of a volcano thriller that the ‘Jurassic Park’ writer left unfinished after his death in 2008

Moscow X by David McCloskey (Swift Press/WW Norton) McCloskey’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut Damascus Station confirms his place in the first division of spy writers. The story roams from Moscow to Mexico and Washington, DC, as the CIA plans to bring down Putin’s money men. Steamy sex scenes, skilfully executed, add an extra layer to an enthralling read. Beirut Station by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press/Pegasus) Vidich writes with a serpentine elegance about the moral dilemmas of espionage in…

A modern makeover for Fleming’s spy and a reissue of a classic actioner — but little relief after the gulag