The Spy Books They Didn't Want You to Read (from guest blogger Dee Mason)

Today, I'm honored to welcome guest blogger Dee Mason to the pages of Somebody Dies with some insight on a few books that some governments tried to have quashed. It seems quite appropriate since this is the American Library Association's annual observance of Banned Books Week.

The Spy Books They Didn’t Want You to Read

Over the years there haven’t been many better ways to promote your book than by getting it banned. It just seems that anything that a government decides people shouldn’t see suddenly becomes the only thing they want to see. In the case of books, because they contain so much info and have such power to inform, there have been countless cases of their being simply too risky or packed with "sensitive" info.

Spy books are a prime example here; more specifically, the books that have been written by spies that divulge specific information about the world of spying and the upper levels of government. There have been quite a few examples of governments' deeming a spy-related book to be too sensitive or deciding that it gives away too much. Thankfully for you as the reader, a lot of them made their way to the public. So, without further ado, let’s get moving on our examples of spy books they didn’t want you to read.

Spycatcher by Peter Wright (1985)

This book’s full title is Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer, and it’s a prime example of what happens when a government tries to ban a book. The autobiography was written by Peter Wright in 1985; he was the Assistant Director of MI5, the British intelligence agency.

The book chronicles Wright’s attempts to track down a Soviet mole within the MI5, and goes into a great amount of detail about what he did and how he did it. He also discusses, in detail, the goings-on at the intelligence agency on a day-to-day basis. Because he was the Assistant Director, he had an unprecedented level of access to the MI5’s infrastructure: something the government quickly decided was a danger.

The book remains banned in Great Britain but has been published in Australia and the USA — giving Brits easy access, if they want it (which, of course, they do).

Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (2010)

Operation Dark Heart is the memoir of U.S Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and gives an incredibly detailed account of his five months spent in Afghanistan. This book is notably more controversial at time of writing because the conflict in the Middle East is still ongoing, meaning the U.S government is always trying to protect its image and the pictures painted of this conflict.

The book was technically published twice: the first was approved with minor changes by the U.S Army and a limited number were made available. Following this, other departments in the U.S government decided that there were certain passages in the book which were too sensitive for general release. They then censored the book even more and re-published it. The problem was that the original had become a collectors' item, and the public had a thirst for the unaltered edition. This led to its being released on multiple websites in its entirety, and prompted an official statement on the matter from the U.S Army.

The Big Breach by Richard Tomlinson (2001)

Richard Tomlinson was an MI6 officer who was put into prison in 1997 for breaking the Official Secrets Act when he provided an Australian publisher the outline of a book he wanted to write. The book, which would eventually become known as The Big Breach, was a detailed account of Tomlinson’s experience within the British secret service, and as such contained a lot of sensitive information.

The fact that he was actually imprisoned for simply providing a synopsis of the content is a testament to how volatile the content was, especially in the late 1990s. During his imprisonment, Tomlinson actually completed the book and eventually published it in Russia. It became a sought after item, especially in the UK, and in the end MI6 allowed the book to be published in England, but withdrew all of Tomlinson’s rights to the profits.

This didn’t stop the book from selling, though. Finally, after so many years of strife, MI6 agreed to release the funds back to him and stated that they "overreacted." To this day, The Big Breach remains one of the most popular "whistleblowing" spy books of all time.

Spy Killer by L. Ron Hubbard (unabridged espionage/adventure audio book)

L. Ron Hubbard is probably best known as the founder of Scientology and creator of Dianetics. These days, his name is largely connected with the antics of the some of the more "outspoken" members of the religion, overshadowing the fact that the man really knew how to tell an entertaining story. All 150 of the stories Hubbard wrote for the pulp magazines of the 1930s and '40s are being rereleased in paperback and audio under the evocative title Stories from the Golden Age.

The recordings I've tried so far are just terrific. They are a professionally produced combination of traditional narrated audiobooks (with narration deftly handled by R.F. Daley) and old-time radio, with skilled actors playing the characters (often multiple roles) and genre-specific music and sound effects rounding out the experience.

When bucko mate Kurt Reid escapes the ship Rangoon (with help, it turns out), he has two choices: go into hiding as a fugitive of the Chinese government, or assist Russian beauty Varinka Sevischna in her project against Chinese intelligence. Since hiding in unlikely, and Kurt is always "spoiling for a fight," he accepts her offer — and soon finds himself in over his head, hot least of which when Varinka's friend (and Kurt's ex-fiancée) Anne Carsten resurfaces with an equally enticing offer.

Soon the two women disappear, however, and Reid is faced with Chinese warlord Lin Wang, who offers freedom from pursuit. In a delicious ironic twist, in order to avoid punishment for the murder he did not commit (and the reason he was a prisoner in the first place), Reid must murder someone else, namely a Japanese spy named Takeki ("the courageous"). But when Reid gets there, he recognizes Takeki and has to make a difficult choice.

Author L. Ron Hubbard fills Spy Killer with action and suspense in a land where death waits as a consequence for nearly every decision — especially inaction. But he also offers up a love story (however implausible) that adds an extra layer to events to this wonderful example of the "yellow peril" genre.

Lin Wang is a great villain — deformed physically and mentally — and Tait Ruppert plays him with gusto. Likewise, Lori Jablons is terrific in her dual role of Varinka and Anne, underscoring the fact that the two women embody separate halves of Reid's ideal.

Anyone who pays attention to things like dialogue that makes no sense unless something unspoken is true, will figure out the big twist early on. (Those who solve TV mysteries by assuming that the guest star with the least amount of air time must be the murderer, will also have an advantage.) Despite this flaw (if it is one), and its slight overlength for the breadth of its story, Spy Killer is still a pretty good adventure tale of Oriental espionage, provided you don't mind overlooking implausibilities and suspending a certain amount of disbelief. But, then, many pulp fiction enthusiasts merely consider that all part of the experience.

Bonus: for more of the story behind Spy Killer, watch the following tongue-in-cheek interviews with Kurt Reid and Varinka Sevischna, as conducted by Lawrence Carpetburner (director Jim Meskimen) on the fictional program Elbows on the Table:

Kurt Reid



Varinka Sevischnya

The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane with Max Allan Collins (Mike Hammer)

"Do we need an attorney, Mr. Hammer?"
"No," I said. "You need me."

Mike Hammer is back! Twelve years after his last appearance in print (1996's Black Alley), America's best-selling private detective adapts to a post-9/11 world, complete with Islamic terrorists on his tail.

The Goliath Bone is the 14th in the long-running series that has spanned over 60 years. Mickey Spillane was never what you would call a prolific writer. Probably because he didn't write because he had to write: he only wrote when he needed money. Thus, for there to be years, even decades, between books was not unexpected. In fact, the 12 years since the last entry doesn't seem quite so long when you consider the nearly 20 that passed between #11 (Survival ... Zero!, 1970) and #12 (The Killing Man, 1989).

A little backstory: After Spillane's death in 2006, his friend and sometime collaborator Max Allan Collins (still the most vocal supporter of Spillane's influence on the crime genre) was given the task of finishing some of the incomplete works found in Spillane's files, with the most excitement focusing on a handful of unfinished Mike Hammer novels.

Though a standalone novel called Dead Street was published by Hard Case Crime under Spillane's sole byline, a Mike Hammer novel called The Goliath Bone was actually closer to completion when Spillane died. The job required Collins to do a combination of editing and writing throughout, getting his fingerprints, so to speak, all over the book.

Therefore, Collins's influence is felt throughout The Goliath Bone, where in Dead Street it was mainly in the final three chapters. Collins does a masterful job at matching Spillane's terse style, but his own more literary tendencies are likely to be noticed by a Collins devotee (such as myself).

The story is a little odd by usual Hammer standards. Two stepsibling grad students (the children of Nobel Prize candidates) possess a valuable artifact presumed to be the femur bone of Philistine giant Goliath ("that champ who went down for the count with an underdog's creek rock in his forehead") wrapped in brown paper. On their way down the subway stairs, someone tries to kill them, and Hammer (who just happened to be exiting a nearby bar when his Spidey-sense tingled) steps in just in time, making himself their bodyguard in the process.

Unfortunately, this new case comes at a very inconvenient time. Hammer and his long-time secretary/girlfriend Velda were just about to head off to Las Vegas and get married, and this puts that off for a little longer. But Velda knows who she's dealing with, and so doesn't put up much of a fuss, offering her own exemplary mental and armamentary services in addition.

No longer the lone wolf, Hammer is surrounded by the other characters for much of The Goliath Bone. The modern Mike Hammer is a man in love: he holds hands with Velda often and discusses the options with her, respecting her input. This is the Hammer of the 21st century, a man who doesn't live in the past, though he certainly talks about it a lot ("I was in all the papers").

Readers used to the tight pacing of the classic Spillane novels will notice instantly that The Goliath Bone has a great deal of talk in it. The exposition — including lengthy discussions on the history and origins of the bone, the intentions of the different factions concerned (handled with some degree of sensitivity), life in a post-9/11 world, and especially far too much of "here's what might happen and here's what we're going to do about it" — takes up over a third of the novel. But once it gets going, the book offers international intrigue on the level of Eric Ambler and John LeCarré.

More Hammer novels are slated for the next few years, but The Goliath Bone is meant to be the last chronologically in the Hammer "timeline" (much like Collins's own Quarry series "ended" with 2006's The Last Quarry, with The First Quarry coming two years later). With a final-chapter reference that ties back to I, the Jury, the series comes full circle in a satisfying way.

Christmas Crime: Three Days of the Condor directed by Sydney Pollack (starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Max von Sydow, Cliff Robertson, John Houseman)

Three Days of the Condor (1975). Screenplay by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and David Rayfiel from the book Six Days of the Condor by James Grady.

Joseph Turner (Robert Redford once again as the all-American) gets to read for a living, analyzing texts for the CIA through the cover of the "American Literary Historical Society." When it's his turn to go out for everybody's lunch, he comes back to find them all dead.

From then on, Turner (code name "Condor") is on the run — from the killers and from the government — with only photographer Kathy (striking Faye Dunaway) his only, albeit reluctant, ally.

Setting Three Days of the Condor during the Christmas season does little to bring tidings of comfort and joy. But the script by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (The Parallax View) and David Rayfiel — and the direction of Sydney Pollack (his fourth of seven collaborations with Redford) — deliver the right amounts of post-Watergate paranoia and intrigue.

As an enigmatic professional killer, Max von Sydow heads an impressive supporting cast that also features Cliff Robertson and John Houseman. (Keep an eye out for von Sydow's code name. It is a nice little in-joke connected to his appearance in The Exorcist.) The result in a fun thriller that, while very tied to its period, also reminds us that the priorities of the government have been the same for a long time.

Money for Nothing by Donald E. Westlake

Seven years ago, Josh Redmont began receiving mysterious checks for $1,000 every month. Once the first one cleared, he thought less and less about them, especially once he made a career for himself and didn't really need them anymore. But the time has come to offer up his services for that money — Josh Redmont has been "activated."

This is what I saw as a very promising premise for a Donald E. Westlake novel. But Money for Nothing was less, and more, than I expected. It's funny, but not as funny as his Dortmunder novels. It's really more of a genuine mainstream spy thriller, with a few funny moments. And at first I was disappointed.

So disappointed, in fact, that, after thinking the story had gone as far as it could go, I gave up on Money for Nothing on page 127. But then, something happened. With nothing else currently at hand, I picked it up again and subsequently zoomed right to the end. If that's not a testament to Westlake's page-turning talents, then I don't know what is.

Comic Spy Novel Quote of the Day (from Money for Nothing by Donald E. Westlake)

"Her face now was a study in complexity, or abstraction, or something. Like a person eating a Fig Newton for the first time...."

— from Money for Nothing by Donald E. Westlake