Do you have fascination for spy stories?

I did enjoy the Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid games.

Spy stories have always interested me. As a kid, I was fascinated by the spy stories coming out of World War II, and the secret methods they had. And I would read up on all the secret ways of passing messages, like marking the side of a mall box with chalk, or switching copies of the newspaper while sitting next to a “stranger” at a train station.

I knew my uncle had been with the OSS during the war, and that was why he and my aunt were in Belgium in the early fifties. But the recent Ken Burns documentary about Vietnam discussed my uncle’s involvement in Indochina in 1945, and his meeting Ho Chi Minh right after Japan surrendered.

^That’s great!!

I have read most of John Le Carre’s novels, starting in the 80s. With the Cold War on it was easy to imagine being in the stories.

There have been some really good movies based on his books, too. Two superb recent ones that come to mind are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and A Most Wanted Man (2014).

The 2016 BBC six part series The Night Manager was excellent, too. That’s free with Amazon Prime if you have it.

In real life, I knew a guy who was a CIA agent in the in the early 60s. He told me about shooting pictures of surveillance targets with a mini camera and developing film in his hotel room. And he was peripherally involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

I read all the Bourne books and the early Clancy books. Enjoyed them at the time.

I just remembered the The Americans TV series, where a couple of Russian spies are living as suburban Americans in the 1980s. I loved the first couple of seasons when there was lots of spycraft. It go more soap opera-ish later with a lot more emphasis on relationships.

I have read the books about Agent 007 James Bond. Ian Fleming wrote the original novels and short stories. Soon after his death in 1965, Kingsley Amis wrote “Colonel Sun” that copied Fleming’s works closely. In the 1980s, John Gardner wrote a new series that was different. In the 1990s, Raymond Benson wrote another series. I read a novel by John Le Carre as well. I have read some Matt Helm novels by Donald Hamilton. I have also read the Travis McGee novels by John D. McDonald. Each novel has a color in its name.