What's New

• 12/20/2024 - I am getting an early start on Saturday's normal young adult spy series with Agent Alfie by Justin Richards. As I put it in My Comments, "This delightful three-adventure series is designed for young'uns aged 7-9, grade level 2-4. I really wished when I was that age books like these had been around because I would have scarfed them down about as fast as I did being more than six decades older than that."
  
  
• 12/19/2024 - Today in the 2020s we are heading back to the 1970s for an espionage television series taking place in the 1940s. The show was Spyforce and it dealt with activity during the Second World War in the South Pacific against the Empire of Japan. There were 42 episodes presented in 2 seasons and the few that I have been able to watch have been darn good.
  
  
• 12/18/2024 - I'm having some fun with today's entrant into the compendium because I so fondly remember watching the introduction of this character inside another series that I really liked back in the day - Star Trek. 'Assignment: Earth' was the name of the episode that gave us Gary Seven as a pilot for a potential new series which unfortunately did not catch. I thought the concept was a neat one. The oh-so-cool Robert Lansing as the title character was suave and collected and capable. And I, a red-blooded teenage boy at the time, really, really liked Teri Garr (I mean, who wouldn't). And the cat who turned into a sultry woman... um, not going there! Alas, the series never got made back then but with the help of numerous apocryphal stories since penned or drawn, it makes it as a series here.
  
  
• 12/17/2024 - I have entering the compendium today a series that is really, really odd. And yet ... As I say in My Comments about ... no joking on this ... Bubbles O-Seven by Grainne McEntee - "The writing is terrific! The artwork is stunning. This is a series that needs to be revised so that people can see just how well it was executed." You have got to see this graphic adventure series for yourself to understand but in the meantime, check out my entry.
  
  
• 12/16/2024 - If you look at the cover of today's newcomer to the compendium, with its impressive artwork (at least I have always enjoyed covers like these), and taken a gander at the font used for the title, author, and blurbs, you would think it was out of the 1970s talking about the Death Merchant, aka Richard Camellion. And that is certainly what the publishers intend. These three books presented today, though, are recently penned men's adventures about Joseph Huntsman, aka the Shadow Reaper. The author name given is ... wait for it ... Ricardo Camaleon. In truth, from what I read, the real name is Keith Tarrier but the homage to the Death Merchant series using that character's name as a source for this series' author is a fun one. And the first name of this character, Joseph, is the first name of that character's creator. I appreciate that sort of whimsey. As for the quality of these books - well, I was impressed that Tarrier/Camaleon was able to give me the same vibe that Rosenberger did a half century ago.
  
  
• 12/15/2024 - Today I welcome to the compendium Sue O'Connell, an operative with the Special Operations Force. She has earned entry into this collection through her fascinating adventures, of which there are 8, penned by J. R. Seeger and I thank him for that. She might also have been admitted thanks to her family which Mr. Seeger has been kind enough to tell us about as well as all make for fascinating and highly entertaining reading.
  
  
• 12/14/2024 - The operative entering the compendium this Saturday morning is with Section 23, a part of the CIA. What makes it interesting is that apparently the CIA does not now about it. She becomes an agent through the efforts of her father who didn't know about her either. A lot of not knowing happening here. That kind of is what makes this series designed for tween readers a lot of fun. That and the agent herself, Bridget Wilder who really lives up to her last name. These three adventures by Jonathan Bernstein are the sort of books I would have loved to have back in the day.
  
  
• 12/13/2024 - On this Friday the 13th, I bring to the compendium a series which has nothing to do with bad luck. I have long loved the combination of thief and spy ever since the days of my, well, not quite youth and the antics of Alexander Mundy in It Takes A Thief, especially when Al's rapscallion father shows up played to a delight by Fred Astaire. The same sort of smoothness and essence of quality that Astaire brought to that show in his very limited appearances is seen in Douglas Skelton's delightfully smooth prose in his four-book series about a thief forced to be a spy. The action in these tales about Jonas Flynt take place back in the 1710s and Skelton does a superb job making you think you are back then. This is an excellent combination of mystery, thrills, and espionage penned wonderfully.
  
  
• 12/12/2024 - We have an unusual nickname for today's entrant into the compendium. 'Bing Bong'. Interesting, no? This former MI6 operative is really named Mildred Hoolihan but people do not call her than; in fact, they even shorten her nickname so most call her Bing Hoolihan. She is a retired agent who does not like the fact that she was forced to retire because she was over 50 (I don't blame her although now over 70, I am pleasantly retired). She is often abrasive but she is never dull.
  
  
• 12/11/2024 - I ask in My Comments about today's entrant into the compendium: "Is it kinda weird when a very old fellow like myself finds himself enjoying reading a series of spy adventures about young women written for young women? Probably." The five-book, one-novella series about Banana Girls by M. Taylor Christensen is not written for the likes of me but I nevertheless liked it. Even if the name is pretty odd.
  
  
• 12/10/2024 - I often feel bad when I add a series that I feel is bad. I do not like to say bad things about bad things but for this one, oh, yeah! Harry Chess is That Man From A.U.N.T.I.E.. I will not say anything more except ... you should read for yourself.
  
  
• 12/09/2024 - I love a good series title. I was intrigued with the one given to Ronald Jones - The Repurposed Spy. It made me want to know how and from what was this man 'repurposed'. Learning those answers proved to be a bit confusing to me but I managed to make it. Hopefully you will prove smarter than I with this three-adventure set from Oliver Dowson.
  
  
• 12/08/2024 - "An Elizabethan Spy Mystery". That is the series id given by the publisher for the two-book adventures penned quite nicely by Suzanne M. Wolfe. Obviously by that tag the tales take place during the reign of the Virgin Queen and the gentleman we follow in them, the Honorable Nicholas Holt, works undercover for one of Her Majesty's spymasters. In truth he is a very competent operative, sharp and tenacious, but to the world he gives the performance of being "a sot" and "a rapscallion" so people tend to underestimate him. Delightfully, though, whether it is the spy or the knave that someone sees, they also see a pretty lecherous individual. Holt loves the ladies.
  
  
• 12/07/2024 - Joining the compendium this Saturday is a 3-book series by Mark Powers mean for kids in the 8-12 year old range. Spy Toys is the name for this series about a trio of 'rejects' who nevertheless get missions and somehow manage to pull them off. These stories are neat if you fall into that age range.
  
  
• 12/06/2024 - Today I welcome to the compendium a former FBI/CIA agent who has a considerably different line of work now - he is a bricklayer. A whole lot less susceptible to the chaos Steve Vail experienced with the Bureau/Agency. The slashes I used twice here are because in the two adventures superbly penned by Noah Boyd, Vail was once with the FBI but in the movie version of the first story, it was the CIA. Whichever it was, when he is pulled back in, there is a ton of excitement and - for the reader - enjoyment.
  
  
• 12/05/2024 - The same author, Matthew Hattersley, who gave us the oddly named but immensely entertaining Acid Vanilla, has given us another character to enjoy following. We meet him in one of Vanilla's little altercations (little being whimsical on my part) before we get two adventures of his own. In all three, Jareth Hicks shows why he has managed to survive so long and why it is so much fun reading about his survival.
  
  
• 12/04/2024 - Author Pam Robertson has created a set of four novellas about Morgan Winfeld, an agent for an organization called ACTI. Morgan would be a darned good agent under any circumstance but considering that she is also "most definitely psychic" (as I put it in my About the Series description) really helps a lot. It also makes these stories extra interesting. In addition to liking the character and liking the writing style of the author, I very much appreciate the shorter size of the stories and I hope she will write more.
  
  
• 12/03/2024 - Today's entrant into the compendium is not a spy. Not even close. And what he does is nowhere close to being cloak and dagger work. So why is the 4-adventure graphic series by Basil Wolverton from 1942 being added, if he is not a spy and does not do spy stuff? Well, it's because the publisher decided to pronounce boldly in large letters the fact that these tales were about an "Underground Secret Agent". Apparently, that is Rockman. You need to read the entry here to be able to shake your head like I did.
  
  
• 12/02/2024 - The organization today's entrant works for is Majic-12 and it investigates and counters some pretty fun and sorta spooky stuff. I say in My Comments "This series is a pretty inventive and creative combination of spy-fi and sci-fi." I am talking about David Mannes' five-book series about Damien Wynter. I really liked Wynter and I especially liked his partner, Michelle. Lots of action and suspense here.
  
  
• 12/01/2024 - Welcome to December!. Let us also say welcome to Tiana Mathews, aka Black Diamond. She is an agent with an organization known as IC3. She is also a top-tier fashion model who uses that legitimate line of work as a cover for her missions. That was the premise for a movie, and possibly a string of movies, starring the alluring actress Sybil Danning, the idea being created and worked on by Mike Frankovich, jr. back in the early 80s. The project fell through and no movie/series was ever made. That is a shame as I would have loved to watch it. What was made, though, and the reason for this entry is a short series of darn good graphic adventures done as a tie-in to that movie.
  
  
• 11/30/2024 - Welcome to Saturday, the last day of November. I present for membership today a series designed for teenage readers which I recommend in My Comments as one to offer to those new to the genre as a way of interesting them in it in a tasteful and enjoyable way. The concept behind the two-book series about Paul Fox, written by Glenn Carter, is that terror organizations are putting in a lot of effort radicalizing younger people to do some pretty bad things and sending older agents to infiltrate such groups won't work so ... recruit your own set of operatives. Fox is one such fellow and he is particularly good at it because he is almost uncanny in seeing things that "just aren't right".
  
  
• 11/29/2024 - Okay, today is an ... unusual ... entry. It comes to us from 1965, a date that had 007 ruling the box office and Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin the small screen (well, for us spy fans, anyways). There were also a good number of excellent authors of espionage adventures penning wonderful stories that are still being enjoyed so many years later - Fleming, Le Carre, Hamilton, Deighton, Aarons, and many more. As for this entry, well, the same cannot be said. Imagine, if you can, a jaguar. A real one. But have him anthropomorphized, walking and talking like normal humans, but with a libido that is ... unusual. His name? Jaguar Bond. Not joking here. And there are 78 - yep - almost four score - graphic adventures about him written and drawn by very talented Bob Powell. The publication that were stories were published in was ... unusual ... as well - the very risqué and lecherous Jaguar, one of the many men's publications on the truckstop magazine rack at the time.. You really have got to read about this entry and then you will agree it is ... yep ... unusual.
  
  
• 11/28/2024 - Happy Thanksgiving!! Heading to my elder daughter's home for wonderful food and great companionship. Before I go, though, here is today's entrant into the compendium. In a series started a decade ago and still going strong with - so far - 20 adventures, author Ace Collins take readers back to the early days of American involvement in World War Two. The extremely interesting Helen Meeker is an agent for the American President. Meeker has a special relationship with the Chief Executive, calling him Uncle Franklin, and he is well aware of her intelligence and tenacity and makes constant use of both. I really enjoyed the books and especially the main character.
  
  
• 11/27/2024 - Today's entrant is a military/spy adventure about Chris Hodge, a young man that the CIA has been monitoring for some time before offering a position. I note in My Comments that the way it is written is "both kinda intriguing and way sorta spooky. I liked it!!" There are two books in this series penned by Pete Zaccagnino.
  
  
• 11/26/2024 - Today's entrant into this compendium is a former spy, as he reminds people now and then that his time in the field was 'a lifetime ago'. Now Daniel Grant manages Shady Fields, a 'care home with a difference'. This difference is that it is the final home for secret agents. Image a rest home filled with former operatives, most of whom were trained to kill. What a delightful idea and author Wendy Charlton pulls it off beautifully in this three-book series.
  
  
• 11/25/2024 - Any good series should follow the adage of "always leave 'em wanting more" and today's entrant does that. Warren Ray's three novelettes which comprise the series about Caris Wheeler do come to a close so no cliffhangers here but ... I really wanted to know more! Of course, that is asking a whole lot of Ms. Wheeler because when we talk about the lady being a retired CIA field agent, we really mean retired .. as in 40 years ago. Ms. Wheeler is no spring chicken, but that is part of the charm.
  
  
• 11/24/2024 - Today we welcome a 'deniable MI6 black-ops operative' named Stirling Hunt, who works for a division of MI6. I had a tad bit of confusion owing to the fact that I should have read the novella first but once I got over that, I was quite pleased with this four-book, one-novella series by Steward Clyde. It looks like the author has moved to a different series, this one about FBI agents, and I am looking forward to giving this a try as he is a really good writer.
  
  
• 11/23/2024 - It is Saturday so I am looking for something for younger readers in the spy genre. I find it in a 6-book series from the 1950s penned by Ronald Seth. Grant of the Secret Service is the name for these adventures about Brian Grant who works for the British Secret Service and thrives on danger. Author Seth was for a time employed in Intelligence work so when he wrote these tales meant for older teens and young-ish adults, he gave them some authenticity. He was also a pretty good storyteller.
  
  
• 11/22/2024 - I ponder in My Comments for today's newcomer to the site, Tom Marlowe, how nice it would be for a couple of those who are supposedly on his side to come into violent contact with a bus. They are not the kind of people you want helping you, IMHO, but they, and of course Marlowe, are really interesting to read about. There are currently seven adventures and more on the way from author Jack Gatland.
  
  
• 11/21/2024 - I mention in My Comments about Wayne Shelton, who joins the compendium today, that even if this adventurer did not have many of his 13 escapades decidedly spy-adjacent, I would have collected and read these Belgian comic books. Penned by the terrific Jean Van Hamme and incredibly drawn by Christian Denayer, these "stories are terrific, the dialogue spot on, the action nearly constant" and then there is the artwork. Oh, wow!
  
  
• 11/20/2024 - I am not a fan of today's entrant into the compendium, giving it a pretty low grade. I found that "the writing is fine but the pacing is troubled" in the three adventures by L.J. Boyce about the Young Chameleons, a twin brother-sister act known to us as Tanya and Junior. However, I am just one person and others may find these books better than I.
  
  
• 11/19/2024 - I really enjoyed a while back the terrific adventures of a woman named Marion Bailey, wonderfully penned by Felicity St. John. I was pleased to hear that she had sort of continued the series by writing three addition adventures, taking place a couple of decades later, about Marion's son, John Willcox. That fellow is an interesting guy who can be found, when not forced to do things for British Intelligence he would rather not, in the closest pub. The man loves to drink.
  
  
• 11/18/2024 - It was the covers for this three-book spy-adjacent series that convinced me to add Johnny Perfect to the compendium - that and the name of the character. These tales penned in 1976 by Jeffrey Noel surprised me by being quite good! There are not that many spy series in which the main character is 'cowardly and lecherous' but Perfect is. I liked him!
  
  
• 11/17/2024 - "Okay, I think it is official - Simon Gervais cannot write a bad book!" That is how I start My Comments on the three-book series about Clayton White by that awesome author and storyteller. I also state, 'cause it be the truth, that White "is a fascinating and interesting character who is a blast to follow". Considering the various series that Mr. Gervais has gifted us with, I do not know which series I would like to see him work on next. Actually, anything he wants, cause he "cannot write a bad book!" I know, I repeat myself but, wow!
  
  
• 11/16/2024 - On this Saturday morning, we are heading back in time 70 years (if my math holds up) to 1953 and a series of young adult spy adventures about Brian Grant, an agent with the British Secret Service. In the same year that Ian Fleming was releasing the first in the James Bond series, author Ronald Seth was giving readers the first of a half dozen Grant tales. Both Fleming and Seth came to the spy fiction genre by way of having worked in that field.
  
  
• 11/15/2024 - "These books are meant to amuse and to put a smile on your face and they did for me." That is how I ended My Comments for the 9 books in the Blake Wright series started just a couple years ago by Amy Woodley. They deal with a woman in her mid-20s who runs a restaurant but who has always fantasized about being a spy. And then she gets a chance to. Unbelievable? Mostly. Fun? Oh, yeah!
  
  
• 11/14/2024 - Say hello to two members of the US Army who separately get thrown into the cloak and dagger work and then find working together is a good thing. Remmich & Miller is the name I've given the series of 4 adventures by Karl Braungart. I had some trouble with the first couple of books but the next two show a good deal of improvement.
  
  
• 11/13/2024 - 'Count me in as a first-day buyer'. That is how I ended My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium, talking about how author James Byrne's third book in delightful Dez Limerick series is coming next year. Limerick is a 'Gatekeeper' for clandestine missions and he is very good at it but he would rather be on a stage or a in a recording studio playing bass guitar. I can understand the latter since no one is (usually) shooting at him doing that but a whole lot of people do it at him when he is opening and closing doors for other operatives. Check him out.
  
  
• 11/12/2024 - If you are looking for one terrific series which is spy-adjacent but definitely qualified to be in this compendium, today I have one I highly recommend for you. The fellow's name is Hap Franklin and he is, well, not quite my age but getting close. Langley comes calling with the belief that Franklin's expertise in financial matters could be of use to them and he, having gotten a wee tired of spreadsheets, listens to what they have to say. Obviously, lots of changes in his life will take place and the fun of these three books, superbly penned by Lloyd Stamy, is that we get to follow those changes.
  
  
• 11/11/2024 - I mark down on the entry for today that Clement Wisdom is an agent but then I qualify that in My Comments to say that he is more of a detective spy-hunter. His day job is that of a vicar but he is the man MI6 sends to places where something is happening but just what is not certain. It is his task to come up with the certainty. There are five adventures of his so far by V. M. Knox and, as I opine in this entry, they are "mighty fine reading".
  
  
• 11/10/2024 - "Never one to argue with a girl with a gun." That is the way that today's entrant into the compendium, Fiona Figg, describes herself in one of the nine (so far - they are still being penned) by Kelly Oliver. The both funny and thrilling adventures, more on the cozy side than suspenseful though there is a good amount of that as well, take place in England during the First World War. Figg works for British Intelligence and gets involved in a good number of highly enjoyable situations.
  
  
• 11/09/2024 - Okay, maybe admitting as I do in My Comments for today's entrant that I can identify with Hale Jordan is not a smart move. Granted that would be back in my youth when I was like Jordan, short, chubby, unathletic. As opposed to now when I am ... ah, let's change the subject. There are two books in this series designed for young adult readers and penned almost a decade ago by Jackson Pearce.
  
  
• 11/08/2024 - I give in My Comments for today's newcomer to the compendium this advice: "If asked to go on a vacation with Finn, find some good excuse. His style of relaxation is ... intense." To tell the truth, just about everything about Kirkland Finn is intense. That is just the way the man lives and in an action-adventure series with loads of spy-ness, that is how we like it. There are, so far, five adventures about Finn penned by Andy Munro.
  
  
• 11/07/2024 - Having just patted my site on its back, we move on!! A week ago I added a two-book series by John Denis started back in 1978 about Ewan Scott. The first book also had a fascinating character by the name of Cristal Vengan who got her own book right after the first one. So now she enters the compendium on her own right and welcome to her! She is a very interesting, to say the least, woman.
  
  
• 11/07/2024 - I just noticed! 2700 series!!. Plus we some time back passed the 15000 books!! mark. That is so cool!! And it is all thanks to the terrific authors out there, and I am including the writers of comicbooks and screenplays and radio programs and comicstrips along with those that give us those books and short stories, all of whom have given me so many hours of enjoyment. And since they wonderfully keep creating them, I hope to keep adding them to this site.
  
  
• 11/06/2024 - Entering the compendium today is an interesting MI6 agent by the name of Richard Brodick. I liked reading about him and a portion of his career which spans just over a decade. The three books about him alone, written superbly by John Fullerton, would have pleased me. Throwing in a sometime opponent and sometime colleague like Fang, aka Chen Meilin, well, wow! I mean it. Wow!!
  
  
• 11/05/2024 - A very interesting approach to spy fiction is today's entrant. Fifth Column is the name of this series which I describe as "an evil international covert organization". The trio of 'heroes', however, are former operatives for this group, three people who have decided that the 'truths' they were told of their service were false and not liking learning that. There are three books and one novella penned by Nathan M. Farrugia. I had some issues with this series.
  
  
• 11/04/2024 - I present today an archaeologist for membership in the compendium. And a supposedly 'disgraced' one who is now largely branded a treasure hunter, a job which to most of us sounds pretty cool but to the science of archaeology.. not so much. So, the point is he is not a spy but boy does Cy Reed find himself in all sorts of spy-adjacent situations in the five book series written for us by David Meyer. I state that "the stories are pretty fun to read" and I mean it.
  
  
• 11/03/2024 - Today's new member to this compendium is an agent with the Australian Security Taskforce, or AST, a "relatively secret organization". Lincoln Cain is a man in his early 40s who is as intrepid as you would want for an agent with one - to me - endearing problem: he does not like heights. I so relate to that. Beyond that, these 7 very enjoyable adventures drafted by Bryan Whelan have a lot to be appreciated, and they have Maddy, too. Who is Maddy? She is a terrific character who is a specialist in explosives. She tells Cain once, "If you see me running, please try and keep up". I like her!
  
  
• 11/02/2024 - Today I add to the compendium a series which is mostly webisodes but with a couple of comicbooks thrown in and then ... and most impressive to me ... a whole lot of merchandising. As I say in My Comments, when I found this series, part of me went "are you kidding?" Other parts were kinda impressed. I ended my thoughts about Spy Ninjas, Chad Wild Clay and Vy Qwaint, with "If you have not seen this, you really owe it to yourself to check it out just to say you did."
  
  
• 11/01/2024 - Joining the merry group of spy guys and gals today is a fellow named Ewan Scott, whose two adventures were penned by John Denis over 40 years ago. Scott is an agent with an unorthodox branch of British Intelligence. A definite man of action who loves danger, I note in My Comments that "in a couple of instances it seems like he is almost willing the situation to get dicey." Me, not so much. But I did enjoy reading about Scott.
  
  
• 10/31/2024 - On this Halloween Day, I was looking through my group of upcoming series for something spooky but drew a blank so I am adding to the compendium today one that is just out of the ordinary. Aggie & Agent X is the name for the series as well as the first of two adventures penned a decade ago by Gery Alan Ruse. As I mention in my write-up, "These are very fast reads which fly by and leaves a bit of a grin behind in their wake." Not scary per se but fun. And unusual.
  
  
• 10/30/2024 - "Trying to pigeon-hole this series is going to be rough for anyone." That is what I said about VanOps, a three-book series by Avanti Centrae, which I describe as an interesting combination of spy-fi and sci-fi. It is also a good buddy series though with 3 instead of 2 and 2 of those 3 are twins.
  
  
• 10/29/2024 - Today we bring into the compendium a fairly recent comicbook spy series from the pages of The Mighty Avengers. The pair of operatives who comprise the team known as Blackjack have the names of Ace and (my favorite) One-Eyed Jacquie. Get it? Blackjack? Took me a while and goodness knows I've lost a tenner or two over the years at those tables in Vegas. These agents work for ... wait for it ... G.R.A.M.P.A.
  
  
• 10/28/2024 - I point out in My Comments that "It is kind of important when you are facing a zombie T-Rex that you have a sense of humor." I'm sure most people already knew that but not me! What am I talking about? Arthur Wallace, agent with MI37, about whom author Jonathan Wood has penned four very amusing adventures combining fantasy with sci-fi and spy-fi which will bring more than a couple chortles from you.
  
  
• 10/27/2024 - For quite a while I held off reading this series because I did not think it a spy series for this site. Then I heard it maybe was. Then I read the first of the 10 adventures about Kyle Swanson and knew these exciting action adventures did belong in the compendium. Thanks go to Jack Coughlin and Donald A. Davis for penning these stories for us.
  
  
• 10/26/2024 - The word I used in My Comments for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., today's newcomer to the compendium, was "psyched", an honest description I had when I learned it was coming to the television screen. After several seasons, I still used that word. As I said in closing, "this show was a class act all the way". Granted, it was more spy-adjacent but still, without it I would not have known that Tahiti was a magical place [inside joke].
  
  
• 10/25/2024 - As I state in My Comments for today's newcomer to the site, "I was a huge fan of another series by the author, David Rollins." Despite that, it took me a while to start another one of his series. Why? I claim stupidity on my part and I have the evidence. Regardless of the reason, I finally did give it a try and really liked it so I am pleased to welcome Tom Wilkes into the collection with the two-book series about this Australian SAS enlisted man who gets involved in some cloak and dagger stuff.
  
  
  
• 10/24/2024 - Imagine a group of seductive young women all trained to take on any sort of espionage mission, whether it is to seduce vital secrets under the guise of pillow talk or to use that same pillow - or anything else at hand - to silence a target forever. There have been many names for such training over the years. In today's entry into the compendium, they are Merlin's Maidens with Merlin being a mature female, herself a former operative, who has her own school for such things. Andrea Pickens is the highly experienced romance writer who has used the cloak and dagger genre for a trio of very enjoyable adventures, penned decade and a half ago.
  
  
• 10/23/2024 - My Comments for today's newcomer to the compendium says, "I really enjoyed the way that the life of the main character, Linda Darby, takes a totally unexpected and undesired change when a couple of bad guys decide she knows something she shouldn't. And then a mysterious man steps in, saves her life, and sends her on her way. Damsel in distress tale? Oh, not so much!". The 4 adventures we have of her from author David Bishop are all very entertaining and I wish he would do more.
  
  
• 10/22/2024 - I enjoyed today's entrant except for ... well, we'll get to that. Beta Force is the name for the two agents who work for the ultra secret Global Intelligence Commission, Zeke and Phoenix. The pair of adventures about them, penned by Ernest Dempsey, were very well plotted and written and I did enjoy both of them quite a bit. The exception was for Zeke who is way too annoying - but that is IMHO. I did like Phoenix, though. Tastes may vary.
  
  
• 10/21/2024 - Today's entrant into the compendium is, on paper, a highly successful action-adventure author who has never written anything; someone else unseen and definitely uncredited does the scripting for him. Mike Black, aka Michael Stryker, just deposits the very large checks and takes the accolades. Oh, he also kills people while working for a highly secret organization called the Alliance. To be kinder to his reputation, I do note that he makes sure his targets are all very bad people, and then he eliminates them. The author, Sterling Kirkland, has moved on to a couple other series, non-spy but they look very interesting, so I do not know if he will return to Black's world or not but there are two exciting books to enjoy.
  
  
• 10/20/2024 - When is a series not really a series? In today's case, it is when three parts of what amounts to a short story are marketed separately. Natalia is the name for this series - her last name is supposedly Romanov but Natalia is how she is referenced. It apparently took two people, Shani Finn and Pieter Becker, to bring us these pieces of one puzzle about a Russian FSB agent out for revenge and using sex to get it. I did not think very highly of the "stories".
  
  
• 10/19/2024 - This Saturday morning I add to the compendium a six-"adventure" series from 1949, printed in the pages of the British publication Flash Comic. I put that word in quotes because, well ... as I say in My Comments, "These are semi-comedic adventures meant to entertain largely through improbable, if not outright impossible, events but they work because these are the funny pages so no one expects reality." I didn't think too much about Nick Carton but then again, maybe I was not supposed to.
  
  
• 10/18/2024 - I present for membership into the compendium today another winner of a series, albeit far too short at 2 adventures. When you read the actions of Marks & Lip wonderfully penned by Dave Buschi a decade ago, you will see why I gave such a good grade - they earned it!!!
  
  
• 10/17/2024 - Joining the compendium today is an ambitious set of adventures by Shaun Hoilett, published three decades ago. The name of the series is The Redhouse Project which is the name of the scheme by the FSB to destroy America. I have given starring role in these stories to a reporter named Frank Bolan but there is a male CIA agent named Roger Artwell who almost got that top billing and a female FSB assassin named Kraslvaya who also could have taken that spot. In fact, I was really rooting for her but ...
  
  
• 10/16/2024 - In the 80s and 90s, author Christopher Hyde penned some pretty darned good suspense and espionage yarns. While he eschewed making a series of any of them and so did not have a place in this series compendium, his talent definitely earned several spots on my bookshelves. After the turn of the century, he began to release adventures in three different series under the penname of Paul Christopher. Two of them were about archaeologists involved in hunts for rare artifacts, all of which were sought for various reasons by very powerful people. These two may some day be added here as being spy-adjacent. The third series is more than just adjacent and thus Jane Todd, intrepid photographer turned reporter turned war correspondent turned part-time operative for the OSS during WWII, is presented here today.
  
  
• 10/15/2024 - Got an interesting series today joining the compendium about an interesting fellow named Rick Godwin. This three-adventure set was written by D.M. Pierce a half decade ago. I state in My Comments that "Godwin is a thinker with feelings and his thoughts about those emotions make for interesting reading. As do his comments about just about everyone that he meets."
  
  
• 10/14/2024 - There are numerous series in this compendium which deal with the protagonist going after his/her evil boss, especially when said boss does something to hurt the hero's loved one. That is the case here with Czerny Clark and, wow! Does Clark have a reason for wanting revenge and more than enough skill to get it. Toss in the fact that "Clark is very good at completing a mission, no matter the chaos" and you have a 4-adventure series by R. A. McGee which is filled with excitement.
  
  
• 10/13/2024 - The very interesting and entertaining fellow named Bill Blake is not officially an agent of the British intelligence organization known as D19 because D19 does not officially exist. Move outside the 'official' and, yep, D19 is out there doing all sorts of clandestine operations and Blake is right there with them. Well, up until they tried to kill him. Then not so much. The three adventures we have of Blake so far are terrific action-adventures wonderfully penned by Rob Jones, the most recent just coming out so hopefully he will keep Blake going.
  
  
• 10/12/2024 - This Saturday morning I welcome to the compendium Charlie Chucky about whom authors Peter Patrick and William Thomas started an 8-adventure series a decade ago. The name of the series is the Middle School Super Spy, set because Chucky is indeed in Middle School and because he is also an operative for the Super Spy Agency. "Apparently that is not the actual name of the government department, and he is not actually an agent though he will become sort of one as the story quickly moves forward." In My Comments I say that while as an adult they did not hold my attention for long, if I were in the target demographic of 8-12 year-olds, "I would have loved them. Probably would have read the series a couple of times."
  
  
• 10/11/2024 - John Neil is the name of the man entering the compendium today though the series of 4 made-for-television movies from the 90s starring the always impressive Dennis Waterman as well as the also very impressive novel by Jill Arlon are named Circles Of Deceit. Terrific stories wonderfully portrayed.
  
  
• 10/10/2024 - You get the idea I really disliked today's entrant into the compendium when I write, "Okay, these are porn - excuse me, highly erotic stories with just enough of a storyline to give the actors something else to use their mouths ... oops, too much!" The series has the odd name of Mind Control Espionage which got me intrigued, not to mention the interesting covers. Then I started reading the two novellas penned by Evangeline Fox and lost that interest very quickly.
  
  
• 10/09/2024 - Today's newcomer to the compendium is not a newcomer to the Great Game. She served for quite a few years and is now well past her forced retirement age. Edie Banister is an octogenarian who may not physically be able to do some of the but her mind is still pretty sharp. Toss in that her 1.5 adventures are both "a hoot and a half" and you have a terrific series penned by Nick Harkaway a decade ago. It is not likely there will be any more about her since he has other things a-brewin' (continuing his father's George Smiley series).
  
  
• 10/08/2024 - Today's entrant to the compendium starts with an unusual device, the likes of which I had never heard of. Then it sees it get stolen. Then it sees put together a team to retrieve it. Then it throws a ton of trouble and a whole lot of excitement with others trying to stop that team. BlackStar Ops is the name for this series of five adventures, created and penned by T.C. Miller. Lots and lots of excitement and action.
  
  
• 10/07/2024 - I mention in My Comments about Don Riley, the fellow joining the compendium today, that, "If you are looking for an exciting series filled with lots of different players, some of who have quite interesting background and motivations, this is definitely a should-read." I also mention that it is I who chose to give Riley the starring role in this series where all these characters do all sorts of interesting things. Other readers might nominate someone else or treat this as an ensemble series. Regardless, this is a well-crafted set of books by David Bruns and J.R. Olsen.
  
  
• 10/06/2024 - Author Duncan Wallace has created several excellent British detective series in a relative short time. The two books in the spy-adjacent series entering the compendium today rank among his others for being terrific reads. Far more murder mystery than espionage, they qualify because the protagonist, Ian Forsyth is a former MI5 operative who is first incentivized to look into a death that seem suspicious to him and then, in the second adventure, it is the same police who did not heed his advice in the first book that come asking for help in the second. "I liked Forsyth and I had a good time following the man as he finds ways to keep things interesting without breaking his promise to himself to not go back to work at MI5."
  
  
• 10/05/2024 - A 11-book "cute series designed for 9-12 year-olds, a 'chapter book' as they call them" joins the compendium this Saturday. The protagonist, Quentin James, is a student who starts getting involved in spy stuff when he is sent to a strange boarding school after the disappearance of his parents. Penned by Simon Hartwell, it starts out alright, IMHO, but then goes ... odd. Then again, I am definitely not the target audience so... what do I know!?!
  
  
• 10/04/2024 - As I mention in My Comments, I have wanted for many years to be able to add something by noted military adventure writer Dale Brown to this compendium and today I get to do just that. While chock full of far more military terms and specifications than my feeble mind can hold, the tales of Nick Flynn are also darn good spy thrillers.
  
  
• 10/03/2024 - I need to be in a certain mood to enjoy a post-apocalypse series cause they can be darned depressing and a whole lot scary. I was in such a mindset when I checked out this four-book series about CIA agent Angela Martinelli written a couple of years ago by John Babb and William Alan Webb. I wrote of her that "She is a survivor who fights like the devil to keep it all for going to pot. These are exciting and sobering books."
  
  
• 10/02/2024 - I thought the constant reference in today's entrant to the compendium as The Genteel Man would get annoying, and it did for a bit, but after a while, I kinda liked it. Go figure! But I did enjoy this action-filled series of three adventures (so far) by veteran author, Rick Jones.
  
  
• 10/01/2024 - A relative newcomer to the thriller ranks is author Richard F. Paddon but, wow! Did he come packin', as the old expression goes. I introduce to the compendium his three-book series about CIA assassin Constanza Ocana who is out to avenge the death of her family at the very beginning of the first adventure and goes on to let a lot of people know that getting her very angry is very stupid on their part. This is an action-adventure series that I found a hoot and a half. I enjoyed all three books (as of this writing) and I hope there are more.
  
  
• 09/30/2024 - The excellent action-adventure thriller writer who specializes in terrific spy operative tales, Ethan Jones, already has several series in this compendium, each of which I really enjoy reading. He gives us yet another fascinating character. Xavier Saint is the name of this fellow, an assassin who has tired of his line of work and would gladly quit if for one important fact - the money is just so very, very good!
  
  
• 09/29/2024 - I opine in My Comments for today's newcomer to the compendium, that "The lead character, Dan Radford, has an interesting life." To see why I say that, check out my entry. These four adventures (so far) are all exciting and a hoot to read (I just learned of the 4th one and now I am looking forward to it). Applause to author Wes Allen.
  
  
• 09/28/2024 - On Saturdays I have lately been introducing a children's spy series but I have none in the queue for a while so .... I take this opportunity to introduce one very impressive television series that lasted six season on FX and exited on a high note (IMHO). The Americans was the name of the series dealing with Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet operatives living in deep cover in the States. "This is one very impressive show!"
  
  
• 09/27/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a spy-adjacent series of cozy murder mysteries about Charlotte Mission, a woman who "is/was/will be again a spy". She is a lot of fun to follow. So is her legendary grandmother, Gamma. What a hoot!!! The interesting thing about this series is that I was investigating a two-book series when I read enough to know there was something that came before. That something was another 6-book series about them. And before that, there was another 6-book series about them. All of them hoots! Whole lotta hootin' goin' on, all penned wonderfully by Rosie A. Point.
  
  
• 09/26/2024 - Regarding Richard Todd, an operative with MI6 who joins our compendium today, I mention in My Comments that I hope there will be more than the four adventures currently available to us from the highly skilled pen/keyboard of Brent Towns. If so, says I, "we can go along with him [for more excitement and danger] from the safety of our chairs."
  
  
• 09/25/2024 - "Wow, did I enjoy the heck out of this series!" That is the opening on My Comments on the 4-book (soon to be 5) spy and action adventure series by Bradley Wright about a private security company agent named Tom Walker. Lots and lots of action and a fascinating protagonist. I devoured this series. I am looking forward to December when the next one is slated to be released.
  
  
• 09/24/2024 - I did not like today's newcomer to this site. I said in My Comments, "The books are not well written nor are they any fun to read. The humor is forced and quite poor and this is from a man who thinks Dad Jokes are an art form." The five adventures about British operative Dred James penned by Vic Patterson could have been listed in my Young Adult section but I chose due to the violence to put it in the normal Book Section.
  
  
• 09/23/2024 - As I mention in My Comments for today's entrant, "I am a big Masi Oka fan". I enjoy everything I see him in. He is the reason I enjoyed the often-silly antics of Bruce & Lloyd. Otherwise I might have not rated this pair of would-be secret agents like I did. I like the occasional spoof of the spy genre but when it moves fully over into slapstick, I tend to cringe more than chortle. Still, it has Masi Oka in it so it cannot be all bad. I will give them both credit for coming up with some pretty impressive gadgets. Especially the invisibility cloak - what a terrific tool for a spy.
  
  
• 09/22/2024 - Saying hi to Bruce McGowan, an operative with the Counter Terrorist Center, we also give a nod to his creator and scribe, Lee Martin. There are 10 adventures (as of this writing) about this man who had retired from the FBI before being enticed to give up his brief retirement to come work for the CTT. I reckon the man does not like just sitting around doing nothing but his desire for action sure gives us readers a lot of enjoyment sitting around reading about it.
  
  
• 09/21/2024 - The series entering the compendium this morning says it is for readers 12 and up and the artwork on the covers would back that up; as I mention in My Comments on it, "i would not go too far 'up'. Hence today, being Saturday and the day I like to introduce spy fiction meant for the younger readers than normal, the 4 novella series sold separately by Mark C. Gacis, definitely qualify. The protagonist of the stores is Ryan Rivera, an agent with the MOF, Mission Operation Force.
  
  
• 09/20/2024 - I state in My Comments for today's welcomed member to the compendium that "I was big-time not sure whether I could root for and adequately follow a main character who was specifically trained to be the bad guy (to us)." Aydin Torkal, aka Sleeper 13 is groomed from a young age to be a terrorist. He decided he did not want to be one and what happens afterwards is exciting action-adventure reading by a pro, Rob Sinclair.
  
  
• 09/19/2024 - There is a thriller subgenre I call treasure hunter which touches on the international intrigue subgenre often enough to bleed over the line so as to qualify for my admittedly loose qualifications. Now, often the hunter(s) are looking for some lost artifact from a lost civilization which could change the modern world or destroy it. Mind you, I always wonder if it was so darned powerful, how come that civilization became, um, lost? Never mind! Today I add one of those cross-overs series because of a major co-star in the series, Heidi Moneymaker, who pulls the protagonists into CIA stuff a whole lot. The Relic Hunters is that team and it is led by a thief named Guy Bodie who is a hoot! There are 11 adventures so far, excellently penned by David Leadbeater and I am certain, and pleased to think, there will be more to come.
  
  
• 09/18/2024 - Have you ever heard of the Interpol Spy Agency? Me neither! But that is who today's newcomer to the compendium works for. Duncan Jax is the fellow's name. Not only had I never heard of this ISA, I had never heard of Jax until a fellow spy-fan told me about him. How on earth did I miss this fellow when he came out back in '86 with the first of two really bad movies? I adore B-movies!! This one, though, I graded a bit lower.
  
  
• 09/17/2024 - "I liked Archer with all his flaws and enjoyed these four books." That is how I ended My Comments about today's entrant into the compendium. Angus McLean has done a terrific job of giving us an exciting series about a man and his team taking on some pretty overwhelming odds and finding a way to overcome the overwhelm. The group is The Division and the lead character, IMHO, is Craig Archer.
  
  
• 09/16/2024 - It not often that I give a series a grade below a C but I do for today's entry. D. That is how I rated this series but, hey! It wasn't a D-! That says something, right? Who has "earned" such a mark, you might ask? The answer is Pierre Rey and Loup Durand who published these nine adventures under the name of Doug Masters. And the character? TNT. That is how he is marketed. His real name is Tony Nicholas Twin but thought of there being two of him out there is ... unpleasant.
  
  
• 09/15/2024 - Back in 1975 or so, I was knee-deep in my devotion to series in general and spy series in particular and was always on the lookout for something new. I was pleased to find though less than thrilled with after reading what would go on to be a 9-book series by an Israeli author spiffed up by a veteran American writer. In the almost 50 years that has passed since the first one came out, upon a re-read for this entry, my opinion did rise somewhat and overall the work of Harry Arvay and Gil Brewer is enjoyable. I have filed these Israeli Secret Service tales under that organization's fiction spymaster Max Roth.
  
  
• 09/14/2024 - On this Saturday, I enter a kid's spy series that I, as a parent of a tween twenty years ago, watched that child watching this series and found that I, too, really enjoyed it. A lot. Lots of silly activity tossed in with exciting escapades (literally) and tons of spy-ish shenanigans. Kim Possible was a very entertaining animated series about which a ton of terrific books and movies and odds-and-ends have been produced to tell her outrageous story. Mega congrats to creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle. And thanks from that tween and from me, both back then and now.
  
  
• 09/13/2024 - We travel back in time to 1972 for a two-book series that takes place quite a ways in the future. Penned by highly entertaining Robert Lory (of the Dracula series of horror/adventure books that I adored back in the day), this pair of tales follow FIA operative Shamryke Odell as he goes about his very exciting and thrilling missions on behalf of The Head, a rather spooky entity. A fun combination of science fiction and spy fiction with a lot of wit thrown in.
  
  
• 09/12/2024 - My Comments for today's entry into the compendium, a two-adventure series from two decades ago, starts with "Author Chris Ryan does action really, really well and sitting down with one of his many adventures is always a treat." The protagonist in this spy series is not a spy and does not want to be. He is a soldier who is pushed into events and then does some pushing of his own. Matt Browning is not the kind of man you should push, though, as a fair number of people learn the hard way.
  
  
• 09/11/2024 - A well-respected suspense author from the 1940s got her start with a pair of mystery/spy adventures which take their rightful place in the compendium today. The author was Dorothy B. Hughes and she is sadly not as remembered as her dozen-plus novels from that period should have her be - the best, IMHO, is Ride The Pink Horse. Her two forays into the espionage realm were about the delightful and quite interesting Griselda Satterlee, an actress turned fashion designer who gets deeply involved in spy hunter because of her ex-turned-new husband. Really enjoyable thrillers.
  
  
• 09/10/2024 - Let's pop back in time to 1972 and two very interesting adventures merging sci-fi and spy-fi. John T. Phillifent crafted these tales about Rex Sixx and Roger Lowrey, both agents with Interstellar Security. I had fun with these and wrote "These are fun, albeit short - largely novella-ish sized, adventures that you can read in one or two sittings. When you are done, you will likely, as I did, have a smile on your face."
  
  
• 09/09/2024 - We have another graphic adventure series joining the compendium today, this one penned by Ken Ernst in 1940. The three adventures about a sorta Secret Service operative working for someone whose office seems to be in the FBI headquarters were published in the Dell Comics anthology magazine Funnies. Unusual for this period of time where most such fare was pretty poor, these were actually not bad at all - the adventures of Whitey Harrison were good enough that I would have liked to have a few more. Alas, three is all we got.
  
  
• 09/08/2024 - Today's newcomer to the compendium is someone about whom I know virtually nothing except that he existed. In 1951, someone came up with the idea of Secret Service Agent K-7 and got it published in a short-lived comicbook title Invisible Avenger. I am certain of 6 adventures but have not been able to get more than a page or two (and I didn't get them - a fellow spy fan and frequent contributor did and let me know about them). Maybe someone out there knows more.
  
  
• 09/07/2024 - "Cute albeit kinda frightening" is how I start My Comments for today's Saturday entry into the compendium. SWARM is the acronym for, well, bugs. Sorta. Robotic insects. All working for the SIA, a British intelligence organization. Good guys, for sure, but still really spooky looking. Simon Cheshire is the author of this four-adventure series from a decade ago.
  
  
• 09/06/2024 - What is it with the combination of vampires and spies that I like so much, to my embarrassment, I'll admit. It shouldn't be but it is. I love the strange combination. As I mention in My Comments for the 6 comicbook series about Covert Vampiric Operations by Alex Garner, "I had not heard of this series until a frequent contributor brought them to me but I have sure enjoyed making up for lost time!!"
  
  
• 09/05/2024 - We head back in time over a century for a sorta, kinda series. As I mention in My Comments, "When is a two-book series not a series? When it is the same book. But then again, it is sort of a series, or at least listed in a couple of places that mention Strang and his fight against spies of the Kaiser and later against spies of the Third Reich." Yes, this series is pretty much the same book first penned by George Dilnot in 1916 as his protagonist, John Strang, works with Special Branch in a fight against the Germans under the control of the Kaiser ... and then 26 years later in 1942 having his same protagonist, not aged a bit, working with Special Branch in a fight against the Germans under the control of the Nazis.
  
  
• 09/04/2024 - "I loved the easy, highly-skilled writing style of the author, Vennetta Chapman, and I really liked Nora Brooks. I especially enjoyed it when her new partner, Goodwin, came on; the two make a great team." Those words are part of My Comments about this series dealing with an organization known as Cyber Division - not a lot to go on but it is in DC and it fights cyber dangers to the country. Now, I love just about anything dealing with cyber-stuff, being a computer programmer by former profession but I really liked Nora Brooks. She is the key to this very enjoyable series.
  
  
• 09/03/2024 - For reasons I have never understood the world of spy series writing has largely ignored the DIA. Sure, there are just over a dozen but ... out of 2600+? Well, today, Lavinia Walsh of the DIA joins the compendium. She was with the FBI but changes employer in this really, really enjoyable three-book series deftly crafted by Paul Sande. I strongly suggest you check it out.
  
  
• 09/02/2024 - We return to the cinematic world today with a three-movie series about a Secret Service agent who gets into lots of very dangerous situations in defense of the President, going up against terrorists both foreign and domestic, as the saying goes. Mike Banning is the fellow's name and his adventures are all dealing with something that has 'Fallen'. Exciting stuff here with Gerard Butler playing one heckuva man of action and Morgan Freeman being ... well, awesome as always.
  
  
• 09/01/2024 - A pair of private investigators from the late 19th century join the compendium today. Barker & Llewelyn are their names. Enquiry agents is the British term for them at the time and they would be expected to seek out wayward spouses or do background checks on employees and such - except that sort of work would put them to sleep but you do what you must to pay the bills. But luckily for them and for us readers, there are these other things, stuff that falls decidedly within the criteria for membership here, that often comes their way. I definitely sing the praises for author Will Thomas in this terrific series which has 15 adventures so far and is still being written.
  
  
• 08/31/2024 - Guys, remember school (for me, junior high) when you played basketball during gym class and you had two teams, Skins and Shirts? That is what we have this Saturday - Alex Fleming is "an average, ever-so-ordinary teenage boy trying to survive" when he gets involved in all sorts of spy stuff when he becomes an agent with S.H.I.R.T.S. going up against the very naughty group called S.K.I.N.S. Fleming, you see, is SpyBoy. "Fun pure escapist entertainment", I called it.
  
  
• 08/30/2024 - A British television show I did not watch nearly enough of and really should have joins the compendium today. Spooks, aka MI-5, lasted for 10 seasons of usually 8 episodes each and the episodes I did catch, I truly enjoyed.
  
  
• 08/29/2024 - A year or two before James Bond landed on the bookseller shelves, Desmond Cory presented his own British operative with a license to kill - the terrific Johnny Fedora. Fedora would never reach the stellar heights of Bond but, boy, was he exciting. Cory knew how to write a compelling series. Which brings us to Mr. Pilgrim, a two-adventure series about a man who smuggles people out of Iron Curtain countries at great danger to his own life. As I say in My Comments, "Mr. Pilgrim is a incredibly fascinating man. He is also a very scary guy when he has to be. I mean, this man ... thinks! Really thinks."
  
  
• 08/28/2024 - As I mention in My Comments on today's new entry, when I saw the name of the author of the three adventures about American adventurer John Locke, I knew I knew it from somewhere but my failing memory ... well, failed me. For a bit. Then I read how he had been one of the creators of the television version of Perry Mason and trust me, I adore Perry Mason. I have read everyone of the 80+ mysteries and seen every episode of the 9 years of the Raymond Burr drama. What does that have to do with Locke and this entry? Just shows the man knows how to tell a story and those about John Locke are no exceptions. Oh, as for whether Locke really belongs in this compendium, oh, yeah! He does!
  
  
• 08/27/2024 - "If you are interested in adventures containing chase scenes and considerable action, this is definitely a series to consider." That is what I wrote about the two tales about Cole Brogan penned by Joe Poyer around 50 years ago. Poyer definitely knows his armaments so when he talks about some item being used by or against Brogan, you can be confident it is being used correctly. Plus the story themselves are pretty exciting.
  
  
• 08/26/2024 - A British actor whom I have admired for quite a long time and who, IMHO, improves everything he is in, is the terrific Bill Nighy. The man's often low-keyed ways of playing his characters makes him fascinating and when the character is someone with as much depth as MI5 agent Johnny Worricker, well, the low-key portrayal just comes off as showing a man who is so good at his job he does not have to prove it.
  
  
• 08/25/2024 - We are heading back in time nearly 70 years to the mid-1950s and the Cold War that was in full swing. Our protagonist in the series joining the compendium today is Leo Demidov, an agent with the MGB of the Soviet Union. He does not want to be but in those days, one did not have a choice. His unhappiness with his employment and his employers does not mean he is not good at his job and author Tom Rob Smith definitely is very good at his as theses three novels and one short story are terrific reads.
  
  
• 08/24/2024 - It's Saturday and I have another spy series designed for young readers. Author Peter Patrick created in 2020 4 adventures designed for 9-12 year-old readers about a young fellow named Jett Baguette (the Jett is short for a very long name). Jett is known as Agent Time Spy. He is not really an agent - his father is - but he is the one who has some exciting things happen to him.
  
  
• 08/23/2024 - I make no effort to hide the fact that even as old as I am, and I be quite old, I still blush easily. Today's entrant into the compendium, penned by T.J. Hamilton, provides considerable proof of this as I was undoubtedly blushing a lot while reading these tales about Mia Thyme. Why, you ask? (Well, you probably didn't.) Check out what I wrote to find out why.
  
  
• 08/22/2024 - Another return to the years of the reign of Elizabeth I is a super enjoyable journey penned superbly by Susanna Gregory as she relates to us via 15 terrific stories (so far) about Queen's operative Thomas Chaloner. Her writing is terrific and Chaloner is a fascinating character. I am pleased to have Chaloner as a member of this compendium.
  
  
• 08/21/2024 - As I mention in My Comments on today's newcomer to this compendium, a while back I added a spy from the sci-fi universe of Star Trek. It is only fair I do the same for Star Wars. I do so now with Jahan Cross, an agent with the Empire. Boy, I love this stuff!!!
  
  
• 08/20/2024 - The writing team of Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson has a good number of very good action adventures out there, all worth spending some hours with and guaranteeing a lot of excitement. Atop the list, IMHO, are the Tier One tales about John Dempsey, major operative with Task Force Ember which answers only to the Chief Executive of the U.S. and he does use them lightly. I comment in my appraisal of these books that I felt I could use a nap after some of the things I read poor Dempsey involved in. Exciting but they tired me out! Good storytelling here.
  
  
• 08/19/2024 - "This fellow can write!" That is the way I ended My Comments on the terrific series Dempsey & Devlin. The fellow in question here is Tony Kent and my admiration for his talents are quite high because they (his talents) are quite high. Dempsey is an agent with the ISB. Devlin is a successful barrister. Together they make up two of the three people who make this series such a joy to read. Why the third, a woman named Truman, is not given title question is not my business. What is, is that this is a series well worth checking out.
  
  
• 08/18/2024 - This compendium holds a good number of MI6 operatives but not many of them are American citizens. That is the case of Mark Savannah whose two adventures from a decade ago were penned by two authors, Dominick Fencer and Baibin Nighthawk. I had some trouble with Mr. Savannah as he comes across as a jerk more often than he does not - at least in the first adventure which is the only one I recall.
  
  
• 08/17/2024 - Today I present a 4-adventure series penned recently by Bill Flockhart with the unusual name of O.L.S., unusual because the acronym breaks out to be Operation Large Scotch. Now my drinking days are long past me but in my time enjoying such things, a large scotch was high up there on my list. The plot of the first adventure facing the British agents in this organization is a dastardly one to destroy such an important product. The other problems that come their way are just as interesting.
  
  
• 08/16/2024 - The key word for todays newcomer to the compendium is .... "unusual". And I really, really mean it. How unusual? How about six straight adventures where the CIA agent's primary focus is fighting a world plague of zombies. And then... well, once the plague gets resolved, there are other issues. Of course there are! But once you fought hundreds and hundreds of zombies, well.. um, yeah, well!! Like I said, unusual. The tales are relayed to us by David Spell and deal with one pretty bad-ass operative named Chuck McCain.
  
  
• 08/15/2024 - "This is really a serious satire on our world today by making us look at how things so easily could be". That is part of my comments on today's entrant into the compendium, a very dystopian look at a future I hope does not come about. Smoke is the name of the graphic adventure series dealing with an operative named Rupert Cain. I found the series very intriguing and the artwork "is unusual but really really works".
  
  
• 08/14/2024 - We are again heading back in time to the year 1941 where an unknown writer/artist working for the legendary Street & Smith publishing company created a two-adventure series shown in the Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace comic book. The short-lived hero of this action spy series, Ace Mason "came and went pretty quickly and left very little in the way of a footprint". That is what I say in My Comments. It did not rate much of a grade for its efforts but historically it is listed here.
  
  
• 08/13/2024 - I refer to this combination of sci-fi and spy-fi as a hoot. Author Dan Moren has given us four full-length adventures and three short stories about Simon Kovalic in a series the publishers called The Galactic Cold War. Kovalic and his excellent team work for the CID, in this case it being the Commonwealth Intelligence Directorate. It all takes play a few centuries in the future. I enjoyed these and wished there had been more.
  
  
• 08/12/2024 - In 1949, science fiction author James H. Schmitz melded his futuristic tales with spy-fiction to come up with four really enjoyable and quite intelligent novellas based around the concept of an interplanetary intelligence organization. The various agents written about usually appeared in more than one story but none of them was the main protagonist of all of them. One consistency, though, is that the stories about the Agent of Vega are well worth reading.
  
  
• 08/11/2024 - In 1941, comicbook writer and artist Malcolm Kildale was given a chance to create some pretty interesting spy adventures in the pages of Super-Mystery Comics. He did not fail to deliver with these tales of Q-13, an American Intelligence operative whose real name is never told us. Q (yeah, we're on a first-letter basis now) is a good egg who should have had more than just the 6 stories I found of his.
  
  
• 08/10/2024 - A couple of really exciting, skilled authors have been working together to create awesome action-adventure tales, many of which fall within the scope of this website. Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson are the men whose names have to be known by fans of this genre because, well, they are so dominate in it. But they also chose a few years ago to use the pseudonym of Alex Ryan when they published a two-book series about a fellow I dub an adventurer who gets really wrapped in Chinese-American intrigue. Not sure why they went with the name change but there is no doubt their skill at coming up with winning stories continues with the Nick Foley stories.
  
  
• 08/09/2024 - As a computer programmer for just shy of 50 years (yep, that long ago!!), I look forward to any series where the main character is a computer geek. Lacy Merrick, the hero of four adventures penned delightfully by Robin Mahle, is such a person who finds herself up to her keyboard in trouble with terrorists. Non-geeks should not fear checking out these darned good tales, though, because the author does not geek-out, she just puts in enough nerdiness to make it authentic. The author has moved on to other series but I would not mind her looking in on Merrick again.
  
  
• 08/08/2024 - Author Patrick Parker has given us two adventures in the entrant for today. His hero is a member of the American SOCOM and I postulate that Max Kenworth might be volunteering for nearly suicidal missions to keep from having to attend boring-to-death meetings. Just a thought. Very interesting fellow having very exciting missions.
  
  
• 08/07/2024 - If you have never heard of Hiram Holliday by excellent author Paul Gallico, you really should check out this day's entrant because he deserves your attention. If your only knowledge of him is from the one season of silly but cute comedy episodes with Wally Cox in the mid-50s, boy! Do you need a chance to get the 'truth' about this amazing character. I was fascinated and enchanted and hooked.
  
  
• 08/06/2024 - I comment the author Ava Glass is "definitely a talent to be watched for" as I write about her two-book series (third one coming out next month!!!). The character she writes so superbly is an operative for a British intelligence group that is only referred to as the Agency (no, not the CIA). I enjoyed the back story for Emma Makepeace and her present tales are really fun. I look forward to the next book and hopefully more to come.
  
  
• 08/05/2024 - I do not get to add a series which I grade as an 'A' that often but today is one of those days. The two adventures written by Matt Killeen about a German woman working for British Intelligence in the early days of WWII are so good I wrote in My Comments, "Do not take anything for granted in these adventures. Except that you are certain to enjoy them, even with all the anxiety they will bring you." It is hard for any author to make me anxious in the safety of my armchair but the tales of Sarah Goldstein did it.
  
  
• 08/04/2024 - It is an interesting situation where one series by an author just did not fit with me while another was very well received. And then the question of how I would feel about a third comes along. The author is J.T. Brannan and this third series is about John Lee, a fellow who is a kidnap rescue specialist who has an impressive record and wants to keep it that way. The trouble with him doing that is the people he goes up against are pretty good at being bad. So how did I find this 5-adventure series. Pretty good!!
  
  
• 08/03/2024 - I list today's entrant into the compendium under the name of the main character/spy, Quinn Ellington, but the series is published under the title of "A Librarian and the Spy". Quinn is the librarian, by the way, in this series of three adventures penned by Susan Mann. These romantic suspense tales with a whole lot of spycraft in them is pretty enjoyable.
  
  
• 08/02/2024 - Cassie Parker is a thief. Remy Tambook is an agent with a private intelligence organization known as Dread Nought. They are pushed into each other's circle and pretty soon they are a team. I really liked how this 5 adventure series by Marc Stiegler got started. After a while, I started to get a bit paranoid at the conspiracies that came my way, but then again, I've always been a bit of a wuss. I recommend you check this out for yourself. Cassie is a hoot.
  
  
• 08/01/2024 - I have one heckuva hoot of a series joining the compendium today. Penned with wonderful irreverence and innovation by Mark A. Biggs starting almost a decade ago and lasting 6 adventures, this story starts with a fascinating concept; two operatives come upon an important clue about a previous hidden WWII weapon that can cause tremendous damage today. They know no one would believe them so they have to do things themselves to save the world. The problem is ... well, they live in a retirement home and they are 87 years old. Don't get me wrong here - they were great once but ... come on! I knew I was on to something special when I read the title of the first book: Operation Underpants>/b. Like I said, the tales of Max & Olivia are a heckuva hoot!
  
  
• 07/31/2024 - An "interesting" series joins the compendium today. I have that in quotes because that is what I called it in My Comments for the 3 - possibly 6 - adventures of James Lowe. That is Dr. James Lowe. These tales are penned by Philip Lo and they may be translations; I am not sure. Lowe is described as "a secret agent for the FBI". I have no explanation for that. I do have an appreciation for a Good Line I noted in this series: When a gang of women capture a man and ponder what to do with him, one proclaims, "We are going to kill this handsome guy brutally".
  
  
• 07/30/2024 - The late much-lauded author Anne Perry shifted towards the end of her writing to a period of time halfway between the two World Wars and to our benefit, they were in the spy genre. Elena Standish is an agent with MI6 in these 5 terrific adventures. I was a fan of her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt adventures during the Victorian Era and was super pleased that she moved her attention to spy fiction. She will be missed.
  
  
• 07/29/2024 - We head back to 1936 and the wonderful world of pulp adventures for nearly three dozen exciting escapades of an American fighter pilot ace and member of American Intelligence, codename Agent Q (or often Q-Agent). Penned with his customary flair for drama and action by Donald E. Keyhoe, Richard Knight graced the pages of Flying Aces magazine for several years. Some of these stories were wonderfully resurrected by Altus Press a few years ago. I admit in My Comments that I was not in general a fan of "airplane adventures" largely because I have no enjoyment of heights or small planes. That being said, these stories are a hoot.
  
  
• 07/28/2024 - I was not able to read but one of the 4 graphic adventures of today's entrant, pre-WWII State Department agent with the unusual name of Unofficial Jones but I really enjoyed that one. What is not to like about a man who opines, "A man's place in the world is to follow a beautiful woman". Lee Fredericks is the man credited with creating and writing this series.
  
  
• 07/27/2024 - It is a Saturday and I was looking for a spy series for kids. This fits but it is also for silly-minded adults like me so ... It comes to us from way back in 1963 in the pages D.C. Thomson & Do's The Topper Book, created and drawn in his graphic mis-adventures by the very talented George Martin. There were a ton of them over the almost thirty years this agent worked for the Ministry of Secret Information. His name was Nick Kelly but the series was named Send For Kelly. These are a hoot!
  
  
• 07/26/2024 - We welcome an agent with the FBI today. This member of that illustrious organization is a specialist in China and she gets the opportunity to prove over and over in the four adventures penned admirably by veteran writer (and darned good one at that) Allan Topol. Interestingly, I say this about that: "[She] is definitely the star of this series even if the publishers chose to not push the fact that it is a series." Curious? Check Kelly Cameron to learn more.
  
  
• 07/25/2024 - As I point out in My Comments for today's newcomer to the site, the couple of adventures about Jack Crockett by D. P. Mitchell make up a series "of sorts". There was apparently supposed to be more than just the one book and one novella but I never learned of them. I was interested in more.
  
  
• 07/24/2024 - We welcome to the compendium a part-time agent with British Intelligence about whom author Stephen Taylor has penned nearly a dozen full-length adventures and a few shorter ones. The operative is a former SAS soldier named Danny Pearson and he finds even more danger after getting out of that elite organization than he did while in it. And we have the fun of following him on the, from the safety of a book.
  
  
• 07/23/2024 - XIII is the name of the series entering the compendium today. It is also the name of the character, well, designation. As for name, he does not remember and when he/we learn it, it may/may not be true. What is true is this graphic adventure series written by veteran author Jean Van Hamme and drawn beautifully by William Vance came out in 2010 and not only made an impression in the comic book world but also sparked a movie and a television series..
  
  
• 07/22/2024 - Today's entrant is interesting to me because in the first adventure we are given with her in it, she is almost a throw-away character in another entrant's series but playing a very important and impressive part in the second before given her own solo chance to shine. Neil Maresca is the author of the books in which Penelope Standish is an MI6 agent.
  
  
• 07/21/2024 - I know today is Sunday, not Saturday, and it is on Saturday that I have been adding spy series designed for younger readers. My excuse is ... um, no, nothing! I got it wrong. So ... today I add a 4-adventure series that author Guy Bass penned a few years ago about ... um ... Spynosaur. What can I say ... check it out yourself.
  
  
• 07/20/2024 - We are heading back to the 1950s in a 3-book series penned just a few years ago by Neil Maresca. The agent in question here is Lucas Hamilton who will, after a time, go to work for the CIA. The Cold War is in full swing and there is trouble in several parts of the world, as Hamilton will quickly learn. This is some good writing.
  
  
• 07/19/2024 - I introduce to this compendium an impressive, quite extensive series of adventures about a female agent to British Queen Elizabeth I. While these tales were penned starting in 1997 and continuing to now, they deal with the actions of Ursula Blanchard back in the 1560s - 1590s. I was highly impressed how author Fiona Buckley has been able to allow her operative to age and change over a fair number of years. Throw in a ton of cool historical data and you have an exciting read that is also educational - but keep in mind Ms. Buckley's main objective is always to entertain.
  
  
• 07/18/2024 - Having a two-fer today with both series intimately connected and both brought to the screen by the extremely talented Michael Frost Beckner. The first deals with military sniper Thomas Beckett being sent into some very unfriendly places to eliminate dangerous targets as a Sniper was having been created. Then nearly a couple of decades later he introduced us to his son, Brandon Beckett, who was doing the same thing. Both of these are military action movie series which are spy-adjacent enough for me.
  
  
• 07/17/2024 - I have an odd one today - odd in the fact that it is first and foremost a military war series; the members of the wonderfully named The Dirty Dozen do not think of themselves as spies, of course. Heck, they largely do not think of themselves as soldiers. But when they are given a chance to get out of the stockade and maybe have a chance for a new life, they go behind enemy lines out of uniform and engage in sabotage and espionage and assassination. Plus in the movie, they were led by Lee Marvin!! Awesome series with just enough spy-ness in each adventure to belong here.
  
  
• 07/16/2024 - Today's entrant into the compendium comes yet again from the 1960s. T. J. Cochran is a private investigator who gets involved in lots of cases dealing with the government, mostly working for them. The U.S. government is his largest client, in fact. Even though he has been doing this for a while, we are only given two cases to follow him in this series penned by Vince Howard - likely a pseudonym. I had mixed feelings about this series.
  
  
• 07/15/2024 - Continuing my addition of a 60s spy series from yesterday, I have another one, this one being a very, very short series (2 graphic adventures). Jock Saunders is the name of this British agent told about in Secret Agent Picture Library. With no known author or artist, there is not much to say about this chap except the adventures take place during WWII and the organization he works for is known as the Men of the Flowers. Most interesting.
  
  
• 07/14/2024 - I mention in My Comments for today's newcomer to the compendium that I had long ago thought I had "exhausted the supply" of spy series written in the 60s and was stunned to be told by my Argentinian friend and colleague, Johny Malone, about Mark Castile. This is a two-book series by Wayne Lawrence and what was so surprising to me about missing it was that the first book had the title of "The Nude Assassin". How did I not notice that???
  
  
• 07/13/2024 - It being a Saturday, I looked at my stack of series to add and found this one. I lamented in My Comments that "I just could not (sorry about this) wrap my head around the idea"; the idea here being Secret Agent Mummy penned for us by Steve Cole. "Quite a bit too silly for me", I said. And I am capable of a whole lot of silly. Then again, it is meant for really young kids which I definitely no longer am, though my wife says I act like one (true, that!).
  
  
• 07/12/2024 - "Gritty". That is the word I used to describe today's entrant, a collection of at least 22 graphic adventures by an unknown writer and/or artist published in Secret Agent Picture Library in the early years of the 1960s. And yet, with a touch of ironic, I suppose, the codename for spymaster James Mitchell is 'Carnation'. Each tale is about a different operative being sent into harm's way; the lynchpin here is their boss, Mitchell.
  
  
• 07/11/2024 - I wrote "the writing was so interesting and smooth flowing that each page just moved into the next and I went swimmingly with it" about today's newcomer to the compendium. Pam Lecky wrote the three adventures of Sarah Gillespie, exciting stuff that takes place during the Second World War when a young girl from Ireland will become an agent for the British MI5.
  
  
• 07/10/2024 - A few years ago, Joel Canfield gave us 4 superbly amusing and entertaining "misadventures" of Max Bowman, a private investigator who is constantly finding himself involved in matters where the CIA are also involved and mayhem inevitably follows and it is always a good time for the reader. Said Bowman joins the compendium today.
  
  
• 07/09/2024 - Through the creativity of G.R. Jordan, we have the (so far) dozen exciting and quite fun adventures of Kirsten Stewart, an agent with a British Intelligence organization whose primary emphasis in on large-scale criminal activity but who nudge into the cloak and dagger world enough to warrant membership here. These are good reads well worth the time.
  
  
• 07/08/2024 - The CIA had an analyst of considerable interest to us. Her name is Maggie Jenkins and her three adventures, and hopefully more in the future as the latest only came out last year, were wonderfully penned by Susan Ouellette. Ms. Jenkins has left the Agency to take an important job on Capitol Hill but when her fiancé, an active CIA operative, goes missing and is suspected of treason, she goes into action and shows she is really good at figuring out clues. Good stuff here!!
  
  
• 07/07/2024 - I start My Comments about today's entrant with "I am certain that spy-fi purists cringe when I add a series such as Alex Bishop to the compendium because these are vampire stories placed in a spy-fi genre. Ain't right, I tell 'ya!". Yep, a vampire spy, as in agent for the Vampire Intelligence Agency, or VIA. That is what Alex Bishop is in the two adventures given us just over a decade ago by very gifted (i.e., darn good) author Scott Mariani. That fine gentleman has given us a couple of dozen adventures by hostage rescue expert Ben Hope. The two Bishop stories are also quite a hoot.
  
  
• 07/06/2024 - Alex, Mattie, and Sophie are Time Spies in the 10-adventure young readers spy series entering the compendium on this Saturday morning. Penned with considerable skill by Candice Ransom, they entertained an old reader like myself enough for me to say in My Comments, "If you have young readers to give something to, please make it a point to find a few of these to hand to them."
  
  
• 07/05/2024 - I had a bit of fun tracking down the sequence of books in today's entrant into the compendium. This series of what I believe to be 13 adventures really fall into 4 distinct sequences of books by Brooke Sivendra, telling the stories affecting sometime CIA agent and head of his own security company, James Thomas. These are romantic suspense tales set in a spy-adjacent atmosphere with lots of lovey-dovey stuff going on as well as quite a bit of really well written action. I was impressed by the writing and the storytelling.
  
  
• 07/04/2024 - Happy 4th Of July!!! Curious that next up on the list to be added is a series about a Brit!
  A three-novella series from a dozen years ago joins the compendium today. Mark Hardwicke is an agent with an unnamed British intelligence organization who has a good deal of action but whose stories are largely dealing with his constant trying to repair his tattered relationship with his male lover who does not appreciate being dropped whenever Hardwicke's boss calls. Especially when one gap was for two years!! Well written stories penned by Josh Lanyon.
  
  
• 07/03/2024 - We have had a good number of Israeli Mossad agents over the year enter this compendium but not too many in Shin-Bet. That is what Sam Deker is employed by in this three-adventure series by Thomas Greanias from just over a decade ago. Moreover, and this part was a tad bit confusing, there is time travel involved. Okay, darn fine writing but ... confusing.
  
  
• 07/02/2024 - In My Comments for the entrant today, I say that the Cowley and Danilov series by genius author Brian Freemantle might not reach the level of his terrific Charlie Muffin series (but then few could) but they are so very good! More of a spy-adjacent series but still books that should be read.
  
  
• 07/01/2024 - We head back to 1935 for a two-book spy series about David and Mariella Sheridan by Colin Davy. These intelligent tales were interesting, especially for me the first, and well written. As I mention in My Comments, I would not have minded a 'what came next' third adventure but the author decided to spend his writing time on his passion, horse racing.
  
  
• 06/30/2024 - Today I add to the compendium Ash Carter, a fellow who is sort of a private investigator but not really and sort of an adventurer but not quite and sort of a government agent but isn't. What he is, however, in the 9 adventures so far about him by Murray Bailey is a lot of exciting action and a darned good character to follow.
  
  
• 06/29/2024 - Say hello to Suzan Fitzroy, adopted daughter and key assistant to US roving ambassador James Fitzroy, not to mention an agent for CATRIG who goes by the codename of Lady S. These 7 graphic adventures in English and 15 in the original French by the terrific pair of Jean Van Hamme (writer extraordinaire) and Phillippe Aymond (awesome!) are treasures to be enjoyed more than once for their inventive storylines and their incredible artwork.
  
  
• 06/28/2024 - I introduce a very short (thankfully) series that sort of belongs and kind of doesn't but I am adding it nevertheless. If I dislike it as much as I do and am not sure why I am adding the three-adventure series about Headline Halliday by Bob Wilkin from 1948, then why do it? Cause ... um ... yeah! I get my point. Still, here it is.
  
  
• 06/27/2024 - "I really enjoy a good 'team' series as a change of pace and this one really does it right". That is how I describe Ryan Mitchell, today's entrant into the compendium. As I also point out, Mitchell is no doubt the main character but people like Nate Jackson is vital to the success of this 11-adventure series penned by Richard Turner.
  
  
• 06/26/2024 - This admittedly poorly named series entry (by me, no one else is to blame) is an action-comedy bro-flic that gets qualified for this compendium because it slips from crime to spy and back again. It has the name of Guns because of the names of the two comicbooks. The comicbooks are a hoot and the movie is, well, it has Denzel and Mark in it so it cannot help but be great.
  
  
• 06/25/2024 - A trio of novellas later repackaged in a single book joins the compendium. The two main characters are a Mossad agent known only by her first name of Arella and NSA operative David Gay. The series by A. R. Zane is entitled Dark Haloes which I thought was a pretty cool name. These are romantic suspense tales inside entertaining spy adventures.
  
  
• 06/24/2024 - I was not impressed with today's entrant into the compendium. About the very short comicbook series about British Secret Service agent Nick Charlton by Bob Wilkin I wrote, "There is not very much for the intended audience, teenage boys and young men, to grab onto and want more. Certainly having read the small amount I did, I had no such yearning".
  
  
• 06/23/2024 - The resident priest of a Catholic church in a small Italian community is the unexpected new entrant into this compendium. Father Marco Venetti is not a spy nor was he at one time, which makes his presence here even odder. And yet if you check out the two adventures we have of him, you will likely agree with me that he belongs.
  
  
• 06/22/2024 - I do not have many game spy series on the site because there aren't many. A few series have had games created around them but to have the game be the focus, quite unique. On this Saturday morning I add one. Now this is hardly the sort of game I would recommend to young 'uns but from tween on up to old f*rts like myself, definitely. It was a terrific series when it started back in 2000 and it deserves a revival. Cate Archer is the main character in this Fox Interactive 3-game series called Nobody Lives Forever.
  
  
• 06/21/2024 - It is pretty obvious I did not think very much about today's entrant into the compendium when I wrote, "Having read what I did of them, I felt sorry for whoever was involved in publishing them." I kinda want to issue an apology to anyone who sees this page because, well, you'll see. Vic Martin, the person who created Puntella Primm must have been an interesting person.
  
  
• 06/20/2024 - A very short comicbook series from a short-lived publisher joins the compendium today. The agent is Jeff Jordan and I admit in My Comments that I really believe him to be in law enforcement and not espionage but with a title like "U.S. Agent" it is ambiguous enough to justify giving him a spot here. Writer and artists for these adventures are unknown.
  
  
• 06/19/2024 - "Do you believe in monsters?" That is the question that Toby Greene, today's entrant into the compendium is asked as he is approached to join the very hush-hush British intelligence agency known as Section 37, also known as The Clown Service. He kinda didn't. But not for long. Three excellent scary and funny and always interesting adventures by Guy Adams make up this series.
  
  
• 06/18/2024 - I try to keep cop shows out of this compendium even though I am addicted to them. Cops are cops and spies are spies. Different. But once in a while there is crossover and today I add a character from one. Not the entire show, mind you, just the lead character. Jane Tennant is today's entrant, the Agent-In-Charge of the field office of NCIS Hawai'i. To learn why she gets in and the rest of her crew do not, check out her entry. Oh, and that show got cancelled way too early.
  
  
• 06/17/2024 - Of the three books in the Scarlet Holmes series penned superbly by Lillian Hart, I say in My Comments, "She is such an interesting and unpredictable character that following her is always sure to get you into the thick of things because Holmes really cannot help herself." I also state my hope that Ms. Hart will grant us another Holmes adventure, or two, or three.
  
  
• 06/16/2024 - The 9-adventure (so far) series by Thomas Austin Brill about a very acerbic but dynamic operative joins the compendium this Father's Day. Jon Levine is a very deadly agent who answers only to the US President who is sent out to handle difficult situations and who is constantly finding people who want him dead. So far, they have been quite disappointed but as a reader, I and a lot of other people have not. These are exciting reads.
  
  
• 06/15/2024 - Being a Saturday, I would normally present a spy series meant for younger readers and I sort of am doing that but ... this one is really for older readers because the teenagers who attend Spy High are indeed teens who get involved in lots of things that younger readers are not ready for - read 'sex'. So, when suggesting this dozen adventures penned by A. J. Butcher, keep that in mind.
  
  
• 06/14/2024 - We are heading back over in time nearly nine decades for today's entrant, a three adventure series by Gerald Verner about British spymaster Michael Dene. He is a man who loves to travel and seems to relish being a man of mystery - and one who likes to use expressions such as 'queer devil'.
  
  
• 06/13/2024 - Today we welcome to the compendium a man, Simon Fletcher, who works for a small organization with the unusual name of A1Zero. We have 8 novella-sized adventures (perfect for this series making them really enjoyable reads with no slow-down) about him written by the highly gifted Jeremy Waldron. I do not know if Mr. Waldron is planning any more about Fletcher but if he does come out with more, I will definitely snatch them up.
  
  
• 06/12/2024 - A very enjoyable pair of operatives, CIA operative A.J. Bruce and Delta Force Colonel Javier Smith, make up the team Bruce & Smith in a couple of exciting and really fun adventures penned by Randall Krzak (I like his first name!). There is supposed to be a third but it has not surfaced yet. Still, the two that are available are well worth the time reading them.
  
  
• 06/11/2024 - In My Comments for today's entrant I write, "This series is a cross between spy fiction and military fiction with much of it being the military side but enough of it falls into the cloak-and-dagger realm to justify its membership in this compendium." The three adventures are written by Max Dent and deal with British agent Bruce Cole, a man who answers only to the Prime Minister.
  
  
• 06/10/2024 - We do not have enough spy series coming from New Zealand. That is my opinion, of course, but I venture it is also a fact. That is a bit alleviated today, though, with a really enjoyable 4-book series penned superbly by Cat Connor. The adventures are of a New Zealand private investigator named Veronica Tracey who co-runs an agency named "Wherefore Art Thou". This former government operative finds herself always back in that kind of work whether she wants it or not and we have the joy of following along.
  
  
• 06/09/2024 - Today I enter a trio of series because all of these are related to one another via Spy School, an organization that trains young people to become highly skilled and experienced operatives. The first series is Spy Academy which deals with a trained agent going undercover at Spy School to uncover a traitor. The second series is Spy Academy - The Royals with lead character Roxy Villareal. And the third series is The Spy Chronicles which follows the adventures of Serenity Sinclair. All three series, which are in fact related to yesterday's entry, are penned by Scarlett Haven. Some are really novellas sold separately and some are full-length (albeit short) books. All are really aimed to young female readers but old males like me still found them charming and fun.
  
  
• 06/08/2024 - Say hello to Zara Summers, the young lady training to be a spy whose adventures are detailed in The Zara Chronicles. There are 12 excellent YA/NA tales penned by Scarlett Haven and while they are obviously designed for girls, anyone can enjoy them. I did.
  
  
• 06/07/2024 - Say hello to Hawk, Cowboy, and Liz. That trio make up the group known as the series named Top Secret Presidential. Well, initially it is Hawk and Cowboy but Liz will show them quickly she not only belongs but is very much needed. This three-adventure series is from a couple years ago and penned by Mike Shellenbergar.
  
  
• 06/06/2024 - Another interesting spy television show that did not last very long joins the compendium today. An odd name for the program - My Own Worst Enemy deals with Edward Albright and/or Henry Spivey. It only lasted 9 episodes when it aired in 2008.
  
  
• 06/05/2024 - We are heading back to 1959 Britain for today's entry into the compendium. Interpol Calling was the name of the television show which presented Inspector Paul Duval fighting all sorts of international bad guys and more than one spy-ish fellow. 39 episodes of his adventures were aired.
  
  
• 06/04/2024 - "If I were in trouble, I would love to have a man like Connor Reed around to come to my aid." That is what I wrote about this Brit who is an agent for the hush-hush organization known as the Chameleon Project, definitely a good man in a tight situation. The writing by Quentin Black of these (so far) 9 action spy adventures is really exciting and good.
  
  
• 06/03/2024 - Welcome from Houlton, Maine, just about to head into New Brunswick for fun. Today I enter a pretty darn good young adult series about Ocean Daley and his adventures. I said in My Comments "if I were a teen reader - and I really was one a bunch of decades ago, I would have liked this series and been sorry there was only three adventures in it." They were very ably penned by Chris Hannon.
  
  
• 06/02/2024 - This entry for today is a very enjoyable and worth-the-time read but the interesting point to this series is shown by how I start the entry: "Dan Reilly is a hotel chain executive." I do not think I have had that before. The three-book series by Gary Grossman and Ed Fuller is recommended.
  
  
• 06/01/2024 - It is Saturday morning so we add another series which is designed for young 'uns. Today's entrant has a ton of adventures - all of them really short but awfully cute and definitely good reads for kids. Welcome Zac Power, penned by H.L. Larry.
  
  
• 05/31/2024 - I love genre mixing. I have loved fantasy and what I call paranormal since forever. So, today's entrant was particularly fun and unusual. Ruby Hudole is an agent for the Institute and she looks like us and all that but she is a Fae. I had to ask my daughter a couple of times what a Fae was. Still not totally sure but this 3-book series by C. N. Crawford was a hoot.
  
  
• 05/30/2024 - Today I welcome to the compendium an American woman sort of conscripted to work for British Intelligence in the early days of WWII. The group that pulls her in does not exist, or as the man who runs it says, "all our operations are deniable. But I never told you that", Kate Rees is the woman's name and I hope the author gives us more than the two adventures that are out there about her.
  
  
• 05/29/2024 - Today's series "series is jam-packed with action and explosions and mayhem and all sorts of stuff that makes an adventure series so enjoyable". The main character is known simply as Breed but so far we have 8 really exciting adventures penned terrifically by Cameron Curtis.
  
  
• 05/28/2024 - As I say in my comments on newcomer to the site Kori Briggs, "If you are looking for a kick-butt female operative who is given a good number of opportunities to demonstrate that fact, this is a good series to consider". Briggs is not someone to tick off!
  
  
• 05/27/2024 - I write in My Comments for today's newcomer to the site that "I am always pleased to find a series that is not from one of the Five Eyes" group. Keshav Bose is a suave, cool, and very capable secret agent from the huge sub-continent of India. Author Dylan Walker has been kind enough to give us two highly enjoyable adventures.
  
  
• 05/26/2024 - The tag line for today's entrant is "If you enjoy Alan Furst's Night Soldiers novels, but like to see LGBT characters in fiction, then you'll love ..." The title of the first adventure, Gray Paree, could well do without the first 'R' in this two-book series by Garrett Hutson. The hero of these tales is Oliver Carmichael.
  
  
• 05/25/2024 - This Saturday I leap way ahead of my list of scheduled entries into the compendium to present a three-book series designed for teen readers that someone several times that age range (me, in case you were wondering) still found terrific. Written by R.S. Twells, the adventures center around Agent Bennet who is one of the many young operatives-in-training at the facility known as the Orphanage. Lots of excitement and some heartache and a very enjoyable read.
  
  
• 05/24/2024 - Five years ago, I gave today's entrant into the compendium the kiss of death. It was a new spy television series that I watched and thought to myself I enjoyed it and would like to watch more. I watched them, up until the show's initial run was done and then it went away. My fault for liking it! The show was Whiskey Cavalier and it was fun!
  
  
• 05/23/2024 - "Garrett Hutson has a very easy going writing style that manages to put you back in time to the years leading up to the Second World War." That is what I said in My Comments on today's entrant, a very enjoyable 3-book series about Martin Schuller, Spy Catcher. I recommend these to any fan of historical spy fiction.
  
  
• 05/22/2024 - I enter into the compendium a British television spy series that I regret I did not have a chance to watch, which I regret because I really appreciated the starring actor, William Franklyn, whom I describe as giving the main character of Peter Dallas at lot of gravitas. The show was named Top Secret and it ran for two seasons in 1961-62.
  
  
• 05/21/2024 - Welcoming an agent with the American ONI today to the compendium, it is a pleasure to mention the four terrific adventures about Doug Bainbridge. I describe him in My Comments as "young and earnest and able to make mistakes while being smart and observant and able to survive those mistakes". One thing I particularly liked was that time does pass, year by year, between these adventures by Garrett Hutson and Bainbridge does grow and learn.
  
  
• 05/20/2024 - In My Comments about The Fifth Corner. today's entrant into the compendium, I wrote "you have to be either really bad or someone in the head office had it in for you" to get yanked from the schedule after just 3 episodes.
  
  
• 05/19/2024 - Joining the compendium today is a British female agent for an unnamed agency who "is a gorgeous, sexy woman who has an innate talent for choosing the right personality to present to whomever she deals with." Chastity Flame uses that to accomplish a whole lot in her work and in her play and she enjoys both work and play a lot. There are three short "erotic adventures that would make James Bond blush", written by the talented K. A. Laity.
  
  
• 05/18/2024 - It being Saturday, I have another youth-oriented spy series, this one having 4 books penned by Andrew Lane. It deals with a female operative in her mid-20s who gets teamed up with (how and why make up a good deal of the first adventure) a teenager who is the Agent Without License, which is why the series is called AWOL. It was very entertaining.
  
  
• 05/17/2024 - Today we bring into the fold Aydyn whom I describe as a guilty pleasures. You will have to read about her to understand why. You will also get a chance to learn her "First Rule Of Being A Spy". You will enjoy reading it. There are 5 adventures about this interesting woman, penned by Sylvester S. Poulsen.
  
  
• 05/16/2024 - We are going back in time over half a century for a very short - and very silly - two-adventure comicbook series called The Man From R.E.L.A.T.I.V.E.. I would say more here but ... nah, you should take a minute or two to read for yourself.
  
  
• 05/15/2024 - While I had really enjoyed the first movie in today's series entry, The Art Of War, I had not taken the time to watch the 2nd or 3rd and had not considered it for membership here until a fellow spy-fan made the suggestion. So, welcome to Neil Shaw!!
  
  
• 05/14/2024 - As I state in My Comments for today's newcomer to the site, "I am a sucker for cross-genre adventures so when I discovered a series that involved an android as a government operative, I was hooked without reading the first book." Mind you, I got a tad confused at the beginning but I totally admit it was me. I cleared myself up soon enough. Nahbi is the name of the android and the name of the series, written by Chuck Ervin, but, interestingly, he is not the main character.
  
  
• 05/13/2024 - To quote the old but much loved Pogo comic strip from ages ago, today Friday the 13th falls on a Blue Monday! Very bad mojo!! (You had to have read it decades ago to understand.) Not bad mojo, though, is today's entrant into the compendium. Sarah Black is a novice MI6 agent who "is thrown off the cliff (literally and figuratively) right out the door" which, as I wrote, is "pretty bad for her but awesome for the readers". I concluded with "I hope we have not heard the last of Ms. Black".
  
  
• 05/12/2024 - Happy Mother's Day!! For this occasion, and because it is next on my list, I present the pretty impressive Drenna Steel, a trained assassin for the CIA. Author John Sneeden not only gave us a kick-butt heroine but also provided me another instance of what I call a pet-chuckle - namely, let's train an individual so he/she can take out just about anyone we want eliminated, then let's at some point decide we need to remove that skilled killer and in trying to do that, let's really tick off that killer. It usually does not work out well and in Steel's case, it is a hoot to read.
  
  
• 05/11/2024 - This Saturday we enter into the compendium a terrific children's spy series. Emma Jacks, aka EJ12, is an agent with SHINE. I mention in My Comments that had I been of the desired reading age when these first came out, I would have loved this quite lone (31 adventures) by Susannah McFarlane, though I would have likely hid my reading them because they are for ... GIRLS! Being my current age, I don't care. I liked them.
  
  
• 05/10/2024 - Joining the compendium today is a quite enjoyable three-adventures series taking place a good number of years ago - the mid 1650's. Delightfully penned by Andrew Lane, these tales show a different viewpoint of the adventures of Robinson Crusoe and his companion, Friday, after the rescue from the island. The differences are that they would be enticed into working for British Intelligence. And Friday is a beautiful young woman.
  
  
• 05/09/2024 - The apparently considerable fascist movement inside the UK pre-WWII who liked a lot of what the Nazis were pushing and who wanted very much to keep the British government out of any fight with their buddies. That is the subject matter for the MI6 operative being entered into the compendium today. Brinley Knight is the man's name, his adventures being penned superbly by Jana Petken. There are currently 4 in this well-crafted series and hopefully more to come.
  
  
• 05/08/2024 - Almost all spy guys and gals who have his/her own page in this compendium is the star of the series. Not in the case of Mara Duncan. The book series she is in is called Red Dragon Rising, written by Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice, and Duncan is not the main character in any of those adventures. She warrants membership herein because she is a key participant in each portion and she is so darned fascinating.
  
  
• 05/07/2024 - A good comment on today's new member to the compendium comes from the character himself. Aleksandr Talanov is a former KGB agent who decides to work for the CIA. He says, "I'm an alley cat. No one likes alley cats but alley cats know how to get the job done when it comes to rats". There are four well written adventures by James Houston Turner and while I did not particularly like the character per se, I did like the writing quite a bit.
  
  
• 05/06/2024 - Just home from the hospital with a prognosis of pneumonia - icky! But that means bedrest which means lots of reading time. Before I retire for the night with a good book, I add to this compendium the tales of Dora & Rex, aka Theodora Laurent and Lord Reginald Bankes-Fernsby. Six exciting and well-penned "'cozy' whodunnits [in which] each investigation this pair takes part in fall firmly inside the boundaries of spy-fi. Lynn Morrison does a terrific job taking us back to the 1920s.
  
  
• 05/05/2024 - We travel back to 1935 and a trio of novelettes written by G.H. Teed, an author who specialized in Sexton Blake mysteries. These three tales of a freelance group of spies threatening England's security, known as Spies Ltd., were first published in Detective Weekly in the first half of that year and then collected in a book with that group's name later the same year.
  
  
• 05/04/2024 - May the Fourth Be With You! Today's entrant has no connection to Star Wars but I thought I would give the now traditional geeky greeting anyways. Since it is a Saturday I add a series originally designed for young readers, a comicbook spy with some impressive mental abilities and the unfortunate name of Brain Boy - alliterative but silly. As I say in My Comments, I am pretty sure I read two or three of the original comics back in the mid-60s.
  
  
• 05/03/2024 - I introduce to my compendium today a pretty darn good cozy murder turned cozy spy series designed and excellently crafted for young readers. We have a brainy Sophie and a gutsy Lilian take on all sorts of dangers and troubles and come out alright at the end but not without a lot of excitement. Good stuff, here, in the Taylor & Rose series of 8 books and 1 novella by Katherine Woodfine.
  
  
• 05/02/2024 - In My Comments for today's newcomer, I wrote "This is a wonderfully silly, over-the-top send-up of the stereotypical action hero done to extremes and having a blast with it. I loved it" If you have a sense of humor (or sense of silly), you will too so check out The Trouble With Girls, wonderfully written by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones.
  
  
• 05/01/2024 - For this May Day we will travel back in time to the days a bit before the start of the Second World War as we follow the two-adventure (so far) story of Danny Nash, penned quite nicely for us by Richard D. Handy. This chap (Nash, not Handy) is an MI6 agent we we watch him do his covert work in 1933 and then some years later in 1941.
  
  
• 04/30/2024 - "The writings of author James Naughtie as he tells us of three different periods of time in the life of his star character, Will Flemyng, reminds me considerably of the works of John Buchan nearly a century before." That is the opening to My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium and I consider it a pretty good compliment.
  
  
• 04/29/2024 - As I write in My Comments for today's newcomer to the compendium: "The two Mason Kane adventures, penned by Joshua Hood, are the sort that straddle the line between SpecOps fiction and spy fiction, moving enough into the latter, IMHO, to justify membership in this compendium."
  
  
• 04/28/2024 - Today we welcome Samantha Locke who is an agent for ... well, I am not sure if it is one or two agencies even less sure if either of them are good or bad. However, I freely and honestly admit I am sure it is my fault. I think you will fare better.
  
  
• 04/27/2024 - It's a Saturday so ... so I am adding to the compendium today a ... well ... unusual series from 2007 named My Spy Family. It deals with a ... spy family!
  
  
• 04/26/2024 - A very dark series enters the compendium today. John Darque. Codename 'Chadeaux'. As I mentioned in My Comments, I did not get the Dark Shadows reference because ... well, these days I am a bit slow!! Good series, by the way. Enjoyed it.
  
  
• 04/25/2024 - I wrote in My Comments about today's new member into the compendium and the feelings I felt about the things happening to Azo Coke by saying, "darned fun reading, though, even with all that angst I heap on myself because of the stuff that gets dumped on him". There be a lot that gets done to poor Coke in this three-adventure series by Roland Lloyd Parry as he is unfairly thrust into the world of spying. It ain't right, I tell you... but it is fun reading! Does that make me bad?
  
  
• 04/24/2024 - Another "delightful series is a combination of cozy mystery coupled with some intriguing though low-keyed espionage work" joins the compendium today. Lane Winslow is the name of the female operative the ten adventures crafted by Iona Whishaw detail. Very enjoyable reads about a very interesting woman.
  
  
• 04/23/2024 - 2500 !!. Oh my!! That is the mark hit with today's entrant into the compendium. And for that honor, I picked a tad out of planned sequence one fantastic spy series. About Gresham & Wilkins, superbly crafted by Edward Parr and taking place in and after WWI, I write in My Comments, "Is this a terrific set of awesome adventures! I was stunned at just how good they were because I had not seen anyone else (maybe I was just blind) sing its praises. And sung they should be because it is so rich and full-bodied and yet smooth (yeah, I know it sounds like a coffee commercial)."
  
  
• 04/22/2024 - Imagine getting knocked out in an explosion and waking out of a coma a decade later. Then imagine that during that time, the government doctors had 'experimented' here and there. That is the premise for an exciting series about C. J. Brink by Michael Woodman.
  
  
• 04/21/2024 - Joining the compendium today is a really run, ever so gentle "cozy murder spy series". Janet Markham Bennett is a not young woman who runs a B&B with her older sister and a frequent guest is Edward who is more than a bit on the mysterious side. Love will follow and then marriage as she learns he is really an agent with British Intelligence and could really use her help. Before long, she is an operative, too. And there is a lot of excitement and quite a few bodies, especially when you consider how many novellas (26) and books (14 and counting) there are.
  
  
• 04/20/2024 - It is Saturday so again something for the younger spy fans. The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs is a "series of half-hour-ish animated spy adventures is designed for young kids and therefore not supposed to be logical or sensible and therefore is neither but since it lasted for two seasons of roughly 11 double episodes each, someone somewhere liked it." It was not me but then again, I am not a kid - immature, yes, kid, no.
  
  
• 04/19/2024 - Excellent thriller author Adam Hamdy brings us a series about a former MI6 operative named Scott Pearce who is pulled back into action and while he is not happy about it, he is still very good at it and Hamdy is very good at making us enjoy the Pearce adventures.
  
  
• 04/18/2024 - Property Management is what our newest member in the compendium, Rupert Brett, is good at. That is why British Intelligence, having a need for such an expert, snatched him up to help them, really not giving him much of a choice. You do not need to know anything about such matters - I sure did not - but you will feel you do when you read his adventures.
  
  
• 04/17/2024 - I wrote in My Comments for the Jason Drake series of spy adventures entering the compendium today, "Being rogue is a bad thing up until they really need you". The powers that be at the CIA really do not like the way he does things but they like the results. As a reader, so did I. There are currently 6 exciting missions penned by Auston King for you to enjoy.
  
  
• 04/16/2024 - If I were a reader of adolescent-centric adventure/spy fiction back in 1949 when today's entrant started having stories crafted for him - done superbly by Eric Leyland - I would have loved them. I was not. I was three years from being born and probably 10 years from being able to enjoy tales of David Flame. Plus I would have been in South Dakota in the Midwest of the US, not in the UK where these stories were being sold. Still, I - and you - can read them today if you look hard enough.
  
  
• 04/15/2024 - I guess I should have been used to it by now from back in the day when the much-beloved Barbara Feldon's Get Smart character was only known as Agent 99 but ... today's entrant is a spy from 1940 who is known as K-4 to everyone, even best buddies. That's - um - weird. The series is a bit weird as well but still not bad at all. The series name is K-4 and His Sky Devils and there were but 3 adventures, written by Joe Cal Cagno.
  
  
• 04/14/2024 - I thought I was being generous with today's entrant, a really bad 2-comic adventure from 1940, by giving a "D" grade. I could have gone with a "D-" but, like I said, generous. Whirlwind Carter by Fletcher Hanks is one that came and then blessedly left quickly.
  
  
• 04/13/2024 - This Saturday morning I invite into the compendium a spy game series that I played years ago - not very well but I did try! It is obviously a spy-oriented series because the name of the main fellow is ... Spy Fox. As stories go, the prose is virtually non-existent but there is a ton of action.
  
  
• 04/12/2024 - In My Comments for today's newcomer to the collection, I asked the question: "Just how much trouble can one not-so-perfect agent with the name of Perfect get into?" The answer is: a lot!
  
  
• 04/11/2024 - A very short-lived British television spy series about a man named Mike Anson from 1957 joins the compendium today. I do not know a whole lot about it because it was so quickly gone and it was in another country and I was 5 years old at the time and we did not have television. Still, for your edification - as much as I could edify on the subject, here is Destination Downing Street.
  
  
• 04/11/2024 - Happy Birthday to my bride of several decades. We are growing old together, my love, but my love for you still feels young - and strong.
  
  
• 04/10/2024 - As I obsess with in My Comments on today's entrant, the titles of the three books about Katrina Leonidivna and her colleagues, aka the Dangerous Clique series by Jim Geraghty, the book titles have in them the numbers 2, 4, and 5. What happened to 1 and 3? I suggest you ignore this rant and just enjoy these books, as I did.
  
  
• 04/09/2024 - Naming a book after the main character is not unheard of but it is rare - having the second book do the same but adding the word 'Unhinged", that's eye catching. Also unusual is the name of the private intelligence company that Harper Chandler works for in this two-adventure series by Jo Cassidy. Its acronym is DPS. Its breakdown is ... odd.
  
  
• 04/08/2024 - A fascinating and quite enjoyable series of fictional (so I think!) spy-adjacent escapades of 1920's real-life American adventurer Richard Halliburton joins the compendium today. They were penned by Garrett Drake who, reading his bio, comes across as a pretty impressive adventurer himself.
  
  
• 04/07/2024 - Entering the compendium today with his three-book series about a former CIA operative named John Cross (somewhat appropriate) who retired to become a Baptist minister is author Andrew Huff. These are well-written adventures in which Cross may have left the espionage profession but no one convinced Langley of that.
  
  
• 04/06/2024 - About today's newest member in this collection, I asked the question in My Comments whether this was really a series. I answered that question with an "I don't care" and explained, "This is a terrific, awesome, highly enjoyable romp". Spies In Disguise (not to be confused with a similarly named series we added a while back) is definitely series-adjacent and a lot of fun and a great addition this Saturday morning.
  
  
• 04/05/2024 - Of today's new member, Marcus Ryker, well, of his creator, Joel C. Rosenberg, I asked the question in My Comments: "Is it possible for Joel C. Rosenberg to not write an awesome series of extremely exciting and frighteningly topical adventures?" I'd say no.
  
  
• 04/04/2024 - In 1965, famous comicbook writer Gil Kane (who helped five us Green Lantern) gave us a very short (2-adventure) spy named Jan Vern for DC Comics.
  
  
• 04/03/2024 - Today we invite into the compendium Merry Wrath. With a name like that, I might have asked her in for no reason other than the name but she has a good reason to be here. These lady has a lot of stuff going on, shown by the fact that as of this invitation, she had 30 adventures superbly and hilariously crafted by Leslie Langtry. Oh, by the way, she is also a Girl Scout Leader.
  
  
• 04/02/2024 - Some really fun storytelling here. That is how I described today's entrant, a two-book series by J. R. Rain and Matthew W. Cox about a female spy named Mina Barrett. Mina is a very capable operative who is also a vampire. Yep! Another combination of genres that I adore - vampire and spy. And having the character be named Mina is pretty cool. I enjoyed the two stories from several years ago and would not mind another one or so.
  
  
• 04/01/2024 - April Fools Day! I abhor practical jokes because I am such a fish and get hooked so easily. Therefore, today's entrant into the compendium is no prank - it is a really good spy series by the same fellow who had another entry yesterday - Daniel Kemp. This other series, dealing with an agent named Patrick West, is terrific and it has one of the best titles I've seen in a while for the first adventure.
  
  
• 03/31/2024 - We have welcomed to the compendium in the past a few very wealthy people and a few knights but we are stepping up in High Society's weight class with today's new member. Lord Harry Paterson has just recently been told of his assumption of the title with the passing of his father. Being now a member of the House of Lords does not, however, stop Lord Harry from working for MI6. These four adventures by Daniel Kemp are really well crafted and a lot of fun to read.
  
  
• 03/30/2024 - It's Saturday so we add another kid's spy series to the compendium. Our selection this time gives us Agent 9 in two graphic adventures written and drawn by James Burks. This fellow (the character, not the creator) is an anthropomorphized cat who does decidedly non-cat stuff.
  
  
• 03/29/2024 - Today I welcome to the compendium a spy-adjacent movie series starring ... Chuck Norris!! I admit that this three movie set (only the first two having Mr. Norris in them) is more spy-adjacent-ish but there is enough spy-stuff along with the kick-butt-stuff to justify its membership. And it's CHUCK NORRIS! The series character name? Scott McCoy. The movie series name? The Delta Force.
  
  
• 03/28/2024 - Seeing the name of publishing powerhouse James Patterson on anything close to spy-fi related will make me take notice to see what he might have in store. What we find with the two-book series about Amy Cornwall, written in conjunction with Brendan DuBois, is a lot of fun. This US Army Intelligence officer who moves over to the CIA has a lot going for her and I hope the writing pair will let her do more.
  
  
• 03/27/2024 - I have never had a fear of flying despite my dislike of heights but I have never had a desire to learn to fly a plane - not once. And then I read today's entrant series about pilot Nick Grant and while my attitude about doing such things myself have not changed, reading about him doing them was a hoot. This young adult series about a new pilot getting deeply involved in spy stuff, ably crafted by Jamie Dodson, is a fun, swift read.
  
  
• 03/26/2024 - A husband-and-wife team of college professors join the compendium today. Granted, not your typical entrant but they definitely belong. Hollis & Finn Larsson have two adventures penned by Clare O'Donohue in the "World of Spies" mystery series. The books are an enjoyable combination of espionage and mystery.
  
  
• 03/25/2024 - Today's newcomer to the compendium, Alivia Morgan by David J. Antocci, is an interesting character that I would love to be able to watch on television. I enjoyed very much reading her adventures; I just feel her adventures would make an excellent TV program.
  
  
• 03/25/2024 - My apologies to people coming to this site and not getting it. I have been having difficulty out of the blue and am working with my hosting provider. It is not making much sense.
  
  
• 03/24/2024 - Today I welcome Sandra Maxwell, a member of the Special Branch who is active at the end of WWII and for a while thereafter. I really enjoyed these adventures and wrote in that "I like his writing and I really like Maxwell". Hopefully he will follow up his duology and subsequent trilogy with more tales about her.
  
  
• 03/23/2024 - I almost did not put today's entrant in the What's New list and just let it sneak in - that is how bad it is. But since it is a Saturday where I recently have been adding children spy series, I opted to announce it despite ... In My Comments, I state, "I do not know nor have I any idea why this very young children's book needed to be made". You will see why when you check out Spies In Disguise. You will probably be sorry you did, though.
  
  
• 03/22/2024 - Today I welcome into the compendium a spy-adjacent series about an operative named Lucy Heron. In My Comments I make a very brief comparison of this fun, 'frivolous' series and more serious works like those about George Smiley or Quiller, pointing out that "neither Smiley nor Quiller have had to deal with goblins".
  
  
• 03/21/2024 - For the newest member of the compendium, I asked in My Comments: "Want to be pals with an experienced assassin who used to go by one of the names of the Angel of Death?" Strange question until you meet Peter Black and see him in action. Lots and lots of action. Very exciting and loads of fun.
  
  
• 03/20/2024 - We head Down Under for a 4-adventure comicbook series from 1949 about an Australian Secret Service operative. Red Finnigan is his name - though I would guess the 'Red' was not his given name. His turf is the Far East and he sees a good deal of action but unfortunately, not much is available to us today.
  
  
• 03/19/2024 - A treasure hunter joins the compendium today. Normally such a profession would not qualify for membership but this fellow, Jack Hunter, belongs here because a lot of his hunting is on behalf of the NSA out sot keep a Russian oligarch from getting hold of something really nasty.
  
  
• 03/18/2024 - Can you say "Spy Smasher wannabe"? That is the opening to My Comments on today's entrant, Spy Breaker, a very short (3 adventure) comicbook spy series from Down Under in 1946. I did not think very much of it but historically it was important as Australia was needing, due to rationing and legal matters, to produce its own content. Some were good. Some, like this one, not so much.
  
  
• 03/17/2024 - Okay, I got my Saturday and Sunday mixed up here so the child/young adult series I meant to add yesterday is here today. I know, I'm old!!! So today we add a very cute kid's series with the adorable name of Agent Boo. How this youngster got to be an agent in a futurist space agency way before he was old enough and trained is ... well, read my synopsis.
  
  
• 03/16/2024 - "I love an operative who eschews firearms because they 'are dangerous'." That is the opening lines of My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium. Mia Mathis has three adventures penned about her by Brett Baker and I really enjoyed them. I think you will as well.
  
  
• 03/15/2024 - Today's entrant into the compendium is described as a 'biopunk' series. I had to look it up. That got me a bit intrigued. Reading the adventures of Kaden Baker made me a fan - of her, at least. Very enjoyable character told in a very enjoyable manner. I hope we will get more of her.
  
  
• 03/14/2024 - Our newest member in the compendium, Ross Brannan, is an ELINT expert. We do not have many of those. Now, it might seem that such an expertise would be fairly safe and not something many would be interested in reading about. Not so with Brannan as shown by the five exciting adventures penned by R. G. Ainslee.
  
  
• 03/13/2024 - Yesterday I added to the compendium a really enjoyable series about an operative created by author Eugene Lloyd MacRae. That fine writer also penned a series about a private investigator named Rory Mack Steele whose cases stray into the spy-fi range often enough to warrant his own membership here. Same excellent storyteller - same excellent fun reading these.
  
  
• 03/12/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a Stopper. That is a first for me. Never had a Stopper before. This set of a half dozen exciting adventures are even known as The Stopper Files. They tell of the cases assigned Interpol agent Merlin Arthur Dragon, penned by Eugene Lloyd MacRae. What is a Stopper, you ask? Come on in and find out.
  
  
• 03/11/2024 - Today I welcome the adventures of John Stanton, a British operative for an department known only as 'the Bureau' and I don't mean the FBI. This series of six novellas repackaged into two volumes is a lot of really enjoyable storytelling. I would have liked more but since a few years have passed since these came out, I think the six is all we will have. Mighty fine half dozen, though.
  
  
• 03/10/2024 - Spring Forward! It's that time of year. Having slept the same amount of time as normal and awoken an hour later, I invite to the compendium a television series from just shy of two decades ago. In My Comments about The Middleman, I say that it is "an amazing, highly enjoyable romp of a spoof of spy-fi and sci-fi and, well lots of different -fi's". It is a lot of zany fun.
  
  
• 03/09/2024 - It is Saturday so as is my latest pattern, I offer something for the young readers. In this case, it is Agent Amelia, a spy series about someone who isn't a spy. She sure wants to be, though, and this collection of 5 volumes of stories is a hoot that should be checked out by all young spy fiction fans - and those who just might be. Michael Broad is the author of these delightful tales.
  
  
• 03/08/2024 - I wrote in My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium: "The author, Gregory C. Randall, has a particularly enjoyable writing style, almost like the two of you are sitting in easy chairs and he is relating a fascinating tale." The series he has penned is that of Alex Polonia which has three exciting and interesting adventures to it - so far.
  
  
• 03/07/2024 - Our new member of the compendium, Jake Ord, and I have a lot in common. We are both retired. We are both asked now and again to do one more little thing for our previous employer. We ... okay, that's where the commonality ends. He works for an agency with British Intelligence and when he does each 'one more little thing' people try their best to kill him. Me, not so much. But then, that is why readers like myself enjoy these four exciting spy thrillers written by excellent scribe Dan Latus. That fellow (Latus, not Ord) has other people he writes about - his Frank Doy thrillers are terrific!. I hope he will also keep giving us more Jake Ord - and Marta - adventures.
  
  
• 03/06/2024 - An American woman helping out the British during the early years of the Second World War. That is the premise for today's entrant. What makes this series unique is that Xanthe Schneider is a whiz at puzzles. Of course, that love of and skill with such things will get this woman with the terrific first name involved in a whole lot of danger because she is not content to sit safely away from the battle. I was impressed with author David Boyle's skill at making puzzle solving really, really exciting.
  
  
• 03/05/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a Naval Intelligence officer active during the Second World War. The six exciting and very realistic adventures about Tony Romella, penned superbly by Peter J Azzole, are a sure thing for anyone interested in combining darn good spy craft with military action.
  
  
• 03/04/2024 - A spin-off from another series joins the compendium today. I really like the Ryan McGinnis penned Xavier Greene series of action-adventure spy thrillers and it has a co-starring character that I felt deserved her own chance to shine. Well, the author has given her that and it is no surprise that I also enjoyed a bunch the actions of Stacy Martinez and so will you.
  
  
• 03/03/2024 - Today we welcome to the compendium David McKie, a "a tall, broad-shouldered Scot" who works for the British intelligence agency known as the Department of Internal Concerns. The rather unfortunate acronym this gives the organization is about the only thing funny about the things this man will get involved in as he works in a profession that has him one of those who 'watches the watchers".
  
  
• 03/02/2024 - It is Saturday so again I am looking for something kids would enjoy. I come close with Connor Undercover, a television series that dealt with a student who would like to be a spy - unfortunately no one else wants it. "He applied to the CSIS, Canada's intelligence agency, when he was just 10 years old - spoiler alert, he was rejected." I was not that impressed.
  
  
• 03/01/2024 - I did not care for today's entrant into the compendium, a two-novella series designed for teens. Foxx Grim had adventures alongside two supporting characters I did like a bunch and the stories were novella-length so they did not drag. They were, for me, though, confusing. Still, that could be just me. I do get confused easily these days.
  
  
• 02/29/2024 - Our entrant into the compendium today is Alexander Gray, an agent for the American President who has the unusual codename of "Sockdolager" which means pretty much troubleshooter (you're welcome). This set of adventures are dubbed "The Far Side of Silence Trilogy" and were crafted by Robert B. Marcus, jr. and Kim Frank Richardson. Gray and his group are devoted to fighting a two-millennia-old organization determined to eventually rule the world.
  
  
• 02/28/2024 - Today joining his fellow spy guys and gals is Xavier Greene, a kick-butt operative for an organization called the Citadel (no, not military academy in South Carolina). About this scary agency we read it was "a mysterious organization with seemingly no boundaries or oversight". That makes it sound dangerous. Reading these adventures by Ryan McGinnis, I can say for certain it is and so is Greene. Really fun reads!
  
  
• 02/27/2024 - A novice spy who seems obsessed (in a good way, IMHO) with following the rules joins the compendium today. Talia Inger has a perfect memory and there are other little details about her that make her quite fascinating.in this two-book series by James R. Hannibal.
  
  
• 02/26/2024 - I said in My Comments for today's entrant that "Matt Flynn is an interesting and enjoyable chap who does not like to be interrupted on a job unless it is for a more challenging one. The man loves to be challenged." Reading and enjoying these three adventures by the terrific author Iain Cameron is no challenge - it is great pleasure.
  
  
• 02/25/2024 - Joining the compendium today is a very well-written series taking place back during the reign of Elizabeth I. It deals with one of her conscripted operatives, William Constable by Paul Walker. Constable's real job was a physician and astrologer. Odd combination for today. Back then? Maybe not so much.
  
  
• 02/24/2024 - It's a Saturday morning so I welcome into the compendium another series meant for youngsters. Today it is a spy agency which is comprised of just kids. More specifically, its members are NERDS. Boy, can I relate! True, these spy adventures are meant for readers 8-12 years of age and I am 9 times the low end and, oh, cool, only 6 times the upper end.
  
  
• 02/23/2024 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I asked in My Comments of the two-book Calli Chase series, "Is it really a spy series?" It is definitely spy-adjacent so ... And since it is written by the terrific Patricia Cornwell, there was no way I would not put it in. Plus it is darn good writing which is no surprise because it is penned by - you go it - Patricia Cornwell.
  
  
• 02/22/2024 - In the pages of the four-book Victorian era steampunk series dealing with young Sophronia, written by Gail Carriger, readers will learn proper deportment at a formal dinner during the later years of the 19th Century, as well as how to behave after you have dispatched permanently the guest of honor. Good things to know, I reckon. Fun things to read, for sure.
  
  
• 02/21/2024 - When I finished the adventures of yesterday's entrant and started on today's, I expected something similar since they were both by the same author, Humphrey Hawksley. Nope! Not even close. Except it was darn good, like yesterday's was. Really good. Rake Ozenna is a very interesting man in an unusual job which made it something different. The writing was still terrific, though. Different but good.
  
  
• 02/20/2024 - "I inhaled these adventures". That is what I wrote about the one-book, two-novellas in the saga of Kat Polinski, today's entrant into the compendium. Ms. Polinski is an operative with the FCA, a part of DHS, and her stories are a blast to read. I wish there were more of her tales to read but alas, that is what we have.
  
  
• 02/19/2024 - "Oh, what a wonderfully entertaining character young Johnny Swift makes, if for many of the wrong reasons." That is the opening to My Comments about Johnny Swift, the entrant for today into the compendium. Penned by Alan Bardos in wonderfully entertaining text, we have three recent adventures set during the First World War.
  
  
• 02/18/2024 - Today I enter into the compendium a 2-book series on its way to being quite a few more. The books about an Army sniper turned government assassin named Patrick Coonan, written by Oscar Ortiz, were originally written and released in Spanish and French and there are 5 more books in the Coonan series out in those languages. Mr. Ortiz contacted me about them and was kind enough to provide copies of the two English adventures. He said in the email that he has plans for a bunch more. I found the stories very entertaining and will be pleased when more are translated.
  
  
• 02/17/2024 - This is my second Saturday adding a Young Adult spy series to the compendium. Why on a Saturday? That was the day I got to watch cartoons and other neat kid stuff. Anyway, we welcome to this wide and varied collection Abby Hunter as she is sent by her mother to an unusual boarding school - Mrs. Smith's Spy School For Girls. That would be unusual, alright. It is also quite charming and a hoot for young readers.
  
  
• 02/16/2024 - Let's head back in time to just before the start of the Second World War as we watch the British Intelligence community begin the transition of the old boy network into what I call the new son network, all very well off sods who look to less fortunate operatives like Ken Rowe to do the dirty work. Very fine writing has gone into these nine (so far) adventures by Mike Symons which are a joy to read.
  
  
• 02/15/2024 - We are heading south of the border for today's entrant and it will be an exciting, very interesting, and quite dangerous trip. Well, it will be for John Carpenter. He's the CIA agent who will be faced with a good number of chances to lose his life in countries that I would love to learn more about. And author Collin Glavac is excellent at doing the teaching by making it, and these adventures, a pleasure indeed to read.
  
  
• 02/14/2024 - Welcoming Task Force Epsilon into the compendium today sounds like we are bringing in a group of operatives but in fact it is just two, Bridget Davenport and Faraz Abdallah. Faraz is the field op but Bridget is the brains and, as I put it in My Comments, "really a force to be obeyed". Together they make a heck of a team in this 3-book series by Al Pessin which I thought were really enjoyable and hopefully there will be more.
  
  
• 02/13/2024 - Our entrant into the compendium today likes things straightforward. I write that she prefers it when she is told to "go to Place A, find Person B, eliminate that target, and come home". Simple and to the point. Of course things seldom work out that way but watching her handle the situations is really enjoyable. Please welcome MI6 operative Gabrielle Lane, aka Agent Blackhawk, in the three (so far) adventures by M.F. Kelleher.
  
  
• 02/12/2024 - My closing comments for today's compendium entrant, Cassius Corbulo, billed as an Agent of Rome, says, "not a tremendous amount of spy but a whole lot of entertainment. Nick Brown is a terrific writer." And with 7 books (plus 1) and a novella, that is a lot of darn good writing.
  
  
• 02/11/2024 - Mixing genres is always a tricky operation but when done right, which this one absolutes has done, it is a joy to read. Making the series also sort of a parody without touching on silliness? Impossible! Except that, IMHO, gifted author Simon R. Green has done it superbly with the dozen fascinating adventures of Eddie Drood that he calls his Secret Histories.
  
  
• 02/10/2024 - This being a Saturday entry and Saturday being the day I used to watch as a kid cartoons, I decided to add today a kid's spy series. Part of author Andrew Cope's overarching series of Spy Pets, today's entrant, Spy Cat seems a good fit.
  
  
• 02/09/2024 - The good and the bad of today's entrant into the compendium, Carson Fender, by author Chris Rylander is summed nicely (well, I thought so but then again, they're my words) when I said in My Comments that "I grew more than a bit tired with his bored angst but once stuff started happening, especially with Agent Atlas got involved, this was cool, fun stuff." Fender is way too angsty but his adventures are a hoot.
  
  
• 02/08/2024 - I state in my write-up for today's entrant that I was a wee bit embarrassed that I had not heard of this series about a former police detective and distant relative to General Eisenhower named Billy Boyle, around since 2006, until just recently. My bad, especially as this 18-book series is "a very well-crafted and executed series of whodunnits with enough espionage touches to more than qualify for membership here". I really liked these adventures and greatly enjoyed the writing. Very good series.
  
  
• 02/07/2024 - Today we welcome a three-book series about a Mossad agent named Guy Niava. Well, he is Mossad most of the time, other times, he has different work. Whatever he may be doing or whoever he may be doing it for, this fellow penned by Dana Arama finds trouble to take care of. And he does so pretty well, especially if Garbriella is around to help out.
  
  
• 02/06/2024 - Today I welcome to the compendium a CIA agent whose adventures are, in my opinion, a tribute to conspiracy fanatics. I never thought I was one myself until I began to read the very enjoyable Bob Nolan tales penned by Bradley West.
  
  
• 02/05/2024 - About the entrant into the compendium today I wrote that "I enjoyed the tenacity and stick-to-it-ness that she shows" in the two adventures that we have of this MI6 operative. These tales of Abigail Marshall by Addison Marsh take place during WW2 and are well worth the read.
  
  
• 02/04/2024 - A two-book series about a South African Secret Service agent who does work for MI6 and sort of for the CIA joins the compendium today. The fellow's name is Jackson. Just that as far as I could find. He goes by other names as well but we know they are aliases. Is Jackson also one? Maybe.
  
  
• 02/03/2024 - I ask myself in the My Comments section of today's entrant whether I would like to sit around having drinks with the fellow and I answer it by saying I would be spending all the time asking "so then what happened?" That is the sort of near constant action life Mike Harding enjoys, as told in the four exciting adventures by Peter Wooton.
  
  
• 02/02/2024 - Way back when, even before I started this site, I was a huge fan of the Redford/Pitt spy movie Spy Game. Such fantastic actors playing such fantastic characters with such fantastic dialogue. I watched it a couple of times back then and have a couple of times since. When the creator of that movie decided to add to it with a trilogy of books bookending it, I was excited and trepidatious. How would Spy Game: Aiken Trilogy compare? Well, pretty darn fantastically, IMHO.
  
  
• 02/01/2024 - When you read on an author's Facebook page that "Your chances of being killed by a chicken are low ... but never zero", you get the idea that the adventures penned by that individual might be unusual. In the case of those by J. Kinkade about Mitch and Polly McKenna, that be so very true. The McKenna Connection has 5 books that are very enjoyable reads, making me hope for a sixth someday.
  
  
• 01/31/2024 - Today's newcomer to the compendium is a companion series to the highly enjoyable one about Father Flenn. These books deal with his sometime partner Zack Matteson who has his own couple of adventures that should also be read because of their quality.
  
  
• 01/30/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a fellow who has enough issues at home that he would, it seems to me, rather head into near-suicidal missions somewhere else than to face those issued. Mace Mason is one heckuva brave, intrepid, staunch operative 'out there' but back home, not so much. Very enjoyable reads for us, though.
  
  
• 01/29/2024 - Today's newcomer to this compendium has an odd name. A REALLY odd name. But almost as strange as the name of this private intelligence agency is, Purple Frog, is, as I put it in My Comments, "the sort of things this group does while still considering itself on the side of the angels".
  
  
• 01/28/2024 - As I mentioned in My Comments on the Electra McDonnell page, I love stories where a thief working for the government steals from bad guys. That is what we have here in this 3-book series (another coming in a few months) taking place during WWII. She is a blast to read about and author Ashley Weaver is a truly superb story-teller.
  
  
• 01/27/2024 - I wrote this in the My Comments section of today's entrant's page, "I so very eagerly await the next book in the series" and I meant it. There are four adventures out so far but the fifth is set to drop in less than a week and I will be ready to catch my copy of the latest adventure of Ben Nevis & The Gold Digger. If you enjoy a whole lot of fun and excitement and darned fine storytelling, you owe it to yourself to check them out.
  
  
• 01/26/2024 - We welcome today Olga Romanov, a fascinating woman who I describe as "an independent spymaster". I don't have too many of those in this compendium. Spymasters, yes though not a lot. Independent ones, they are rare. I enjoyed reading these adventures and I really enjoyed meeting Ms. Romanov.
  
  
• 01/25/2024 - Hopefully I am ending this recent spate of spy animal books written for kids; cute but ... The entry for today is an offshoot of a one from a couple days ago by Andrew Cope and deals with two young canine spies called Spy Pups.
  
  
• 01/24/2024 - A character in another person's series but well deserving of her chance to shine - or in her case, kick butt, is today's entrant into the compendium: Tara Wolfe. Originally she went by the name of Wei Mei in the tales about Gabriel Wolfe but now she has taken her original name back and her tale is really fun to follow.
  
  
• 01/23/2024 - One might think the series being presented for membership today is a parody of spy adventures based on the name. Certainly Wiley Wolf sounds like it is another anthropomorphized one in which the hero is a humanized animal. Nope. The main character is human; he just runs around with his pet ... um, wolf. And sometimes he wears an identity-masking costume doing so. But he does spy-fighting sorts of stuff and he did have nearly a dozen adventures in his brief comicbook career back in 1967.
  
  
• 01/22/2024 - A couple of days ago I entered into the compendium a very young person's super-light spy series about Spy Dogs. Today I do the same thing except it is for just one canine, the adventures for whom were crafted by a different individual - Andrew Cope. We will be hearing from him again in a couple of days but for now, this is the tale/tail about Lara, the Spy Dog. As spy series go, I did not rate this very high but for entertainment for kids, it wasn't bad, or so says a very, very old kid.
  
  
• 01/21/2024 - I have a definite winner in today's entry into the compendium. Author Frank Malley has not only an awesome and super-interesting character in Emily Stearn, he has also come up with plots that are really interesting and not a little scary. There are three books out so far (not counting an omnibus) and I am hoping he will keep up the terrific work.
  
  
• 01/20/2024 - A three-book series for 9-12 year-olds about ... um ...dogs joins the compendium. I did not think too much about Spy Dogs, either opinion-wise or in general. Still, these be about spies so ....
  
  
• 01/19/2024 - Author Traci Hunter Abramson gives us a six-book series about computer programmer named Charlotte Martin who works for a top-secret American intelligence agency named Guardian. It is an interesting series as Charlotte is the main character in the first two adventures and a lesser one but still important in the others.
  
  
• 01/18/2024 - A really enjoyable series about a cryptographer for the CIA joins the compendium today. There are three exciting books in the Paul Marcus series and I had a blast with all three. I think you will as well.
  
  
• 01/17/2024 - From a decade ago comes a 3-book, 1-novella series about a Mossad agent seconded to an American intelligence organization with the unusual name of the Eyes of Athena. Strange! But the action is pretty good!! Say hello to Ari Cohen.
  
  
• 01/16/2024 - Let us welcome to the compendium an MI6 agent to die for ... okay, to die from. Geraldine is her real first name but everyone who knows her calls her Gerry Tate. She was an easy person for the Firm to find when they needed her for a near-suicide mission - she was in prison for an assassination mission that went wrong. But now she is back!
  
  
• 01/15/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a former CIA agent with one heck of an asset - he can not only read minds, he has the limited ability to 'push' thoughts into you. Nasty for the targets, cool for him, and fascinating for us readers. Check out the two-books series about John Smith.
  
  
• 01/15/2024 - This is not a new entry but an update to one added back in August of 2019 - The British teen girl-oriented (but, hey! I loved the stories) about Jane Bond. Back when I first added it, I knew very little about it. Now thanks to a terrific book by David M. Roach containing five of the many adventure and some much needed metadata on the series as a whole, plus a lot of searching by me and a bit of guesswork, I think I have all the stories there were. Please check out the entry here and then treat yourself to a fun, fun read entitled The Best of Jane Bond, published by Rebellion.
  
  
• 01/14/2024 - Hey! I just noticed! 2400!!!. Wow. That is a bunch. And lots more to come!!!
  
  
• 01/14/2024 - As I mention in My Comments for today's entrant, Spies And Spells is a mixture of cozy mystery and witchcraft (the fun kind, not the creepy eat-children type). This three-book series has one of the best names for the organization for which the operative work: SKUL. Way cool but I would expect it to be the bad guys, not the good guys.
  
  
• 01/13/2024 - I do not have a whole lot to say about today's entrant into the compendium because I do not know that much about it having not gotten hold of the stories yet. Hopefully someone out there will know something about Jamie Fond, aka The Man From M.O.T.H.E.R.. It is "satire-parody collection of spy adventures" that look very interesting.
  
  
• 01/12/2024 - Today's welcomed entrant into the compendium would gladly have not accepted that honor and just lived his life as a lawyer but unfortunately Sam Callahan, while in law school, demonstrated a skill at tracking people that the CIA found most useful. We readers can find it most entertaining in this three-book series from a half dozen years ago.
  
  
• 01/11/2024 - Case & Kat are two agents for a super-secret British intelligence agency known as IACS which they pronounce as "Eye-Axe" They are a hoot to follow and I enjoyed them a bunch. I hope the author gives us more and you will likely think the same when take some time to just enjoy a fun set of adventures.
  
  
• 01/10/2024 - Entering the compendium today is a very cool dude. Hip, you dig? Man has a groovy vibe about him and blows a mean trumpet, too. And gets himself involved in several skirmishes and mix-ups that get all sorts of cloak-and-dagger people out for his head. And we readers are in for several exciting tales which I hope will be ongoing for a while to come. Who is this man, you ask? Trip Callaway, that's who.
  
  
• 01/09/2024 - Our entrant into the compendium today is a Mossad agent by the name of Danya Biton. This extremely dangerous and reliable operative got her start - well, at least our reading about her - in another agent's series before getting her own chance to shine in the spotlight. Deservedly so, I might say. I really enjoyed her adventures.
  
  
• 01/08/2024 - I am welcoming to the compendium today a CIA agent who has two very interesting adventures, especially the second. Rhys Adler is the operative about whom I wrote that I really wished there had been more, that's how much I enjoyed the series.
  
  
• 01/07/2024 - A man who does not play nice with others joins the compendium today. Jay Sullivan, who works for the organization with the strange name of The Falcons, tends to get a bit over the top when he gets annoyed but that is part of his allure to us readers. Oh, and those others I mentioned, well, they are the bad guys so they kinda deserve it.
  
  
• 01/06/2024 - Becoming a member in this collection today is Anna Goode whose two young adult adventure books and one novella are, as I describe them, "meant for young readers, especially but not solely females and they are pretty well written; good enough to hold the attention of someone who is neither young nor female
  
  
• 01/05/2024 - Today we introduce to the compendium the precocious Jane Blonde, aka Janey Brown. As I put it in My Comments, "This cute series designed, according to the blurbs, for people 8-18 years old was a lot of fun to read for someone nearly nine times the low end of that range or four times the high end."
  
  
• 01/04/2024 - "Like watching a scary movie in which I want to look away while still keep an eye on what is happening". That is the way I describe my reaction to the three-book series about the Agents Of The Crown, written by Oliver Clement. The main character is a chap named John Dee but there are others that are of note, including his infamous boss, Sir Francis Walsingham.
  
  
• 01/03/2024 - From Israel by way of 4 years ago comes this 2-book (possibly more) series about an operative working for a group called The Organization. He is known as Agent 10483 and his own people would like to see him dead.
  
  
• 01/02/2024 - Say welcome to two highly enjoyable characters, Wayne Williams from the Secret Service and Catherine Miller from the CIA, are both pulled into action answering directly to the US President and we get to go along for the ride in this series of novellas with the interesting name of Too Secret Service. Fun and fast reads that should entertain you.
  
  
• 01/01/2024 - Starting the year with an unusual series. We have a homage to Ralph Ellison and H.G. Wells in the character of the three-book series about The Perfect Warrior. The lead operative takes the name of Ralph Wells because he is an Invisible Man. In his case, literally. He and his partner, Sammy who is not invisible, work directly for the American President.
  
  
• 01/01/2024 - Happy New Year!!! I am looking forward to an exciting next 366 days of reading a ton of new - and old - spy series. And who knows how many old secret agent operative friends will drop by for another visit? What a fantastic hobby!!!
  
  
• 12/31/2023 - I mentioned in My Comments for the entry today about Mary Bennet that I have never been a fan of "taking people from the past, either real or literary, and turning them into fictional agents". That is the case today but in this case, I really LIKED it. It is a three-book series well written and quite entertaining and I would not mind whatsoever having the series continued.
  
  
• 12/27/2023 - "Fun action-packed series." That is the way I close My Comments on today's entrant. It is an ensemble work which has two main stars but other players as well so I went with the name that the author/publisher used for the series, the rather unusual name of The Salt Mine.
  
  
• 12/25/2023 - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Author Jack Mars has already given spy-action fans two darn fine series to enjoy and now I enter into the compendium a third. To show how slow I can be, there were 4 books in the series when I first started reading it last year - now there are 7. Mighty busy men, both Jack Mars and Jacob Snow.
  
  
• 12/23/2023 - I swear I did not plan this. Would have liked to, but no! Just a strange coincidence. What am I rambling on about? Currently every odd day I take the next series I have ready for 'publication' and add it to What's New. Today it is Nick Campos, a former Army Ranger who will go on to work for the CIA. What makes this entry, and the series itself, noteworthy, especially as we approach Xmas Eve is that through events outlined in the book and touched on in my write-up, he becomes .... Saint Nick!! Ho! Ho! Ho!
  
  
• 12/21/2023 - "Lots and lots of action here." That is how I finished My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium. A veteran of many years in the field handling a lot of sticky situations, Janusz Soltani has been lucky to come back alive each time but he knows he is pushing his odds, as does his wife.
  
  
• 12/19/2023 - We are taking really fun trips back in time to exciting, scary, and thrilling periods that seem both just yesterday (to me) and almost ancient history. 1975, 1978, 1982, etc. We are following Mike Cummins, a former swift-boat captain who is called upon by the CIA now and then for little jobs they have for him and his expertise in getting into deadly places and out of them. Terrific adventures!
  
  
• 12/17/2023 - I got a chuckle when I wrote in My Comments on the page for new entrant Cari Porter that I wondered which of author Mike Ryan's excellent series I would like to see a new adventure in. He has several so picking is hard. I think I would decide on Ms. Porter.
  
  
• 12/15/2023 - In My Comments for today's entrant, I said " I was so darned hooked that I devoured each of the four books and then looked for more. Didn't find any more - yet!" I meant it, big time. Mind you, there were some interesting, non-spy-genre things going on but they just make the story more interesting. Levi Yoder is a fascinating character about whom I hope to hear more in the future.
  
  
• 12/13/2023 - JAMES BOND FANS! There is a terrific new reference guide to all the books in the series that came AFTER the creator, Ian Fleming, passed away.
  I do not often mention an individual book in my What's New! section but I make an exception today because Mark Edlitz has given us another terrific look into the series. To quote a blurb about James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation Novels: this excellent guide "include scores of books about Bond’s dangerous adventures, movie novelizations, a pseudo-biography, and various spin-off series about the teenage Bond, the Secret Service’s beloved secretary Miss Moneypenny, and the next generation agents in the Double O division."
  Plus, it has a fantastic cover which goes well with the awesome intel inside.
  
  
• 12/13/2023 - For today we offer membership into the compendium for a man who served many years in the American Special Forces before being hired by the CIA and working as an analyst for a while before being offered a position in a very mysterious, hush-hush organization. Connor Sloane is the man's name and he is a very capable man to follow. More interesting to me, though, is Anastasia Brown. She is almost the star (IMHO) and is a lot of scary fun to follow.
  
  
• 12/11/2023 - Today we welcome into the compendium a woman who I label as a "freelance agent" working occasionally with the CIA. Hailey Robson also has connections with Langley outside her some time work - both her parents are connected with the Agency. Even if they were not, though, she would still be worth reading about.
  
  
• 12/09/2023 - Operative 66 for the SC9 which, according to what Alex Reeve tells us does not officiall exist, is the entrant into the compendium today. The author of these tales, Andy McDermott, is a man I have been reading for several years with his Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase series. I am pleased to welcome both Reeve and McDermott.
  
  
• 12/07/2023 - Entering the compendium today is a man who does not really care one way or the other whether you like him - in fact he seems to go out of his way to demonstrate that ambivalence. Beau Valentine is the man and we follow him during WWII and a decade after.
  
  
• 12/05/2023 - I have nice things to say about the author of toda's entrant into the compendium, Steven Konkoly. He writes in several genres and, IMHO, he is darn good in all of them. His Devin Gray is just the latest that I have read and enjoyed. He gives a terrific twist to the life of lead character Gray and his much-maligned mother.
  
  
• 12/03/2023 - Trying to find info about today's entrant has proven quite tricky so if you know anything about K27 Of The Secret Service, I would love to hear from you. Actually, if you have anything to say about spy fiction, I'd love to hear from you. Cheers!
  
  
• 12/01/2023 - I stated in the beginning of My Comments for the series we are entering into the compendium today that "I loved the beginning of this series as the author had me intrigued albeit stumped". Why, you can read by heading to the Eden Klein page.
  
  
• 11/29/2023 - In MyComments for this two-book series (with a 3rd one on tap for June of next year) about MI6 agent Elliot Kane I state that "I am looking forward to his next adventure." I meant it and when you read these adventures, you likely will be as well.
  
  
• 11/27/2023 - The fictional history of the CIA working with all sorts of low-lifes to accomplish their objectives is huge. Working the other side of the street, however - not so much. That is one of the reason why this series about Father Anthony Fowler is so interesting. This fellow works for both the CIA and the Vatican.
  
  
• 11/25/2023 - As I ponder in My Comments for today's entrant, what would I do if an old girlfriend asked me to stop what I was doing and help her sneak into North Korea? Ah, no, thank you! Not Sam Harper. This U.S. Army Ranger says, sure, why not! So starts a three-book, one novella action-packed series.
  
  
• 11/23/2023 - I enjoy the occasional genre-melding and today's entrant is just that. The action adventures of turn-of-the-20th-Century private investigator and part-time government agent Johann Gunther is a very busy man and we are shown five of his exciting cases spanning a decade and a half.
  
  
• 11/23/2023 - Happy Thanksgiving! It is very late in the evening and I have pleasantly recovering from an enjoyable day with my grown family; wonderful conversation and awesome food and then my wife and I sat down to watch the first of the many Xmas rom-coms we have already recorded. I truly enjoy those sappy movies - if only they would have something blow up now and then! Oh well!!
  
  
• 11/21/2023 - Return with us now to those thrilling days ... wait, that's a line from the into to the Lone Ranger. Sorry, dated myself! ... Although that is not a bad thing considering today's entrant into the compendium. Florence Fairweather is a not-young woman who assists her husband, Sir Henry, head of the British Secret Service during the opening days of WWII. By assist I mean she heads over to the Continent to start setting up her spy network consisting of women a whole lot braver than I would have been.
  
  
• 11/19/2023 - I became a big fan of author MIke Gomes when checking out his Falau Files series which I enjoyed a bunch but decided did not fit the requirements of this site. Happily his adventures with Gabriela, the Fighting Mantis definitely do so I am pleased to invite her to join the compendium today.
  
  
• 11/17/2023 - I just noticed with a bit of red on my face that I got the order I had planned to introduce today's entrant into the compendium mixed up with the previous newcomer. I had mentioned in the entry that Nathan Grant was introduced in the Natalia Nicolaeva series of 4 excellent adventure, not realizing that I had yet to introduce her. Oh, dear. Well, here she is and let me tell you, she is a lot of fun to read.
  
  
• 11/15/2023 - An interesting fellow from the CIA, Nathan Grant, joins the compendium today. We met him originally in an adventure in the Natalia Nicolaeva series but he then got his own starring role and he deserves it. Good books!
  
  
• 11/13/2023 - The words I used to start My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium are: "I wanted the television series taken from the awesome movie to be good. I really, really did. I loved the movie Tasker family and I started out liking the television Tasker family. Then I - sigh! - changed my mind." Said movie/television spy series is True Lies and my comments were dead on. The movie was awesome! The television show, not so much. I wondered at times, did the writers of the TV episodes ever, really watch the movie? Even once? Once again ... sigh!
  
  
• 11/11/2023 - For today's entrant into the compendium, my opening statement in the My Comment section is, "From the get-go this series is quite a hoot." I definitely mean it and if you pick up this three-book series (and you should and hopefully the author will give us more) you will likely feel the same way. Adam Crest of MI6 is a fun character to follow.
  
  
• 11/09/2023 - In the write-up for My Comments in today's entrant into the compendium, I take the blame for the cancellation of the one-season spy/crime series with the unusual name of The Company You Keep. It's my fault because I was really enjoying this tale of a con-artist family being pushed to help a CIA agent and being pushed to help a would-be crime boss. I liked it a bunch. Kiss of death!!! My fault.
  
  
• 11/07/2023 - A British Secret Service agent who I describe as having a chaos wish joins the compendium today with a two-book series. John Caul seems to constantly find a way to have chaos explode all around him and it is a lot of fun to way (from the safety of reading off the pages) to watch.
  
  
• 11/05/2023 - We are heading back to WWII in a recently penned series of excellent novellas about Eve Beringar, the series of which is titled Eve's War. These are really worth the read and are short enough to get through most in one sitting. Terrific adventures.
  
  
• 11/03/2023 - Today's newcomer to the compendium is Logan Connor, an agent for an unnamed American intelligence agency. Connor is pretty good at seeing the bad things about to happen but his bosses are pretty bad at listening to him so he sorta has to take care of things himself.
  
  
• 11/01/2023 - Okay, I will just get it out straight-away. Wonder Woman. There you are, today's entrant into the compendium. But to clarify, this is ONLY the iteration of that fantastic superhero who spent time as a part of the American Intelligence community in the 70s, represented by the awesome Lynda Carter.
  
  
• 10/31/2023 - I am traveling back in time, 61 years to be exact, and a spin-off to Craig Steven's Man of the World series with the Argentinian Carlos Varela, aka The Sentimental Agent. It was a short-lived (half a season) ITV drama where Varela is a businessman who gets involved, all the time, with spies and spy-related matters. Fun show.
  
  
• 10/29/2023 - A quarter-century ago (wow! that long?) a short-lived television spy series named Three because of the - you guessed it - three main agents showed up on WB network (before it became the CW). I only got to watch a couple back then and can find none now. Shame. Anyways, that show joins the compendium today so, 'Welcome!'
  
  
• 10/27/2023 - Today we welcome to the compendium Harper Cambridge, a future agent whose activities are detailed for us in the two-book series called The Genesis Files by Bonnie Synclaire. I enjoyed reading these adventures, enough to regret there are only the two.
  
  
• 10/25/2023 - A two-book series by John Pullen about an international team of counter-terrorists joins the compendium today. The team goes by the name of Sword but the series is better known as Rogue Patriot.
  
  
• 10/23/2023 - It is not often we have an entry into the compendium whose introduction to us has her standing on a stage in a seedy bar baring her everything. That is how we meet Katya Peter, though, and how we find her getting involved with an agent with the National Intelligence Agency and becoming one herself.
  
  
• 10/21/2023 - We return to the 1580s today with another series of spy adventures on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I and her spymaster, Francis Walsingham, a fellow who has been the boss of several spies already in this compendium. Today the poor fellow having to work with this taskmaster is his nephew, Tom Walsingham but do not expect family connections to make things easier for young Tom. Quite the opposite, in fact, as you will find in this three-book [so far but hopefully more to come] series that I really liked. The writing is quite excellent!
  
  
• 10/19/2023 - The final words in My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium says a whole lot about the two-book series dealing with Lyndsey Duncan - ' I am anticipating her next adventure'. I really like the first two and am sure I will the next one, which I hope will be soon.
  
  
• 10/17/2023 - Another winning action-adventure-spy series from a man who has already created two such series that I really enjoyed. Now, with Troy Stark and his awesome colleague, Dubois, we have a third from author Jack Mars.
  
  
• 10/15/2023 - A really fun return to the late 30s in a couple of highly enjoyable adventures recently penned - that is what you get when you delve into the world of French pilot Yann Vatel and the kind of trouble that he finds which gets him deeply involved with spies. Tack on the very memorable Elizabeth Kelly and you had have found yourself a great two-book read; a third is set to come out soon.
  
  
• 10/13/2023 - Joining the compendium today is a CIA assassin - wait, they don't really have those kind of employs, do they? Well, he wants to quit anyways. Jack Hunter only keeps doing what he does because his boss keeps trickling out data that Hunter wants a little at a time. Want more, Jack? Here's someone I'd like removed.
  
  
• 10/11/2023 - Interesting coincidence today in the entrant to the compendium - instead of a woman named Jane who worked for an agency named Knight, we have a woman working for British Intelligence with the name Jane Knight. There are four adventures in this series. Curious what your thoughts of it are.
  
  
• 10/09/2023 - Welcoming into the compendium a new member today, let us say hello to Jane Browne, a fairly average name for a very non-average operative with the foreboding Knight Agency. She is known as the 'Ice Queen' for the cold-blooded way she handles problems while on a mission.
  
  
• 10/07/2023 - A series written a couple of years ago taking us back a couple of decades ago joins the compendium today as we welcome Brady Kinin. This fellow is an agent with an obscure American intelligence group called the Defense Security Agency involved in 4 pretty enjoyable adventures.
  
  
• 10/05/2023 - Being a huge fan of spy-fi but also loving other genres, I like it when I find a series that crossover. This is another one to recommend for other mixed-genre readers: QIA. That stands for the Quantum Infraction Agency which goes after bad guys messin' with the time continuum. The agent we mostly follow in this large collection of short stories is Sarah Cunnington and she is a hoot!
  
  
• 10/03/2023 - WOW!! I do not point out an individual novel often but when asked to take a read of a debut novel, I said why not and was sent a copy of the book A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont. The following is what I wrote as a review: "This is a fantastic debut novel!! I am hoping that he does a sequel so I can add his hero, Simon Sharman, to the SpyGuysAndGals compendium of spy series; I will do so quickly and if the second is anywhere as good as the first, expect an A+ grade. It is not often that I am totally hooked by an opening line but "It is their shoes that give them away." - wow! Such a simple sentence but one that grabbed me immediately and had me reading the rest of the paragraph and then the page and then ... again, wow! And the prose is so darn good; he uses just a few words to set a feeling so you not only know the character is in a room or a park or train station, you are there with him. Mr. Beaumont, you have made yet another fan!"
  
  
• 10/03/2023 - I present for membership in this compendium today Antoine Springer, an agent with the UNI or maybe UNIT or maybe the Agency (but not the CIA). If that sounds confusing, well, it will not be lonely because there is a lot confusing about this two-book, or maybe three-ish-book, series.
  
  
• 10/01/2023 - In the late 50s and early 60s, television viewers were given a way different take on the organization of Interpol, at least as I understand it to have really been. To the best of my knowledge, it was not about fighting spies but crooks. One of those shows giving the wrong, but far more entertaining, idea was the Man From Interpol which came in 1960, gave us 39 adventures that year, and then went away.
  
  
• 09/29/2023 - I was a tad apprehensive about this series when I read a bit by the man who recruits Spencer Garmond to be a secret agent, telling young Garmond that he would be working for "an international intelligence organization that does the Lord's work". I was pleased to find the writing was very good with lots of action and not that much preaching. This series is designed for young adults but not that terribly young, IMHO.
  
  
• 09/27/2023 - We pop back almost a decade to join up with a young but experienced reporter who during the 1950s finds himself more than once thrown into the cloak-and-dagger world because of his investigations into things some dangerous people don't want reported. Dennis Collins should have looked the other way, except being the good newsman he is, he cannot.
  
  
• 09/25/2023 - Back in my day, well, we didn't have adventures like those of Max Flash, a kid who is invited to become a secret agent. Just wasn't done! ... Darn shame because as a young reader, I would have scarfed them up. This cute but over the top series is meant for 7-11 year old readers.
  
  
• 09/23/2023 - There are a lot of people who have a problem with a sitting President. Any sitting President. Someone will have issues with that individual. In the case of today's entrant into the compendium, Max Geller, well, boy! Does this CIA agent have an issue! Two books so far and I hope there will be more.
  
  
• 09/21/2023 - A two-book series, the first book written a dozen years ago and the second just recently, dealing with a part-time agent for MI6 joins the compendium today. Peter Sinclair learns the hard way sitting down to a simple meal with an MI6 recruiter can have unexpected results.
  
  
• 09/19/2023 - A very enjoyable spy series intended for young adults joins the compendium today. I, Q is the name of the series dealing with the missions of Quest 'Q' Munoz. This is the type of series I wish had been around when I was young.
  
  
• 09/17/2023 - Written roughly 15 years old about adventures taking place roughly 80 years ago, today's entrant into the compendium has the unusual name of Pucci Lewis. It makes her sound as adorable as she actually is and the two tales of her activities as both a pilot ferrying aircraft around the globe and her escapades with the OSS are just as terrific as her name.
  
  
• 09/15/2023 - I love it when I can invite into the compendium a series by a master of his craft and that is what I am doing today. The series about Frank Compton was penned over a decade ago by the incredible author of science fiction, Timothy Zahn. It was terrific enough that I gave it an 'A' grade - it definitely deserved it!
  
  
• 09/13/2023 - As I said in My Comments for this series, dubbed the Ferryman Trilogy by the author/publisher, I let the first couple of books languish on my TBR stack for far too long for no particular reason. Shouldn't have because this is a very well crafted, gritty series that I enjoyed a good deal. Richard James is a British agent for the Circus who does not get a fair break - ever!
  
  
• 09/11/2023 - Today I welcome to the compendium a 7-book series which is said to be for 9-12 year-olds but I would recommend several years more - IMHO. That aside, I really, really enjoyed this series about Jason Steed. Very interesting characters, lots of scary situations to get out of, and pacing that is top-notch.
  
  
• 09/09/2023 - The aviation pulp fiction author Donald Keyhoe was an impressively prolific writer who sometimes, it seems, single-handedly filled issues of magazines like Sky Bird and Flying Aces. He created several terrific characters who had long running series. I think likely the last of his creations, coming just as the Second World War was underway, is today's entrant into the compendium. Eric Trent was billed as a spy but I have him down as an adventurer who did a lot of spying while he also did his baker's dozen adventures.
  
  
• 09/07/2023 - Today an U.S. Air Force Major joins the compendium because he is part of the DoD's Triple Seven Chase squadron, "the most effective clandestine unit" it has. There are two adventures available about Nick Baron, penned just over a decade ago. It is a mixture of military action (cool flying) and on-the-ground espionage work.
  
  
• 09/05/2023 - Take a female agent with the FBI and a male agent with Mossad and have them each work on their own case until at some point along the trail they end up working together. How and when changes with each adventure. What does not change is how interesting this series is - and fun to read. Lara & Uri have five adventures so far and I hope there will be more.
  
  
• 09/03/2023 - A retired Chief Warrant Officer who is happy in his new life and not looking for anything to change that finds himself, well, involved in things that change that. Artemus Newton is the name of the fellow and he likes his cat so he is alright in my book. His adventures are pretty enjoyable so you should check them and him out, not to mention his new lady friend, Alexis, who is really interesting.
  
  
• 09/01/2023 - Today we invite into the compendium a fellow that I would love to sit and have a meal with or maybe sip a cold one or just chit chat. I know Max Springer would not divulge any of his CIA secrets, either from before his retirement or from when they bring him back several times, but the man would have some fascinating observations I could sit ant listen to for hours. Reading his five-book adventure series will have to do.
  
  
• 08/31/2023 - Today's entry is a three-adventure young adult series about a School For S.P.I.E.S. that hires its teen agents out to pay the bills. The tales follow the missions of Max Segredo and are a cute change of pace though not right for a steady diet.
  
  
• 08/29/2023 - Popping back nearly a quarter century (wow, that does not seem right) we invite into the compendium today a spy series devoted to The Agency itself. In fact, that was the name of the television program which ran for two years and had some pretty impressive adventures which I fondly remember.
  
  
• 08/27/2023 - Joining the compendium today are two agents, Charlotte Locke and Desmond Percy, with Section 47. The two adventures, so far, fall into the Urban Fantasy sub-genre as these are definitely paranormal operatives, each with a special power. I was particularly impressed with the description of one of those powers, Synesthesia, and you should read my write-up to see the definition!
  
  
• 08/25/2023 - From 1980 comes a two-book series about a super-spy who is a fair amount past his prime, something I found enjoyable back in the day but now that the description more than fits me (past prime, not super) it is even better. Please check out Roger Wagner.
  
  
• 08/23/2023 - I adore finding obscure spy series from the past - and that is what today's entrant into the compendium is - except when, like this one, I cannot find any copies to read myself so I can talk more intelligently about them. Horatio Fable - such a terrific name!! - is a British agent working for The Agency in the late 1960s. That is about all I know!!!
  
  
• 08/21/2023 - "I would recommend it for someone wanting a quick taste of something different." That is the way I end My Comments for an interesting albeit strange short series about a female KGB agent sent to So Cal in the mid 60's. Svetlana Ivanova is the operative's name in this three-novella series packaged into one collection.
  
  
• 08/19/2023 - A CIA agent joins the compendium today - not an unusual occurance, I'll grant you. What makes this one a bit different was the history of tracking down the different adventures there were of Jackson Black, aka Genesis aka JB. Well,, unless I got it all wrong.
  
  
• 08/17/2023 - This must be a week for heaping accolades on author Simon Conway because just a couple days ago I sang his praise on a series and here I am doing so again on a different character. Quite a bit different but still the quality expected from Mr. Conway. Jonah Said is an operative with the Department and has no qualms about admitting he is a spook. He is a very good one and I enjoyed the two adventures about him quite a lot.
  
  
• 08/15/2023 - In My Comments for today's entrant into this compendium, I start with "A word that I have used very sparingly over the years towards anyone's writing but one that definitely applies to the words put on paper by author Simon Conway is 'delicious'. If you treat yourself and read any of the three books in the Jude Lyon series (and you should read all three), you will likely see why.
  
  
• 08/13/2023 - Return with me to the 50s in a three-book (so far) series penned just recently. Wade McCall (great name for a character) is a former Marine who decides to give Hollywood a try and then decides to become a government agent. "Now he's a spy pretending to be an actor-or is it the other way around?" This is a very enjoyable series which I hope will continue for a while as McCall is a hoot.
  
  
• 08/11/2023 - A man who had made a very successful career as a cellist, even attaining a reputation as 'the Dark Cellist' for his brooding expression and dashing looks, decides he wants to do something more and offers his services to MI6. They accept. The three books that make up the Xander Ross trilogy tell of his early days with that organization, a middle period, and as he nears the end of his career. These are darn good reads.
  
  
• 08/09/2023 - As I mention in My Comments for this new entrant, I was a big fan of the author from another action-packed series so was thrilled when he introduced Jason Wake in a new set of adventures which more than qualified for membership here. Welcome to both the character and the author, both deserving it.
  
  
• 08/07/2023 - Here is a strange contradiction - I gave today's entrant into the compendium a low grade of B- (and almost went with a C+) and yet I loved the series a lot. Way too much, probably, because it really did not deserve any grade higher. But I devoured each of the too few adventures I could find. Pussycat was the name of the wonderfully often undressed comicbook female secret agent who would later become an investigative reporter. Not to be confused with the prose adventure Girl from Pussycat, this one was named Pussycat. And she was a hoot!!
  
  
• 08/05/2023 - For today's entrant we welcome a very obscure secret agent from Down Under, circa the comicbook realm in 1943: Secret Agent XXX13. There is not a whole lot known about this chap but what I could find, I mention on that page.
  
  
• 08/03/2023 - As I said in My Comments for today's entrant, I found this series about Secret Agent Granny a hoot. It is basically a mystery series investigated by a CIA agent forced by age and policy to retire but Barbara Gold, a widow and a grandmother, has no plans to take it easy but does need something to do - solving the occasional murder is one such something and she leaps at the chance, often using her Agency skills doing so.
  
  
• 08/01/2023 - Beginning in 1965, highly skilled author Bill Knox penned 4 stories of espionage dealing with a British private investigator who is on call to a small intelligence agency literally just down the hall. Cam Gordon starred in these tales and they were all fun to read. I do not think there were any more and I wonder why no one has bothered to repackage them into a single volume - hint hint!
  
  
• 07/31/2023 - If we head back in time to 1971 we can sit down and watch the action movies about female spy Ginger McAllister. There were, luckily, only three of them. One is fun. Two is not so much. Three is ...
  
  
• 07/29/2023 - The immensely gifted and skilled author K. J. Kalis has again gifted readers with a new series which I enjoyed a whole lot and think you will as well. Jess Montgomery is an analyst for a private intelligence organization who finds herself in the thick of things a lot more than most analysts would and while she has to deal with those dangerous and unpleasant events, we get to enjoy reading about her.
  
  
• 07/27/2023 - I wrote in My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium, "Another terrific character put into terrific scenarios and allowed to find terrific solutions to problems". The author is K.J. Kalis and the CIA operative is Travis Bishop and you really need to check this 4-book (so far) series out. You'll thank me!
  
  
• 07/25/2023 - If you are looking for a CIA agent who is guaranteed to get into major mayhem and then pound his way out again, you need look no further than Clive Carter's exciting Tyson Greer adventures.
  
  
• 07/23/2023 - How's this for embarrassing? I try to make note of every century mark in entries - 2000, 2100, 2200, and so on - and I missed completely that I had gone past 2300. Wow, observant, aren't I? Oh, well! Today I welcome a cute-but-no-more two adventure series for kids starring Frankie Fox, Girl Spy.
  
  
• 07/21/2023 - I asked in the My Comments section of the page devoted to pre-WWII British operative Barnaby Allen whether it was possible for the author, Alex Gerlis, to write a bad series. I answered that I did not believe so. Boy, can that man craft a story and a series.
  
  
• 07/19/2023 - Walking into the room, figuratively, of course, and taking his rightful place in the compendium is a British MI6 agent who is treated like dog poo by his bosses and then asked to put his life on the line yet again and ... he does it. As I say in my comments, Solomon Vine is a better man than I. He is also a whole lot of fun reading.
  
  
• 07/17/2023 - We meet this new entrant into the compendium in the pages of another member, Joe Johnson, which I said was a savory pleasure and I meant it. One of the best parts of his tales was when Jayne Robinson came into the picture and now the author has graced us with several tales of her. Awesome!
  
  
• 07/15/2023 - A very short two-novella series that mixes spy-fi and paranormal activity joins the compendium today. As I alluded to in my comments, it will not be for everyone's tastes but I enjoyed reading about Randolph Lowe and even more about his partner, Stella.
  
  
• 07/13/2023 - A trilogy about an American Intelligence operative working before and into the Second World War joins the compendium today. A trilogy and a couple more, which I was pleased to discover. The trilogy ended nicely and then the author returned a bit later with some of what happened afterwards. I hope he continues as Ryan Lemmon has some exciting and interesting adventures.
  
  
• 07/11/2023 - Today we welcome to the compendium an FBI agent named Jake Kruse whose undercover work throws him into situations where he has to deal with CIA agents and other members of the intelligence community far more than with normal criminals. Wait, that sounded wrong...
  
  
• 07/09/2023 - Oh, yeah, meant to mention today's new member in the compendium. Laura Messier is a CIA agent with bosses who wished she wasn't because she does not like doing things their way but who has an annoying habit of getting the mission done despite them.
  
  
• 07/09/2023 - Happy Birthday to me! I made it another year and had we bothered to put candles on the awesome cupcakes we enjoyed, there would have been 71. Not enough room!!! Those not so small mini-cakes were awesome, though.
  
  
• 07/07/2023 - An enjoyable series that has just two adventures joins the compendium today. Mike Garin is an operative with America's Military Intelligence and he finds a whole lot of action in both tales. The author, Peter Kirsanow, has now moved to taking over another series by a now deceased author so I do not know if there will be any more Garin tales.
  
  
• 07/05/2023 - The deft writing skills of Andrew Watts who has already gifted readers with two darn good series has done it again with Colt McShane a CIA agent who goes into action as a NOC time and again. Good stuff here!
  
  
• 07/03/2023 - Returning to the second half of the 50s with a two-book series penned in the last year or two, we watch a private investigator who is also in the employ of an American spy organization. His two adventures are strong and quite entertaining, leaving me wanting more Augustus Benedict, as is desired.
  
  
• 07/01/2023 - Let's head Down South to meet a very interesting operative for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Sam Weston has a pretty interesting sideline going in addition to his work with that organization. There are 4 really exciting adventures about him and one prequel about his parents; all worthy of reading and enjoying.
  
  
• 06/29/2023 - Another operative from the pages of the interesting and too-shortly-lived British comicbook series, S.A.T.A.N. is Mike Kincaid. We never learn much about him but we are able to follow him on at least three adventures that I have learned about.
  
  
• 06/27/2023 - From the very prolific and very, very gifted pen (metaphorically, I am assuming - as much as this man produces and I have enjoyed, I hope he uses a keyboard) comes a two-novella series about a fellow I would not want to make mad at me but who I would love being able to sic on the bad guys - Richard Yokely. I applaud the character, the plotlines, and the shortened medium.
  
  
• 06/25/2023 - Popping back to the mid-60s over in Britain for a very short comicbook series done in two-panels-per-page, 64-page format as part of the short run of S.A.T.A.N. spy adventures, we welcome Adam LeBec to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/23/2023 - Today we give a hearty welcome to a new member, this chap coming from the ranks of the old Soviet Union's notorious NKVD. Alexsi Smirnov is the chap's name and as I mention in the write-up, he also sort of works for the Gestapo. Mostly, though, and understandably in his case, he works for himself.
  
  
• 06/21/2023 - A bit over two decades ago (wow! that long?) I watched the first season of a spy show that I enjoyed largely because of it being my first real introduction to its costar, Dennis Haysbert. He captivated me with his voice - and still does. The show was quite entertaining as well. It lasted but one season, unfortunately. It had the odd title of Now And Again.
  
  
• 06/19/2023 - For today's new member, we issue an invite to Agent Red. I would use her real name here except, well, I never learn it and neither will you. I do not even think Agent Blue, her fellow operative, knows it. But as I say in my write-up, I am intrigued, albeit nervous, around anyone who comments that she had never killed before but is looking forward to it.
  
  
• 06/17/2023 - Today we welcome to the compendium Trowbridge 'Bridger' Hall, the head of an interesting group of operatives who go by the collective name of The Spy Devils. Two books in this series with an enjoyable pulp feel to it (to me anyways).
  
  
• 06/15/2023 - A cute series designed for young kids about a precocious youngster who is mistaken for a grown-up highly experienced operative joins the compendium today. There are six books and one movie out telling the silly but entertaining adventures of Secret Agent Dingledorf.
  
  
• 06/13/2023 - The term 'Diva' is used in the title of the first adventure in the series entering the compendium today. I do not think it fair. Fun, entertaining, fascinating, terrific. Those are words I would use to describe Benita Jenkins, a woman from the hood who gets shoved into the cloak-and-dagger world and learns how to shove back (well, truth be told, she knew how already).
  
  
• 06/11/2023 - How about a really well written series about a former CIA agent who is brought back into the fold for more adventures; something he did not want to have happen but probably needed for his own well-being. That is what we get with the highly enjoyable and definitely deserving of a read Michael Wolfe three-book (so far) series from J. C. Fields.
  
  
• 06/09/2023 - A three-book series about a CIA agent who is really not treated very well by his employers takes his seat at the metaphorical table today by joining the compendium. John Clooney is an agent who is apparently too stubborn to quit but luckily for us, is an agent that is fun to read about.
  
  
• 06/07/2023 - While there have been a good number of series about ultra-secret agencies out to quietly affect the world as we know it, this series takes an interesting twist when it has its main character, Kate Adler, take a leadership role.
  
  
• 06/05/2023 - We often go back in time for historical spy series but we do not have that many instances where we pop forward for futuristic spy adventures. Here is one that will entice and entertain anyone who likes the occasional genre-mixing. The excellent sci-fi author, John Brunner, gives us two tales about the talented and fun-to-follow galactic agent Maddalena Santos, written back in 1962 about a distant future.
  
  
• 06/03/2023 - I state in My Comments for the Spy Gear Adventures, today's entrant into the compendium, that had these books been around when I was a kid, I would have spent every penny I worked for to get hold of them. They were just the sort of thing I would have loved as a tween and early teen. Not too bad for an old duffer, either.
  
  
• 06/01/2023 - We are again heading back in time for today's entrant into the compendium but instead of the tales being written 'back then' about its present time, the two adventures about Attica Morgan presented here are recent writes dealing with activity back in the time of the French Revolution. Morgan is one terrific hero to follow - although not too closely as she does not like that.
  
  
• 05/31/2023 - We slide 61 years back in time for the release of the first book in the Slade McGinty series of private detective - cum spy - adventures. These five excellent "enquiry agent" tales which poke their figurative toes over onto the espionage turf to warrant membership ship are a lot of fun to read and savor.
  
  
• 05/29/2023 - From 90 years ago - roughly as these were published in 1935 - comes four stories found in the pages of Operator 5 magazine about an American Intelligence operative named Gregory Grex. Moderately good stories meant to fill the pages and not outshine the star. Successful!
  
  
• 05/27/2023 - Have I got a series for you! Well, the author, S. Lee Manning, does, not me, but I have the pleasure of introducing into the compendium one terrific series. There are already three fascinating and captivating adventures about Kolya Petrov, an operative with a hush-hush American agency and I hope there will be more because Ms. Manning can definitely tell a terrific story.
  
  
• 05/25/2023 - A two-book series intended for young readers joins the compendium today. Maddie Robinson is one of the Super Secret Super Spies who work for the Illuminati - yep, them guys again. The series is a very fast and enjoyable read for youngsters and oldsters like myself.
  
  
• 05/23/2023 - We head back a decade to get the first book in a series which takes us back 250 years to read how a young Lieutenant in Washington's Army is asked to become a spy. Jeremiah Creed is not excited about the new job but he is a patriot out to do what is needed. Good writing makes this historical spy series a fun read.
  
  
• 05/21/2023 - From the pages of Operator 5 Magazine back in the mid-1930s and on comes an 11-short story series about John Vedders, an agent with American Military Intelligence. These almost-a-dozen tales were penned by the terrific author Frank Gruber.
  
  
• 05/19/2023 - We are heading back in time for today's entrant. Really far back in time, actually. 1899, to be exact. The popular magazine Cassell's was apparently the place to go for excellent fiction and it printed a half dozen stories about "a diplomatic woman" named Aide Lerestelle who I describe as a part-time agent. She did her clever clandestine work on behalf of the French and loved every minute of it.
  
  
• 05/17/2023 - Not quite a decade ago on Netflix a fun light-hearted spy series intended for tweens and young teens - mostly girls - gave spy-fi fans 26 episodes about McKeyla McAlister who was a secret agent when not in school - okay, sometimes even while she is in school. The delightful show was Project Mc².
  
  
• 05/15/2023 - Still involved in moving so my entries are sporadic at best. Moving after living in one place for 19 years - wow! Did we accumulate a load of stuff!! Now, on to today's entry. We go back in time to 1991 and a short run (half season) show about an undercover agent who wants to come in out of the cold but someone fears what he may reveal so .... The series is The Exile.
  
  
• 05/13/2023 - I am entering today's new member of the compendium from inside our new home in Greenville, NC. It is 7:00 am and there are no blinds up on the window yet and it is very, very bright in this office as I enter the too-short series about Eva Kiesler. Just a trio of stories about her but I enjoyed them and wished there had been more.
  
  
• 05/11/2023 - Still moving! Actual first of two days of hiring big strong guys to load the truck we rented, my driving that truck to the new house, and other guys unloading it. Decades ago I was one of those guys but at 70+, not so much these days.
  Still, it is time to new member to the compendium and it is a silly but still fun series whose concept is ridiculous but since the animated Bruno The Kid has the voice of Bruce Willis, I'll take it!
  
  
• 05/09/2023 - I am moving! Not my website. Me personally. Actually my wife is moving and said I could go with her; that is pretty cool because I adore that lady. Anyways!!! Just so you know, my entries for the next week will be sketchy.
  For today we admit to the compendium a too-short-lived television series that I really liked but which not enough others did: Intelligence was well written and acted and still did not survive.
  
  
• 05/07/2023 - Let us pop way, way into the future. How far, um, way far. We have the Association of Planets which has a secret Association Intelligence Agency which does not exist and one of its agents is Bert Mangum and he is a very cool, ultra-capable operative who has a secret weapon on Sam who looks like a golden retriever/poodle fix but is really a shape-shifting alien. This is a fun, fun series.
  
  
• 05/05/2023 - Entering the compendium today is a man who for over a decade did everything his employer, an ultra-secret department known only as the Agency (not the CIA). Sam Bradford then breaks a major rule by thinking for himself. This causes trouble for him but entertaining reading for us.
  
  
• 05/03/2023 - Today's series entry places a British agent in Hong Kong back in the very late 60s and then follows the events for when after he disappears, asking the question "What happened to Hong Kong Tom?" and then answering it - bit by bit.
  
  
• 05/01/2023 - May Day! No trouble. I just like saying it. Today I present a series about a pretty interesting assassin named Slade Heller, written by Kronos Ananthsimha. That author has a terrific website where he penned many interesting reviews of action thrillers - at least he did since there has not been anything new in almost a year. Now on his Heller stories, I love the fact that he has chosen to tell them in novella and short story format - I wish more authors would go that route. Such an under-utilized style. Oh, the Heller stories are pretty darn good too!
  
  
• 04/29/2023 - Imagine a series with 3 books and a couple of novellas - not unusual. Toss in over a dozen movies. That makes it rarer. Add 3 dozen plus television episodes. Now we are in very rare air. And finally we talk about more than 400 - yep, 400 - radio adventures. That is The Adventures Of The Falcon. Impressive series with a heck of an interesting history. I had a blast researching it.
  
  
• 04/27/2023 - From 1947 and 1953 comes a two-book spy series about MI5 agent John Benham published under the penname of Michael Home. Solid, interesting storytelling by a man who had already more than proven how good a writer he was by having a success under his real name of Christopher Bush with his Ludovic Travers series of amateur sleuth tales.
  
  
• 04/25/2023 - For today's entrant we invite to join Kit Scarlett, a British operative whose exploits are being crafted today but deal with her activities back in the 1580s. She is particularly interesting because she was selected at a very young age and groomed to become the experienced and capable operative who we can follow in 4 (so far) enjoyable adventures.
  
  
• 04/23/2023 - Imagine it is the mid-60s and a shapely female operative for American Intelligence is on a beach but still wants a weapon available. Would you sew a knife blade into your swimsuit bottom? I wouldn't but today's entrant into the compendium, Francis Bascom Ivy, does. Not a woman to mess with.
  
  
• 04/21/2023 - From now 25 years ago (that long??? wow!) comes a three-book series for young adults about a kid agent named Jeremy Brown who works for MI7 which specializes in using child operatives. He is fun to follow but his 'partner', Patsy Spudd, is someone to keep your eye on.
  
  
• 04/19/2023 - From 1964-1968 come a dozen stories about a police officer turned police detective turned Military Intelligence investigator. Joe Rodriguez was the character's name and the stories were good and professional though Joe was never really, IMHO, fleshed out. Still, they are good for historians and I would love to get my hands on the few that have thus far eluded me.
  
  
• 04/17/2023 - Something new for this compendium - or at least I believe so - is Nightingale Spence, described by the author as a socially non-gendered operative. This cyberpunk series takes place in the near-future. The series consists of 11 (so far) short book serial adventures.
  
  
• 04/15/2023 - We all have our oddities and quirkiness. What happens when a number of us are put together in a group and told to accomplish an important goal. Usually we find a way to make all our tics mesh. Sometimes not so much. InSecurity is a show about a such a group that falls into the latter category and it was a hoot to watch.
  
  
• 04/13/2023 - A very interesting and very enjoyable 3-book series (so far) joins the compendium to day. In this one, Agent 917 is an operative with 'The Agency' and what makes him quite different is shown in this statement: "I'm here to kill someone and when it's done, I can go back to sleep." He wakes up with no idea of his real identity, just his codename and the fact that he is supposed to kill someone and when he is done, well, you get the picture.
  
  
• 04/11/2023 - From a half decade ago comes a 3-book series written by Preston W. Child and Fran Connor about a group, The Artemis Team, who work for the US President but do not answer to him - he would rather not know what they are up to. Interesting concept.
  
  
• 04/09/2023 - Bit of a silly entry today with the addition of a comicbook secret agent from outer space. That is odd enough but ... the name of this operative is ... Missile Mouse. Okay, guffaw away because I did, too, but the artwork is pretty darn good if the concept is, well, silly.
  
  
• 04/07/2023 - The woman who we are inviting to join the compendium today is the head of a computer hacking company working for the government so they are the White Hats, which is always one of my favorite subjects. Jen Yates is the woman's name and she show she is very capable both at the keyboard and out in the field and I enjoyed her adventures a whole lot.
  
  
• 04/05/2023 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we head back in time to 1910 and a run of 265 novellas created for Blue Book Magazine over the course of 23 years, ended only with the author's death. The Free Lances In Diplomacy were a small group of dedicated people determined to keep the peace or, when that proved insurmountable, at least aid their side (the US and UK). A fascinating series, indeed!
  
  
• 04/03/2023 - For today's new entrant into the compendium, we look to a very new two-book series (published last year) about an operative who saw action in the mid 1500s. Will Revill is a British Army officer forced by circumstances to answer to a man who answers to Sir Francis Walsingham, premiere spymaster to Elizabeth I. Well written and very well researched (at least it seems so to me).
  
  
• 04/01/2023 - From a French author by way of a gifted translator comes a two-book series about a former French Intelligence operative who is brought back a couple of times for 'one more job'. John Spenser Larivière is joined in his efforts by a fascinating Eurasian woman and a cool computer geek (?oxymoron?).
  
  
• 03/30/2023 - An addition to yesterday's addition was made today to the page on romance-thriller writer Garway Trenton thanks to the keen eye of my friend and fellow spy fiction fan (and frequent contributor of awesome facts for this site), Johny Malone of the site unaplagadeespias.blogspot.com. He showed me how 7 years before the first Garway adventure was released, the author, John Paddy Carstairs, had published a book about a luxury liner voyage in which several people from different backgrounds have their lives intertwining in interesting ways. The lead character was a playwright named Garfield Trenton. As I comment in my revised introduction to the Book section, same guy? Probably not but ...
  
  
• 03/29/2023 - Two snippets from My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium:
  1) This series comes really close to not belonging in the compendium because most of the thrilling situations that the character finds himself in are more criminal than espionage-related. However, since I have seen a couple of places over the years including Garway Trenton in lists of spy series, I decided to give him a try and found that, yeah, kinda, I can see it ... sorta.
  2) One description I read of Trenton was that he was a poor man's Simon Templar. Having read several of these now, I can see that comparison but with the caveat that Trenton is far more of a horny hound-dog than the Saint was.
  Check him out!
  
  
• 03/27/2023 - A couple of entries ago, I added a pair fellows to the compendium, guys who solved scientific mysteries on behalf of British Intelligence. The author had another fellow out there doing similar things and he joins the collection today. Please welcome Barnabas Hildreth.
  
  
• 03/25/2023 - Heading back two decades for a half-dozen adventures about a young chap named Adam Sharp, we add to the compendium today a set of books designed for pretty young readers. Definitely not for adults. Well, maybe some of us older ones. But these enjoyable juvenile tales are not bad for getting kids to read and more specifically, read spy fiction. Sharp is an agent with MI-8 but there is a twist in that this is not a British spy organization. It is American. Can't say why.
  
  
• 03/23/2023 - We head back in time again, this trip being 90 years, for a British series of six (that I know of) stories of strange doings investigated by a Military Intelligence officer and his super-brainy friend and mentor. Helmerdyne & Wanless are the two fellows, the former being a Major and the latter a Professor.
  
  
• 03/21/2023 - An Armenian-Egyptian private investigator joins the compendium today - a first! He is a fascinating man who sees his life change quite a bit as time go along and we have the joy of dropping in on Pierre Farag at different stages.
  
  
• 03/19/2023 - We are heading back in time to Britain 90 years ago for the large number of stories recounted Modern Boy magazine and then later collected in a large-sized paperback series called Boy's Friend Library. The series is about a pilot/spy named Guy Ellis, better known to the public as Grey Shadow.
  
  
• 03/17/2023 - I have to admit I did not think very much about the entrant for today, a cartoon television spy series from just shy of two decades ago. The X's is about a family of spies but while Dad seems a bit interesting in combining 007 with Agent 86, Mom struck me as just mean. The son was, in my words, a poop-head. The daughter was not bad. Overall, if I had to take it or leave it, it would be left.
  
  
• 03/15/2023 - For today's entrant into the compendium we head back in time to 1980 and the pages of the British comicbook Victor. Created (I believe) and drawn by veteran artist Denis McLoughlin, this collection of 15 adventures is about a fellow who was severely injured during a terrorist attack and is now forced to wear a steel face, hence the name of the series, Steelhead Sam Baxter. I did not think very much of them but maybe you will.
  
  
• 03/13/2023 - On a few occasions I have added a series about which I know next to nothing - always because I have been able to learn that the series existed but have not gotten my chubby fingers on any of the adventures. That is the case today. Ace Dallas was the hero of 5 short stories written by Frederic Nelson Litten and published in issues of Top-Notch Magazine in 1929. Alas, that is about all I have. Hopefully someone out there will enlightened me (hint, hint).
  
  
• 03/11/2023 - From 1990 we have a comicbook series about a sub-agency of British Intelligence named Force Five. This five-member team is sort of like MI in that they each have their 'day job', at which they are very good. Then they get together to do good for their country.
  -Oh, this is a correction entry 'cause I messed up! I had duplicated a series entry so this is to fix that.
  
  
• 03/09/2023 - I have not added a super-silly series for a few days so thought I could avoid a drought by dropping this bit of refreshment. Fangs, Vampire Spy is a six-book series which started a decade ago and tells the young readers (ages 10+) they are written for about this agent for Monster Protection 1st Division, aka MP1.
  
  
• 03/07/2023 - A four-book (so far) series dubbed The Failsafe Thrillers joins the compendium today. Michael Jenkins is the author of these very enjoyable, well worth the time adventures about Sean Richardson. The unfortunate (IMHO) MI6 agent is unfairly (IMHO) deemed 'disgraced' but still is asked to do this and that and surprisingly (IMHO) he does them! I liked him and the series.
  
  
• 03/05/2023 - I have been working on, but have not yet finished, today's entrant into the compendium but am adding today because a sufficient amount is done. Spy x Family is a very enjoyable, albeit unrealistic manga and anime spy series from Japan translated superbly into English (except for the whole reading back-to-front, right-to-left thing). I have had a blast reading this and will be updating it from time to time as I read more.
  
  
• 03/03/2023 - What a delicious morsel today's entrant into the compendium is. Well, an appetizer and two entrees if I want to keep the metaphor going (an introductory novella followed by two books, in case I was too obscure). Sam Abel is the name (at least today) of the main character whose adventures are penned by Clarke Mayer and as I indicated in My Comments for this fellow, I am hoping the promise for more adventures will come true.
  
  
• 03/01/2023 - I admit that I have not taken the time to scrub through my own records to see if the rarity being added to the compendium is the first or not. The Cobra is a combination operative for British Intelligence in three short tales from 1932 as well as being a costumed crimefighter. This is a odd duck, I will say - okay, odd snake!
  
  
• 02/27/2023 - A five-book series designed for young adult female readers (and some of us that are not young nor female) joins the compendium today. Jazmin Dawson is the name of this Spy Girl. She is a lot of fun to follow (okay, that did not sound creepy at all). The stories are fun and the writing is enjoyable.
  
  
• 02/25/2023 - A four-book series about a woman who nearly lost her life when the rest of her group lost theirs is the main character being invited to join this compendium. Anna Ledin wanted to put that horrific event behind her and focus on her new career as a social worker but she is reminded that once a spy, always a spy.
  
  
• 02/23/2023 - For today we are heading back to the days just after World War II in a two-book series recently recently. Caleb Marr is a spy who lived in constant danger working with the Resistance in enemy controlled lands having to deal with Germans and Russians and not pleased with either. He thought he was done it is all but ...
  
  
• 02/21/2023 - Coming to us from 1967 is a television show about a spy who has no memory of who he is or why people are trying very hard to kill him. Coronet Blue was a summer replacement that was not interesting enough to stick around but watching some now is not bad.
  
  
• 02/19/2023 - Since I am trying to encapsulate all spy series, sometime we enter the realm of the ridiculous and today is one of those times. Spy Mice is designed, obviously, for little kids just getting into reading. It is cute enough so that if you have youngsters you want to introduce to spy adventures in a cute, fun, entertaining way - this is alright. Otherwise ...
  
  
• 02/17/2023 - A solidly written three book series about a British Foreign Office official who is used very much like an operative joins the compendium today. The tales about James Ballantyne were crafted just a couple years ago. - no idea whether the author intends there to be any more.
  
  
• 02/15/2023 - For today's new member, I invite a pair of agents, Sebastian Starchild and Isis Nile, whose adventures are under the title of S.C.I. Spy. This is a futuristic spy series taking place in the Arcturus Star System 4100 years from now. It is a far too short graphic adventure with 6 issues that came out in 2002. Should have been more!
  
  
• 02/13/2023 - The author of today's new member in the compendium, Ared White, loved codes and ciphers and showed that fascination by having his starring character, Fox Elton, deal with them in most of the almost dozen stories/novelettes/novellas he wrote about the man. The fellow's missions were depicted starting in 1929 and showing up every now and then for the next few years.
  
  
• 02/11/2023 - For today's entrant into the compendium we invite a computer security expert to join the fun - being a computer geek of many years, this is particularly enjoyable. This fellow, Ben Drummond, is associated with GCHQ, a terribly under-represented intelligence organization.
  
  
• 02/09/2023 - For today's entry into the compendium, we head back over a century via the impressive writing skills of Robert Wilton. Mind you, both he and we are living in the here and now but his delightful and always interesting character, Harry Delamere is living back then, an adventurer who finds a whole of excitement as he is dragged into the cloak and dagger world.
  
  
• 02/07/2023 - Following the adage that if you cannot say something nice about something, it is often best to say nothing at all, I present for membership into the compendium today the (so far) two book series about Jack Whitfield, forced to use his considerable talents for an unnamed government agency at the risk of their torturing his daughter.
  
  
• 02/05/2023 - Please welcome to the compendium an operative named Sinatra. Nope, not the gifted singer and unofficial leader of the awesome Rat Pack. This is a fellow named Martinez, a U.S. Marshall who gets pulled into a special Task Force fighting all sort of enemies of the country. He wants a codename so he picks Sinatra because the man can sing! The author can definitely write!
  
  
• 02/03/2023 - A nothing entry here, in essence, because the little I know about today's entrant is that he exists and there are three adventures about him and his name is Scott Duncan. Well, I also know his adventures are almost certainly taking place during WWII and he is an agent with British Intelligence.
  
  
• 02/01/2023 - As we start February in this still new (for me) year, I present for membership in this compendium a comic strip action series from 1966. It lasted only a bit over 4 years but it did give us over two dozen adventures, some of which I present here. The Seekers is a private eye company specializing in finding missing persons. To accomplish this, they go wherever in the world they need to and get involved in all sorts of exciting and interesting matters. The two main characters are Susanne Dove and Jacob Benedick, a pair of operatives who have been compared to Steed/Peel and Blaise/Garvin. There are mior similarities, I grant you - especially Dove with Modesty Blaise - but they are not would-be clones and are fun to read. Too bad most of the strips remain elusive for me.
  
  
• 01/31/2023 - A 15-episode (thankfully very, very short ones) series with a goofy idea from 1966 joins the compendium today. The idea? Let the secret agent have a super power learned in Tibet (where else? With all the power coming out of there, why is it not independent?) In this fellow's case, it was to have an independent shadow that had lots of cool abilities. Spy Shadow was the name of the series. Richard Vance was the man who went by that covername.
  
  
• 01/29/2023 - I did not know until a few months ago that - or kinda knew but never realized - that a major character in the Sean Dillon series had been active for some time before Dillon came onto the scene. As a result, he deserves his own page. Ergo, Charles Ferguson, a Brigadier in the British Army (retired) and a crafty old spymaster, becomes a member in this compendium at last. Oh, that realization came about because a fellow spy fan pointed it out - there was no personal epiphany in play here.
  
  
• 01/27/2023 - For many years I have seen blurbs about various spy series indicating that their hero is 'Better Than Bond'. Great promotion which is never fulfilled. The series entering the compendium today is slightly different in that it is "Bond With Fangs". That was a new one and a lot closer to being try than those other guys. The name of the series is as odd as the actual series -- Lawson Vampire -- but not as much fun as, weirdo that I am, I enjoyed the heck out of this series.
  
  
• 01/25/2023 - A decade ago, a very, very short series (2 short stories later collected in one very short book) was released, billed as "sexy spy adventures". Ty Haringa was the name of the operative who was apparently (I didn't see it but then again, I'm a guy) was irresistible to women. "Bad girls beware. Ty Haringa's on the prowl" is the tag line. I did not think much of this series so my tag line is "Readers beware".
  
  
• 01/23/2023 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we are popping across the Atlantic and back just shy of 100 years. Harry Davies is the name of the British Secret Service agent we meet in this collection of books and short stories that the author, George E. Rochester, released over the course of twenty years. However, you might know him better as The Flying Beetle.
  
  
• 01/21/2023 - Five entries ago I added a nonsensical graphic spy series from Britain from 1974 with the very truthful, though decided opinionated, 'Spy school be stupid'. That one was. This one added today, deserves 'Spy School be fun'. This Spy School is a three-book series meant for kids 9-12 years old and hits that mark pretty well. It deals with two kids who attend a prestigious spy school and learn all sorts of very useful skillsets, assuming you plan to become a professional field operative later in life. Cute and fun series for children.
  
  
• 01/19/2023 - Not too long ago I learned that the incredible writer of thrillers and crime novels, John D. MacDonald, had penned very early in his career a couple of short stories about a new guy in the spy business named Benton Walters. Searching the web I came upon the terrific site The Trap of Solid Gold - Celebrating the works of John D MacDonald superbly produced by Steve Smith. I contacted him to learn more about the two tales and he was awesome to provide me for review purposes his private scans, with the proviso that I not share them (Thank you so much for that, Steve). Reading them - and loving what I was reading - I can see how they would be considered not up to what the master storyteller would soon be producing but, my goodness!, his beginner work is still so terrific it deserves praise. MacDonald wrote right after the second one was finished that he was done with series work so there were never any new stories about this fellow. That is a shame - except that freed the man to produce the awesome work that he did, including the one-and-only Travis McGee.
  
  
• 01/17/2023 - There are three pretty exciting and well written adventures in the series being added today to the compendium. The author is Michal A. Richards and he writes about a CIA agent who wants to be an ex- but the Agency doesn't so ... Nathan Monsarrat is the fellow's name. I think you should check him out.
  
  
• 01/15/2023 - Originally published in a dozen entertaining tales in Cosmopolitan monthly from August 1932 to July 1933 are the adventures of a fascinating black woman named Gail Loveless taking place during the Civil War. She was of mixed blood and could at times pass as white speaking as a Southern belle might and at other times easily be believed to be a simple washing maid slave. She did this routinely as she spied on the Confederate forces on behalf of the Union. There was even a main-stream movie made of her tales, starring the delicious Marion Davies and Gary Cooper.
  
  
• 01/13/2023 - We head back in time to the mid-60s across the Pond for a short graphic adventure series about a British Intelligence operative named Dave Curtis who appeared in their short-lived version of a magazine entitled Espionage. Solid agent but nothing remarkable. Good stories, though.
  
  
• 01/11/2023 - Spy School be stupid! That is the opening sentence in the MyComments section of today's entrant. In this case it is Spy School, a long-running comedic series in the pages of British comic book Whoopee which ran from 1974 to 1976. When you read some of the stories (well, one or two should be enough) you will agree that it be stupid!
  
  
• 01/09/2023 - Jumping back to the second half of the 1960s for today's entrant, we find a British comic book Intelligence operative named Ross Nolan who had 4 adventures depicted in a short-lived publication entitled Espionage. A 5th one would be found and printed in a sister publication four years later.
  
  
• 01/07/2023 - As a highly decorated Special Forces operative, today's inductee, Casey Ryback definitely deserves accolades but not necessarily membership in this compendium, except for the nature of the two sets of bad guys he has to confront in the adventures we have of him. What they are doing definitely warrant being here and since he is the protagonist to stop them ... here he is! Now, it is fun to make fun of the star of these two movies, Steven Segall, but spy-fans forgive me, I loved both of these and have watched them many times, especially the second.
  
  
• 01/05/2023 - A very short (one book and one novella) series about a private eye who was until just recently a CIA operative joins the compendium. An enjoyable combination of spook-cum-gumshoe is what you will find with Jude Wyland, penned by S.W. Vaughn
  
  
• 01/03/2023 - An adventurous bartender joins the compendium today. This fellow is not a spy nor does he want to be one. He does get involved in several instances where spies are big time involved, enough to really warrant membership here. Check out what I had to say about John Stone.
  
  
• 01/01/2023 - Happy New Year! I start this year with an entry into the compendium written this previous year but taking place back in the early 60s. Clemency White is a British cypher clerk having fun living in Switzerland though quite bored with her work in a stuffy office. That changes a whole bunch when a resident embassy spook needs a bit of eye candy for a simple op. Not so simple, as it turns out, but fun to read!
  
  
• 12/31/2022 - As we end this year, I add to the compendium and bump the count of members here to 2200 with the entry of Johnny Hazard, a fantastic series that has been waiting in the WINGs for some time now. To learn why that noun is capitalized like it is, read my write-up and discover how fascinating this Army pilot turned adventurer turned government agent is with the ton and a half of escapades stretching from 1944 to 1977 in comics section of newspapers across the country.
  
  
• 12/29/2022 - For today's entrant, we are heading to the other side of the word and a man who finds himself seconded to an Indian intelligence organization in order to try to save someone close to him. Akhil Thapar is a very determined man who does not let having lost most of his left leg in a terrorist explosion stop him from being a man of action when needed.
  
  
• 12/27/2022 - Had my father not passed away a dozen years ago, he would have been 95 today. He was never into reading and he always made fun of my devotion to it, especially in my teen years when I was big time hooked on "those d****d funny books of yours!" He did scan the newspaper and did read the comicstrips. I mention this because I found out very late in his life that the reason he seemed so against comic books was that as a young man in the Navy, he acquired a near addiction for them!! My mother told me he put down quite a few dimes every month getting each new issue. I wonder what he would have thought about today's entrant, an adventure comicstrip that came out in an independent newspaper meant for servicemen thirty years after he served - one that came out while I served. Cannon is the name of the strip, later released in comicbook format. I think he would have looked at it with that frown he approached every new thing shown him, especially the nudity that seemed present in nearly every issue, but he would have then devoured the really enjoyable and exciting adventures the writer, the great Wally Wood, gave the readers.
  
  
• 12/25/2022 - Merry Christmas! I hope your stockings were filled with good treats to eat and great spy novels to read while doing so. For today's entrant into the compendium, I present a new series (published earlier this year) about an MI6 agent from today who is sent back in time 60 years to handle some nasty situations that arise when time travel get involved. Atticus Wolfe is the operative who discovers first hand how different things were back then, not only in general for everyone but also for a black man in particular.
  
  
• 12/23/2022 - Special thanks from me to Wayne from Hooked on Books in Bolingbrook, IL. He alerted me to a mistake I have had on the site for many years dealing with the Ben Corbin series. I had listed the book Strikeback from 1965 as an alternate name for Operation Vengeance from the same year. Wayne was kind enough to show me how the two books are different. I have corrected my error on that page. Thanks, Wayne!!
  
  
• 12/23/2022 - Today I enter into the compendium a fellow that MI-6 likes to call upon when things go a bit strange. While they do not think of him as an agent, which is good because he is not one, they "merely considered him a useful asset". And they do make use of him in this three-book (so far) series about Brad Willis.
  
  
• 12/21/2022 - In the opening paragraph of the entry for today into the compendium, we are told that the protagonist of the series is, in addition to being an Ivy-league-educated physician, he is also a "US government assassin (retired)". That grabbed my attention. You should check out Jonathan West to learn more.
  
  
• 12/19/2022 - About the series I enter today into the compendium I wrote that "It is light-hearted enough to let us know to sit back and just enjoy while serious enough to make us really interested in what is going on." The adventures of MI5 agent Anna Preston is a very enjoyable two-book series you should check out.
  
  
• 12/17/2022 - When you read at the beginning of a series that the main character, or one of two in this case, is concerned with saving the lives of millions (good for him) and saving his job (not so admirable but definitely human), you know you have an interesting start. Luckily the rest of the three-book (so far) series keeps that interest going and I really enjoyed the Wolfe & Cruz adventures. The author or publisher's name for the series is Vector, by the way. Just wanted to let you know that I know. Check this pair out!
  
  
• 12/15/2022 - In My Comments section for today's entrant into the compendium, "I took a huge liking to Elle Anderson from the very beginning and never wavered in my feelings". The character is interesting and fun to follow and the writing of author A.M. Adair is really good and enjoyable making the three books (so far) a pleasurable pool to dive into.
  
  
• 12/13/2022 - From Down Under from back in the late 70s comes a two-book series about a man who kinda does private eye work for an outfit that is mostly on the legit side of things. Johnny Vincent finds himself tossed into the middle of trouble that has international consequences and thus earns a spot in this compendium. That and the books are not bad at all!
  
  
• 12/11/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium is ... well, unusual. Is he an operative in Her Majesty's Secret Service - almost certainly no. This makes it pretty certain he is not, as he believes, James Bond. But he acts like he is and they say that if you tell a falsehood often and loudly enough ... This series, titled Adventures In Bonding, is, as I said, unusual. And sometimes a lot of fun.
  
  
• 12/09/2022 - A terrific series about one pretty fascinating female operative set during the time before and during the Second World War joins the compendium today. It is a wonderfully well crafted set of five novels and one novelette and I hope there will be more coming about Evelyn Ainsworth.
  
  
• 12/07/2022 - Once in a while, the CEO of a large company will do something that throws that person into trouble and gives reason for his/her membership in the compendium. That is the case today with Carson Jeffers who did not ask to have to tangle with terrorists more than once but did so anyways. Good entertainment here with the two-book (so far) series. Especially when co-star Nichole Lewis is on the scene.
  
  
• 12/05/2022 - A support character in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine television series gets his own entry today in the compendium. This is because the fellow went on to have important roles in several of the books as well as the television episodes and a couple of books about him alone. Elim Garak is the Cardassian secret agent who was a hoot to follow.
  
  
• 12/03/2022 - Truck drivers have a tough life, no matter if they are in the States or on the Continent. They do not need the added aggravation of being asked to take a break to save the world, or at least a part of it. Except in the case of today's newcomer to the site, Guy Bowman.
  
  
• 12/01/2022 - "The tsunami of revenge". That is how a blurb describes the new entrant into the compendium, Sean O'Reilly, and when you read his adventures, especially the trilogy that starts the series, you will understand it is pretty accurate. O'Reilly is a disgraced agent of the CIA who is out to get even with the SOB who framed him and he is not letting anything get in his way.
  
  
• 11/29/2022 - If you are interested in a kick-butt female operative, today's entrant is for you. The four-book series (so far) about Jessie McIntyre has tons of action and excitement and is a lot of fun to read.
  
  
• 11/27/2022 - One of the first series I read after I started this site way back when was Jake Adams by Trevor Scott and over the years I have enjoyed many of that author's adventures. Along the way we readers was introduced to a man in his early twenties who turns out to be the Jake's son that he did not know he had. Karl Adams becomes a CIA agent and has his own set of exciting adventures.
  
  
• 11/25/2022 - Don't drop acid! That is the initial takeaway from the start of the Nick Hellyer series of three (so far) adventures. This promising young instructor at Cambridge did that and then got himself busted for possession of marijuana. This being 1967, that was a major no-no and the chap was out. A partial lifeline is thrown to him with a teaching position overseas but it carried with it a catch; you need to do a bit of spying for us. I enjoyed this series and think you will as well.
  
  
• 11/23/2022 - As the wife and I go out to several grocery stores in search of goodies for tomorrow's feast with family, I take the time to present to you a CIA agent for whom life has been kind after many years of hard service - only to be terribly cruel and taking it all away and leaving Cal Shepard horribly bereft and wanted for a murder he definitely did not do. He will have an intense desire for revenge and he will get it.
  
  
• 11/21/2022 - An FBI agent who makes a career switch to work for Homeland Security joins the compendium today. Jon Wells is an expert i fighting terrorism but he goes more focused in the two adventures we have of him as he looks specifically at cyber-terrorism. He acquires an impressive nemesis in the form of Zhang Xe.
  
  
• 11/19/2022 - As I put it in My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium, "In 1966, when this [series] came out, being a spy was hip, even for someone as despicable as Zeke the Sneak." In case you blinked a couple of times at that name, yes, you read it correctly. This thankfully very short (2 silly adventures) series from the mid-60s is as goofy as the name implies.
  
  
• 11/17/2022 - For today's entry (entered later than normal due to a laptop giving up the ghost by way of an expanding battery!) I present a British agent named Sean Faint who works for "an unnamed, unspoken, and very much unacknowledged agency inside the U.K.'s intelligence community". This two book series by Mark Yarwood is pretty new with the second coming out this year so there is a chance of more in the series on the way. Faint is an interesting fellow who craves excitement and action and when he temporarily runs out of those things, he find a bottle.
  
  
• 11/15/2022 - "They set me up!" That is a complaint never heard in these tales but which the protagonist, Madison Dix, is more than entitled to complain. This extremely capable thief is tricked into robbing a place while under surveillance and is then conscripted into working for the British Naval Intelligence. She would likely carp about it except it is fun and can be rewarding. This is a fun series comprised wonderfully of a handful of novelettes, recently released and hopefully with more to come.
  
  
• 11/11/2022 - For today we take a close (well, for safety sake, not too close) look at a chap named Steve Rawlings presented to us in a series called The Forgotten Man. He is a kidnap recovery expert who travels the world doing just that. My comment on closeness is due to his call sign being 'Stiletto', which he says was 'given to me years ago because I have a proclivity to using sharp objects in my work'.
  
  
• 11/09/2022 - "Kinda scary and thought-provoking". That is the description I gave in My Comments for the three-book (so far) series about Rick Bernard. I also mention its "fine writing and great plotting" but it is the nature of the things that just might happen that makes this series pretty interesting.
  
  
• 11/07/2022 - We are popping back 24 years for today's entrant into the compendium, which is considerably more than the hero of the series able to do. Of course his ability to pop back in time Seven Days to right wrongs and save lives and stop enemy spies or saboteurs or traitors or would-be despots is a lot more than I can do. If that all confuses you, check out what I know of the series.
  
  
• 11/05/2022 - A fascinating woman who was trained by the old KGB, went to work for the SVR before being 'convinced' to go to work for the DOJ doing, well, things she learned to be with the KGB, that's who joins the compendium today. Anya Burinkova was first introduced to us in the Chase Fulton series and then earned her own set of really enjoyable adventures.
  
  
• 11/03/2022 - We are still quite a ways in the past for today's entrant into the compendium but a decade shy of the last entry. The year is 1953 and new member's name is Atom Squad, a top-secret government agency tasked with handling threats to the US from sources outside the 'norm'. Foreign agents, mad scientists, and extraterrestrial visitors - that sort of un-normal stuff.
  
  
• 11/01/2022 - After a short break from the trio of really run spy series written by a young and just beginning writer, Louis L'Amour, I add today the third and final one. Turk Madden is not a full-time spy; he's a pilot who gets involved with spies and intelligence organizations on lots of occasions. There are eight stories about the man between 1941 and 1949.
  
  
• 10/31/2022 - So, today we enter into this collection an actress who is asked to play the part of the girlfriend of an up-and-coming mobster who is really an undercover fed and then things get even weirder and she becomes an agent herself and ... well, check out this three-books series about Deborah Barnes to learn more.
  
  
• 10/29/2022 - Is today's entrant into the compendium a spy? Not really. Sort of a spy-hunter, kinda in a way though not really. He does work for a secret government agency and he uses an identity not really his own and he does fight evil scientist and would-be world conquerors and foreign agents out to steal all sort of top secret stuff. So in that regard he definitely fits here. But still ... the Man From Atlantis is really different. As in I-can-breathe-under-water kind of different.
  
  
• 10/27/2022 - Today I present the second the of three series created by the legendary Louis L'Amour back in the early 40s. They were originally published in magazines and then not again until over four decades has passed. Steve Cowan has the spotlight today. Though he only has two recorded adventures to his credit, this pilot who worked for US Intelligence made the most of them.
  
  
• 10/25/2022 - Today we enter the first of three really interesting spy or spy-ish fellows created by a master storyteller best known for his incredible run of Western successes. Before he reached that pinnacle, however, he started out with an impressive number of short stories. Those about Ponga Jim Mayo were first crafted in 1940, an adventurer who was used over and over again by Allied Intelligence against the Japanese throughout southeast Asia and the islands off Australia.
  
  
• 10/23/2022 - We take to the skies of World War I, initially, for the series entry today. The tales began to appear in magazine and then book form in 1932 but they talked of adventure, aerial derring-do, and loads of espionage work taking place first in the early days of World War I and then extending through the two decades separating the major conflicts on into World War II and even some thereafter. Biggles was the rather interesting nickname for James Bigglesworth who worked in the Intelligence section of the British military flying recon flights over enemy territories, ferrying agents for and from danger zones behind the lines, working as an operative himself on many occasions, and far more. I never knew until just recently how much of his adventures were routed in spy-fiction ... it was a lot!
  
  
• 10/21/2022 - I have freely admitted to being a sucker when diverse genres join together and that is never more true than when spy-fi meets horror, or in this case more paranormal that outright frightening. In the days of Queen Victoria, Nora Kelly is a prostitute and a opium addict who is offered a chance to clean up her life by giving up her life and becoming a vampire, all in the service of the Crown's Intelligence service. Far-fetched? Oh, yeah! Fun, though.
  
  
• 10/19/2022 - I start the My Comments for today's entrant with "I wish more authors would spend time in the short story/novella world." That is because this series is seven novella adventures about an American operative named Wolfgang Pierce who works for a private intelligence organization. The first six are collected in a book and the seventh is a prequel. This series is action-packed and a lot of good reading fun.
  
  
• 10/17/2022 - My comments for the entrant for today says, "As spy series go, this one is weak as to its criteria for membership as there are only two adventures and one is not really a spy story. Historically, however, it has its value and therefore, here it is. Silent movies about espionage work seem almost non-existent, for figuratively and literally (i.e. very, very few were made and even less still exist to view)." The series is simply known as Mademoiselle as no name is actually given her.
  
  
• 10/15/2022 - The interesting and quite exciting character joining the compendium today has as her day job protecting POTUS. This dangerous and important job is not something that qualifies a person for membership here but when she is given extra duties that take her out into international waters, so to speak, fighting terrorists and other threats to the country's security, well, that's a different story, literally and figuratively. Izzy Stone is the name of such a person and she is a hoot to read about.
  
  
• 10/13/2022 - We return to modern times in today's four-book series entrant. Liam Strange is a lad from Glasgow who showed a lot of promise in college such that MI6 came calling and he liked what he heard and as a result, we are treated to several excellent and highly enjoyable adventures.
  
  
• 10/11/2022 - Today's series is one I have been collecting (very slowly because they are so rare) for quite a few years. I kept entering it into the compendium because I was hoping for 'just one more book' to become available and affordable. Oh well, the plight of the collector. The tales of Lawrie Fenton by Michael Annesley consists of 15 books written from 1935 to 1950. I very much recommend them, if you can find them and if you can afford them.
  
  
• 10/09/2022 - A two-book series about a part-time British Intelligence operative from 1978-1980 joins the compendium today. Sam Corby is the fellow's name and while I cannot say I really liked the books, I can really find nothing particularly wrong about them, either.
  
  
• 10/07/2022 - Sticking with the popular 30's writer Sydney Horler today. As I mention in my write-up on Brian Fordinghame, "This is a companion series to the one about the Soviet ace operative and manipulator Baron Veseloffsky in that the first time we meet the bad Baron he is going up against the protagonist of this series, Sir Brian Fordinghame. After that, Fordinghame and Veseloffsky would go their separate ways and the later having one more crack at bringing down the West while the former would have other problems to solve."
  
  
• 10/05/2022 - I am entering this series into the compendium today in the hopes that someone out there knows more about it than I, which considering the little that I do... Sydney Horler was very much into spy adventures and loved repeat characters, which makes him top notch in my opinion. The fact that his writing was less than stellar was a shame but apparently he sold very well. Anyways, one of his lesser series was Brett Carstairs, agent for British Intelligence. There were only two books out about him and both be expensive or unavailable.
  
  
• 10/03/2022 - Author Sydney Horler was considered by many critics back in his day to be a hack writer. I have enjoyed, to a modest amount, some of his work but today's entrant by him is kind of proof of the accusations. Mind you, I never claim to be qualified as a critic. I just know I did not think much of Justin March, aka The Ace.
  
  
• 10/01/2022 - We have a fairly recently crafted three-book series (with the hope there might be more in future) to add to the compendium today. Belle's Revenge is the series name given us by the publisher but I have this highly dangerous and even more highly interesting female operative listed as Belle Jones. I recommend strongly you check out this woman's entry and then grab the books to enjoy them yourself.
  
  
• 09/29/2022 - For today's entrant I head back in time to the mid-70s and a four-book series about a gifted author named William Wingate, real name Ronald Ivan Grbich. The protagonist (I use that term instead of 'hero') is a Bulgarian who works largely as a freelance agent though most of his employments are with the CIA. He is a very dangerous man about whom I end my write-up stating that Ivan Yazov is not a man with friends.
  
  
• 09/27/2022 - I am wrapping up this brief trip on Bernard Newman street with the last series that I know of by the man. This series was originally published under the pseudonym of Don Betteridge which made sense because Newman always seemed to put himself strongly in the midst of adventures released under his own name. A series in which Newman did not appear regularly? [Gasp!!] The name of the operative was Tiger Lester and he had 13 adventures penned about him from 1942 to 1962. Regrettably, I think so far only one has been reissued in all those years and that one was when Tiger Lester had an adventure with fellow series star Papa Pontivy.
  
  
• 09/25/2022 - Continuing the spy-fi series work of author Bernard Newman, I now add the most famous of his operatives, a man who works very closely to the author's eponymous character in many adventures but who is very much known under his name. Papa Pontivy is the name of the French spymaster who works for both the DGSE and Surete as well as British Intelligence.
  
  
• 09/23/2022 - In furtherance of the Bernard Newman set of series, I present Inspector Marshall who plays a major role in many of the books I list for him and a minor role in a couple more. I might not have given him his own page since these books also fall under other series except for several sources which credit him as the main protagonist in a few books, including the great Al Hubin.
  
  
• 09/21/2022 - Please say hello to Bernard Newman. This is the name of the main character of this series of spy novels which started in the mid-30s and ran for just over three decades. It is also the name of the author who penned them, a noted travelogue writer and avid bicyclist who travelled extensively throughout Europe between the two World Wars and wrote very impressively about the places he went and the people he met. And, according to him, got involved in a whole lot of exciting mysteries and spy-related activities. The man was a master at self promotion and his stories were, in fact, reasonably entertaining; more so back in the day than now but still worth reading here and there.
  Please note that this series is interconnected with two other series to be added in the next couple of days. More on them next time.
  
  
• 09/19/2022 - Just over a decade and a half ago, gifted author Jim DeFelice penned a three-book series about a spy for George Washington named Jake Gibbs. I have read a fair number of this author's works before learning of this series but I did not know until finding the Gibbs books how good he was at what could be called a bit lighter fare. Fun, fun books and worth checking out.
  
  
• 09/17/2022 - Today's entrant is an odd duck from Britain in 1973 details the activities during WWI of a rather insane daredevil of a motorcycle riding spy going by the name of The Black Rider. Imagine a fellow with a bike complete with sidecar riding all over behind enemy lines picking up stranded agents, sabotaging the odd bridge, doing recon, and such. Okay, maybe. Now how about the vehicle tripped up with gadgets like a machinegun in the passenger area. Or a flame thrower. Or lots more. Ah, probably not!
  
  
• 09/15/2022 - For today's entrant I look to a series of historical spy novels penned just a handful of years ago but dealing with events in the late 1500's. The hero, Christoval Alvarez, is the fairly young offspring of a Jewish doctor, both forced to flee Portugal's version of the Inquisition. Young Alvarez will learn the physician trade as well as becoming an expert in the pharmacy business ... and becoming an agent for famed British spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. One other important aspect to Christoval is that for protection during their escape to England, the elder felt it far safer for the younger to travel as a boy instead of the girl she actually is. And the pretense is maintained.
  
  
• 09/13/2022 - From Britain running from 1972 to 1975 was a pretty entertaining, from what I can find of it, spy series about an unnamed intelligence group inside their Defense Department tasked with weeding out the many spies and traitors inside the government. The show was title Spy Trap and it had several very talented actors in it, most memorable for me was Tom Adams who already made his spy-bones (my term) a decade earlier.
  
  
• 09/11/2022 - From the minds and prose of Newt Gingrich and Pete Earley comes another series which I was excited to read. Brooke Grant is a female Marine Major who is also the niece of the current Chairman of the JSOC. This resourceful woman ends up having to deal with terrorists in several quite different locations but with one common factor - the same very nasty fellow behind it all.
  
  
• 09/09/2022 - A television spy series that I enjoyed from the first episode, which of course meant that it would not last, joins the compendium today. State Of Affairs was the name of the show which starred Katherine Heigl as 'Charlie' Tucker, a high-ranking analyst who managed a command center at the CIA and also had a very close relationship with the female President having been engaged to the leader's son before his untimely death. I thought the stories well written and acted. Unfortunately not enough others did so.
  
  
• 09/07/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a college professor and archaeologist who would never have gotten involved in matters that the CIA and MI6 were also dealing with had he not gotten ticked, with good reason, at his university employer. The tiff results in his leaving to take a vacation and that little trip will change his life. It was enjoyable reading this 8-book series about John Peters; there are so many books, it seems, because wherever he goes, someone is going to cause him considerable trouble. Watching him get out of that trouble is the fun part.
  
  
• 09/05/2022 - For this Labor Day entry into the compendium, I have picked a fellow for north of this country (that would be Canada for the directionally impaired out there). He works for the RCMP (the Mounties, just in case). Now, as I mention in My Comments, that is not the first organization I think of when I think of spies and spy-hunting and the such but then again, what do I know! I do know I enjoyed the four books in the Steve Hodge series and you should check them out as well.
  
  
• 09/03/2022 - A short, two-book series about a young man recently brought to work for an ultra-secret government intelligence agency joins the compendium today. Xander Whitt is the fellow's name and one interesting fact about him is that he has no memory of most of his early years due to a horrible accident that claimed his parents - and he has a photographic memory of everything that happened afterwards. His adventures seem based on the concept that "nothing is as it seems". Ever.
  
  
• 09/01/2022 - The previous entrant into the compendium had gone to work for his family's private security company. Today's new member works for a different firm and is the CEO of that successful enterprise. As the head honcho, you would think someone like Joseph Michael Barber would be safely behind a large desk while others do the dangerous work. Not so much with Barber, however. But getting up there in years now, he is finding "his ego is writing checks his body can no longer cash". That is one of the many things that make this a fun series to read.
  
  
• 08/31/2022 - A very fast-reading series about a former government operative for an unnamed agency who goes to work for his family's private security consultancy when his previous career ended by his being shot - twice! Once recovered, the kind of work he does is really close to what he had been doing for Uncle Sam, just paying better. The adventures of Abraham Snow consist of several long novellas and several shorter ones which are quick to read and full of a lot of fun doing so.
  
  
• 08/29/2022 - Today I enter into the compendium a woman whose title in the American government is "Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security" which sounds impressive and likely is but also tells me nothing about what she does. The author, though, answers that question and the answer is - she gets involved in resolving lots of very scary things that could hurt this country, acting as a spymaster in many cases. The stories about Samantha Reid are very exciting and worth the time reading them.
  
  
• 08/27/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I mention in My Comments that "I would happily read the adventures of Mitch Kearns even if the delightful, and frankly very deadly Devorah Leitner were not a major part of them. But I know I would not enjoy them as much." That is always a plus in a series when you really enjoy the main character but have an even greater affection for a secondary one; although I would not call Dev Leitner that to her face. Mitch Kearns is an FBI agent who will switch employers to an Israeli K&R company for even more action that he was getting as a G-Man. It means a whole lot of action for us readers!
  
  
• 08/25/2022 - The second in the author's 'Nick Lassiter - Skyler' series joins the compendium. Skyler is the name she goes by and I would not have the nerve to disagree with her. Ever!
  
  
• 08/23/2022 - This entrant into the compendium and the next one in line are part of what the author calls the 'Nick Lassiter - Skyler' series because they are connected. I have separated them here and entering Nick Lassiter today with Skyler coming up. Just wanted to let you know I know. These were good adventures, better when Skyler is around.
  
  
• 08/21/2022 - A really good time and place to read a series like I enter into the compendium today is in muggy North Carolina in August; the temp is high and is the humidity so when reading about the biting and potentially killing cold of Greenland, the discomfort factor is not too bad. Still felt freezing, though, when following Dane operative Fenna Brongaard as she goes up against her own countrymen as well as Russians and Chinese agents all trying one way or another to push their nations' agendas. I enjoyed (cold notwithstanding) this three-book series.
  
  
• 08/19/2022 - For today I got really silly in my entrant into the compendium. Well, the series is silly; I'm just sort of acknowledging it. Wee Willie Haggis is the chap's name and based on the grade of 'C' I gave it, you get the idea that I was less than thrilled with it. Nevertheless, it is a spy series so it belongs! Ah, just shake your head at this entry, have a chuckle or two while reading what I have, and then move on, people. Nothing to see here! (Oy! that was way harsh!)
  
  
• 08/17/2022 - Some time back I added to the compendium a really, really enjoyable series by the author of today's entrant, Simon Gervais. It was very well written and a whole lot of fun to read so I was excited to give a new series from him a try. Pierce Hunt is the name of the DEA agent who gets messed up in CIA adventures that take him out of his normal drug law enforcement duties and well into the cloak and dagger realm. Once again I found the author's skills to be superb and the books well worth the time.
  
  
• 08/15/2022 - Joining the compendium today is a two-book series - with hopefully many more to come - series about an MI6 agent named Duncan Grant. I really enjoyed this series a lot but that did not come as a surprise since I enjoyed his previous series as well. The man can definitely write. He does leave me with a quandary, however, as to which series I want to see continued the most. As is normal for me - the answer is: Both!
  
  
• 08/13/2022 - A really fun, well-written action series which is very much part spy-fi and very much part, um, other genres, joins the compendium today. Written by Brandon Ellis and Max Wolfe, the three books (so far) give us Jackson Stone, a fellow who is trained but thus far not so experienced out in the field who gets involved in some pretty out there fun and games. Of course, there her Alabama Wren to help keep him alive and she is worth the price of admission all on her own.
  
  
• 08/11/2022 - In 1987, CBS tried to create a silly parody of spy adventures using the perpetually tanned, always handsome and dapper George Hamilton as the perfection of spy-manliness, Ian Stone, in a television series called Spies. It lasted only 6 episodes and was so memorable that I can only find a tad about a couple of them. And I am darned sure that back then, I watched all 6 because, well, that's what I did (and do). It garnered no respect back then and none now. But Hamilton was cool.
  
  
• 08/09/2022 - Today I enter into the compendium a series meant for what I called in My Comments "genre-crossover junkies". Black-ops fellow who has to go up against some strange opponents, including aliens, and not the cross-the-border kind. Jackson Stone is the main character here in this three-book (so far) series that I enjoyed a bunch.
  
  
• 08/07/2022 - I have already added a Spy School series and a Schoolboy Spy series so why not one more: School For Spies from a British boy's magazine in 1974. This very short (3 episode) foray into the cloak and dagger world for young lads being specifically trained to do so is, um, well-drawn. That is the best I could say for it. The concept is silly; not in the funny sense but in the unbelievable sense.
  
  
• 08/05/2022 - Again we are heading way, way back in time for this interesting and somewhat disturbing series about an English-German woman who chose to become a spy for the Kaiser just before and during World War I. At times she is addressed as Olga von Marx while other time she is called Olga von Kopf (with no explanation for the switching). The first of these stories were printed in newspapers around the country in 1917. You have got to read my write-up.
  
  
• 08/03/2022 - For today's entrant, we look just shy of one hundred years ago and a dastardly spymaster from the still fairly new Soviet Union. I have not done the research that I want to do on the rise of Soviet villains in spy series but when/if I ever do, I would guess Baron Veseloffsky will be one of the very first!
  
  
• 08/01/2022 - Entering the compendium to day is Vanessa Tavonovich, an agent with the Russian SVRR who is described, very correctly, as a "highly gifted and dangerous female operative". These seven novellas are just the right size for the adventures and I enjoyed them a bunch.
  
  
• 07/31/2022 - For today I head again to television land and a series which did not last very long two decades ago. Secret Agent Man was the name of the series which was, IMHO, far too cutesy to survive. I did not have any hope for it when it aired the first time and watching it again on YouTube, I can recall why.
  
  
• 07/29/2022 - A huge fan of Keifer Sutherland and his portrayal of Jack Bauer in the terrific television series 24, I was intrigued with the idea of a rookie in the CTU and intrigued even more about the concept of a webisode series. Jason Blaine was the young man's name and I enjoyed the first season, minus the poor download speeds. Then I missed the next two season but they sound like something I would have enjoyed.
  
  
• 07/27/2022 - A very unmemorable graphic spy series from 1972 and the pages of the usually terrific British weekly comicbook anthology, The Victor, joins the compendium today. Stone of the Secret Service is the name of the series and Mike Stone is the fellow's name. There is a baker's dozen of stories that can be read here - okay but nothing special.
  
  
• 07/25/2022 - An 8-book series about a British agent during the height of the Cold War joins the compendium today. Dan Mitchell is the name of the unfortunate fellow who has the dubious honor of working for a department who put people in deep cover inside places of interest. In Mitchell's case, he gets to infiltrate Soviet Spetsnaz! He also does a whole lot more in the course of the series but talk about starting off with a tough one!
  
  
• 07/23/2022 - I was a giant fan of the show 24 back in the day. Long before stream binging was a thing, I would fill my DVR with episodes so I could binge several episodes on a weekend. When they came out with a reboot of the series, I was excited and I liked the show. Unfortunately, not enough others did so Eric Carter came and went too quickly.
  
  
• 07/22/2022 - I have been adding a new series every couple of days recently with the next one due tomorrow. I am adding an extra one today because .... today is the birthday of the friend, and very frequent contributor, who was kind enough to not only tell me about this series on my birthday, he sent me copies of the books. How cool was that! So in thanks, we introduce to the compendium Beth Johnson, the young beautiful actress and spy from the 1660's. Thanks and Happy 60th Birthday, EdRoy!
  
  
• 07/21/2022 - I am popping back 35 years to a television spy series that did not make it a full year, with good reason. The New Adventures of Beans Baxter is the name of the series and that has two interesting parts to it. The first is that these are the 'new' adventures but I'll be darned if I can find any old adventures. The second is that any operative with the name (nick or otherwise) of 'Beans' cannot be taken seriously. This show came and went quickly, for good reasons.
  
  
• 07/19/2022 - Today I add John Crane, a former black-ops agent who was let go when his small government organization was disbanded. Do not fret about this fellow, though, because someone slipped his name to a young multi-billionaire who was looking for a trouble-shooter and Crane checked all the boxes. Luckily for us readers, the kinds of things he is asked to do are similar to his previous employer.
  
  
• 07/17/2022 - Today's entrant is a really enjoyable series (I had a blast with it) that is not a comedy in the least but has a lot of well-timed humor that makes the adventures even more fun. Mike Farrah is a British SAS operative who is pulled into the cloak and dagger world. There are only two books in this series but I hope the author decides to revisit the character someday.
  
  
• 07/15/2022 - Today we welcome into the compendium a former warrior who has some time back laid down his weapons and become a CEO of a tech company. At least until unpleasant people from intelligence agencies, ours and theirs, start doing unpleasant things to him and his. Then he decides he needs to be unpleasant himself. Please welcome Mark Ericksen to the group.
  
  
• 07/13/2022 - A very short series (in size but definitely not in action) joins the compendium today. John Viera is an operative who has to put up with a lot of unpleasantness out in the field but it is still better than the crap he has to deal with at home. I look forward to more from this character in the future. So far there is one book and one novella, both of which are fun, coming from the minds of Piper Bayard and Jay Holmes.
  
  
• 07/11/2022 - It is rather interesting that just a couple of days since I turned one year older, I add to the compendium a sci-fi/spy-fi combo series in which both the good guys and bad guys are able to go back in time! Coincident? Freudian? Anyways, Peri Reed is the character that is a lot of fun to follow in this series written by the excellent storyteller Kim Harrison.
  
  
• 07/09/2022 - For today as I celebrate making it to another decade, I enter into this compendium a two-book series by one of the true masters. This unusual entry by the great Eric Ambler deals with a bad guy as the series leader, not that common for me. but Andreas Zaleshoff is definitely deserving of attention, as is his deliciously scary daughter. The first of these book arrived 15 years before I did.
  
  
• 07/09/2022 - Happy Birthday to ME! I am celebrating my 70th today, or as I announced at the terrific Mexican restaurant my adult children took me to, "My 50th birthday, for the 20th time". Thanks to all three of you for great food and great company.
  
  
• 07/07/2022 - A two-book series from just over 40 years ago joins the compendium today and it has such exquisite prose I describe it as "like an expensive bottle of brandy demanding to be sipped slowly and enjoyed with restraint". Lucas Garfield is an advisor on security matters to the President and gets involved in fighting some pretty nasty people. I loved it so much I gave it a grade of 'A' which is not very common.
  
  
• 07/05/2022 - Today joining the compendium is an 11-book action spy adventure series about a man who loves working on and under the ocean. I enjoyed these tales a bunch and am thrilled that the author, Evan Graver, is still producing more exciting Ryan Weller missions for the DWR.
  
  
• 07/03/2022 - A three-book series about an action adventure hero named Jon Jericho takes its rightful place in the compendium. The books released a half-decade ago and provided some very exciting reading.
  
  
• 07/01/2022 - From 1978 comes a short British comicbook series of an undercover agent taking place during World War II. It is the adventures of a thin, apparently frail soldier who is really an athletic agent who heads regularly behind enemy lines on assignment. The series has the rather strange name of The Secret World of Pasty White.
  
  
• 06/29/2022 - A seven-book (so far) series about a female operative with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) takes its place in the compendium today. Boone Hildebrandt is the woman's name of this "lithe, small-statured" person who despite being height challenged can still more than take care of herself in troubling situations, which seem to find her regularly.
  
  
• 06/27/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium I have selected a British agent of MI6 named Luke Carlton. I enjoyed the three books (so far) in the series and would not say no to more, should the author be so inclined.
  
  
• 06/25/2022 - Today we head over to the U.K. back in the first half of the 1970's with a short graphic adventure series designed for young male teens and younger adults with The Schoolboy Spy. It is an improbable story of a teen who is asked to help British Intelligence during WWII in a simple dead drop but ends up being whisked over to Germany where he will become a spy.
  
  
• 06/23/2022 - From the very gifted mind (and I assume keyboard) of Joel C. Rosenberg comes yet another highly enjoyable spy series to go along with the two that the man has already given us spy-fi fans. This new fellow is a reporter whose actions and adventures more than qualify him for membership in the compendium. Please welcome J. B. Collins.
  
  
• 06/21/2022 - After far too long of a wait, I have finally added a series that should have been admitted ages ago. I plead stupidity and have the evidence to back it. My apologies to John Lawton, creator and scribe of the terrific Inspector Frederick Troy. These adventures which have him chasing down spies and traitors in a span of time from just before WWII to more than a decade after show a richness and grasp of that time period and of the people who lived it. The series earned an 'A' grade from me.
  
  
• 06/20/2022 - 2100!!! Yesterday's entry puts that as the number of series contained in this compendium so far. That is a lot!! And there are several hundred more to come, just waiting for my tired (and aging) eyes to read them and these gnarled, arthritic fingers to type in the comments (okay, a bit thick there). I truly hope you enjoy reading the entries in this compendium as much as I love making them. Please send me a note telling me how you feel!!!
  
  
• 06/19/2022 - Happy Fathers' Day to all the dads out there. Today's entrant into the compendium is not a father but a son who aided the head of British Intelligence on a mission while on holiday. That so impressed the director that he enlists the teen to go work for him pretty much full time. P. J. Davenant is the young man's name and his series consists of several book collections of over 50 novellas and short stories. All of which were published starting over one hundred years ago in 1915.
  
  
• 06/17/2022 - I have a series today that has two very interesting 'hooks' to catch the prospective readers' eyes. The first is that hero, Spider Green (her real first name is Faydra), is an officer in the US Jag Corps. The second is that she is also the somewhat estranged daughter of a former US President. A third hook could be that these are really enjoyable adventures worth your time.
  
  
• 06/15/2022 - The private eye Johnny Dynamite was a terrific hard-boiled detective comic book series back in the early 50s, some of which were pre-Code and well worth reading a couple times. Now, he is included here because he does go to work for the American government as an operative for a while at the end of his recorded career - that and the fact that several lists of espionage spy series include him so why shouldn't I?
  
  
• 06/13/2022 - For today I present a four-book series which is a combination of spy-fi and sci-fi in that the agent in question has been seriously injured in a car crash and become the ideal candidate to have a microchip implanted in his brain. That sort of thing can really mess you up! Learn more by checking out Tom Bracks.
  
  
• 06/11/2022 - The last entrant into the compendium was a really enjoyable one by prolific author Craig Martelle. Today's entrant is as well. Ian Bragg is a fellow you do not mess with if you want to stay breathing because he eliminates people for an organization and he is quite good at it. The group he kills for? The Peace Archive. Kinda makes you wonder, huh?
  
  
• 06/09/2022 - I am a huge fan of stories in which the main character is not a trained professional but a fairly normal fellow (physique-wise) who gets thrown into trouble without looking for it. That is what I discovered in the Rick Banik series that just came out. Check him out!
  
  
• 06/07/2022 - For today I add to the compendium a two-book series that I really, really hope will have more books in it soon. Marko Zorn is a DC police detective who has a few 'outside' interests which throw him into the middle of organized crime spats and international intrigue with each amounts, all while his day job has him trying to solve murders, and the first one of those has leads reaching into the White House. These are awesome books! If you haven't yet, check him out!
  
  
• 06/05/2022 - Let's head back in time again for today's entrant. Set the time machine to 61 years ago and a Cuban cartoonist whose humor caused him to run afoul of then new Communist leader Fidel Castro, forcing him to leave the country. This move brought him to the States and to the offices of a still fairly new Mad Magazine. In 1961, Antonio Prohias penned the first of his many, many highly amusing graphic vignettes of White Spy vs. Black Spy (and sometimes the lovely Gray Spy) in the series entitled Spy vs Spy. Note that I started to give brief synopses of the plots for each but there are a LOT of them, so I soon gave up. I will slowly add more over time (probably).
  
  
• 06/03/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a terrific three-book series (which I hope will continue for quite a while) written by a true professional in storytelling. The Kate Henderson adventures about a MI6 agent who has a life outside of work is a blast to read and earned an outstanding grade by me.
  
  
• 06/01/2022 - As I state in the My Comments section of today's entrant into the compendium, I pondered for a while whether it belonged or not but obviously landed on yes so the (so far) two-book series about Zig and Nola is presented here. Zig is a mortician. Nola is an U.S. Army Artist-in-Residence. Not exactly spy types, either one. Check out what the two terrific books are about and why I included them.
  
  
• 05/30/2022 - Imagine you are a female barista with a car that starts when it feels like it and that is not often. You work at a coffeeshop with a troublesome taskmaster for a manager. And the new guy they hired, dashingly handsome though he might be, is a total fiasco behind the counter. If you learned, as Emily Abbott does that things just get weirder from there, well .... This light-hearted 8-book series is a lot of frivolous fun that I got a kick out of.
  
  
• 05/28/2022 - While new adventures of them are no longer being made, back a decade or so, if you had mentioned the names of Sam, Clover, or Alex to likely millions of television-watching children, they would have told you these three female characters were Totally Spies. Several games, a handful of books, an animated movie, and over 150 television episodes running from 2001 to 2008 and then coming back in 2014 for another year - that is a lot of fun, fun spy adventures for kids - and the occasional old man.
  
  
• 05/26/2022 - The newcomer to the compendium today is an earnest, eager young woman who, not yet 21, is invited to join a private-sector intelligence gathering company made up of all trained spec-ops personnel. She had none of that kind of experience. She, however, is psychic. Pretty good skill for a spy. Please welcome Lexi Sobado.
  
  
• 05/24/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we take another big leap back in time to 1936 and a popular British weekly magazine, The Hotspur, for the strangely titled The Terrible Riddles A Schoolboy Solved. There are 20 short stories about Alan Ross, son of a British Secret Service agent. Young Ross has a terrific knack for breaking codes and deciphering messages so the department makes frequent use of him. Naturally for literary reasons only, he cannot let anyone at the prep school know about this so his occasional popping off to crack another code often results in a school Master cracking a cane on his backside. Odd times!
  
  
• 05/22/2022 - Leaping back from the past with the last entrant to modern times with today's, I present a 3-book, 4-short story/novella series about a kick-butt British agent named Carrie Harris. She is definitely not someone to mess around with because she will decidedly mess you up.
  
  
• 05/20/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium we head back in time just shy of 90 years. That is a lot of years to travel but for the most part this series is worth it, if you can get hold of any of the 18 adventures that were published about Timothy Terrel. His tales were penned by Stephen Maddock, a pseudonym by J.M. Walsh over the span of a dozen years for this series as well as a handful of Inspector Sloane mysteries.
  
  
• 05/18/2022 - I have a dual entry for today though it is one character, sort of. I present to the readers entries on Peggy Carter (MPU) and Peggy Carter (MCU). Both of these very interesting ladies are Peggy Carter but they are both quite different and, in my opinion, each worthy of her own page.
  
  
• 05/16/2022 - Today I bring into the compendium a very enjoyable six-book series involving a British homicide detective who will get involved in a strange case which will result in his changing professions and locales to become an operative for a secret Japanese intelligence group. Nick Severance makes it work! (Well, okay, the author, Mark McKay, makes it work but you know what I mean). Give it a try, if you haven't already.
  
  
• 05/14/2022 - Just shy of two decades ago, highly successful author Andy McNab teamed with another fellow, Robert Rigby, to give us the 4-book story of Danny Watts, aka Boy Soldier, a sometime agent for MI6. I finally got around to checking the books out and thus young Watts becomes today's entrant.
  
  
• 05/12/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we head back to the mid 60s and a British graphic adventure series about George Preston, an operative with The Finger On The Trigger by which the writers mean that it is he who is determined to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It is a, well, frankly, pretty boring twist on Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male. I was not impressed.
  
  
• 05/10/2022 - As I wrote in the My Comments section of today's entrant into compendium, "Having an author have more than one series is not unusual. ... To have two series that have earned a A or higher grade by me is, however, rare. This exceptional author has done so." That author is Christopher Reich and the newest series of his to join this collection is that of Simon Riske. He is a former thief and former investment banker and now a man who runs a small business restoring ultra-expensive automobiles. And doing a bit of freelance cloak and dagger work on the side. There are so far four excellent adventures to savor. I strongly recommend them all.
  
  
• 05/08/2022 - Back in the mid-80's a fast-action guns-a-blazing was one of the many men's adventure series filling the truckstop paper spindles. It was about Jack Sullivan, aka The Specialist. Nearly a dozen books about him came out. I read 'em and enjoyed 'em. Well jump ahead to last year and suddenly two books about Vince Bellator hit the digital bookshelves and this fellow has inherited land from that Sullivan and is pretty much getting into the same sort of troubles that the first guy did. Action packed excitement, if you like that sort of thing (I do!).
  
  
• 05/06/2022 - The last entry I added, with a good deal of chagrin, a rodent secret agent. At least that fellow had the decency to have an organization he reported to and a bunch of cool gadgets to use. Unfortunately, 15 years before that big-eared chap came on the scene, there was another with the same name but this guy made, to me, absolutely no sense. This Danger Mouse had "Secret Agent" tacked onto the name but why is something I do not know. There was nothing 'secret' about him nor was there anything the least bit 'agent-y' about him. He hung around a neighborhood engaging in a standard cat-mouse feud that had nothing to do with cloak & dagger stuff in the least. Still, because he was called a Secret Agent and he had a series of (lame) adventures, he is listed here. My apologies to all.
  
  
• 05/04/2022 - Okay! I admit it! Sometimes I add a doozy that makes me both grin and grimace. I did that with Lancelot Chimp and with Tom and Jerry and a couple more. I do so again with Danger Mouse. But, hey! It is a series about a secret agent (well of sorts). Oh well, just want to see what I have after this fellow!
  
  
• 05/02/2022 - A nine-book (so far) series about a private intelligence agency known as the Lambeth Group joins the compendium today. It has two main agents who provide the majority of the action: Gavin is a bioscientist who uses his legitimate credentials as a cover for his LG activities, and Zoe is a highly trained and experienced combat officer who keeps them both alive.
  
  
• 04/30/2022 - I have added a few strange series over the years, some with a grin and some with a grimace, but today's entrant generates both facial movements. The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. is a 1966 attempt in Archie Comics to cash in on the Man From U.N.C.L.E. spy craze. Archie Andrews comes a spy. Really!?!
  
  
• 04/28/2022 - The name of the series entering the compendium today is a silly one and the series itself is, while serious in nature, definitely geared towards young teens, especially girls. Still The Girls From N.O.O.D.L.E.S. has impressed me. I am missing a lot of issues of the British magazine this series about Gale Price and Nicola Main but I hope someday to rectify that. Probably won't but hope remains! If you know stuff about this series, let me know!!
  
  
• 04/26/2022 - For today's newcomer to this fine collection, we welcome Kip Kenver, a Cornish born government assassin who loves excitement and challenging himself, having served in the military first with the Commandos and then the SAS. Now he works for an obscure agency and his adventures are so far told in two novels and one novelette. Also of note is his partner of sorts, the awesome Nessa.
  
  
• 04/24/2022 - A comicbook series about an adventurer who spends most of his time doing odd jobs for governments takes its place in this compendium. Dick Storm comes to us from back in 1940. He will not take much time to study, which is a good thing.
  
  
• 04/22/2022 - Today we enter a computer programmer who gets deeply involved in matters awash with spies from several nations - something I joke about wishing happened to me since I am an computer programmer by profession and a spy fiction nut by choice. Of course, I would not want happening to me anything close to what happens to Matt Bugatti. I mean, some of the people in these adventures are mean!. Check out this two-book (so far) series.
  
  
• 04/20/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we are leaping back just a year shy of 6 decades. 1963 is the year the graphic adventures of secret agent Strong Of 'J' Branch came out in the pages of weekly British publication The Victor. I thought the tales were pretty darn good but the series did not last that long, unfortunately.
  
  
• 04/18/2022 - A fun, exciting series about a very interesting female operative joins the compendium today. Amber Storm is the lady's name and she works for a very tough boss named 'Mother'.
  
  
• 04/16/2022 - From the height of the Cold War comes a threat unleashed upon America by the Chinese Communists but up to his own no good, Yellow Claw. And there to take him on is young FBI spy-hunter James Woo. A few good stories came to us before Woo and his archenemy largely disappears.
  
  
• 04/14/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium we travel to Britain and 1964 for a silly spy series designed for teens about a very small little man who is the nephew of a spy organization and who wants to be a spy. Reluctantly his uncle agrees and codenames him Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy. I do not have many of the adventures yet but I have a few and I and my contributor EdRoy are looking for more.
  
  
• 04/12/2022 - The companion series to the one entered two days ago gets its entry into the compendium today. John Black is the alias/new identity of the CIA/Air Force operative who would had his own adventure before becoming a part of George Raven's series of missions.
  
  
• 04/10/2022 - Today I add to the compendium a recent series which currently has four books in it plus two related books and one additional one of a character who will be given his own page here next. George Raven is the name of the fellow and he has a really extensive and impressive group of supporting characters.
  
  
• 04/10/2022 - Happy Birthday to my lovely bride of a bunch of decades now. Growing older with you is my greatest honor and privilege. Let's have a bunch more, shall we?
  
  
• 04/08/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we stay in the 1960s but on the other end of the decade. And we move to British television land for a bizarre (to me but not apparently to a good number of devoted fans) show done via Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation techniques. Joe 90 deals with the many adventures of a nine-year-old boy who has the brain patterns of various people uploaded to his brain via a super-computer called 'BIG RAT'. He is then able to take on highly dangerous missions for the huge World Intelligence Network. There were a fair number of televised episodes and a ton more graphic adventures.
  
  
• 04/06/2022 - Way back in 1960, an author named Max Van Derveer, using the pseudonym of Jack Lynn, wrote a handful of what was then ever so racy thrillers, soft porn with guns. One of these dealt with a Federal spy-hunter named Kevin Kar. This character's fascination with female anatomy was every bit as consuming as his penchant for addressing them repeatedly as 'Baby', 'Honey', and the like. And they, of course, loved it! Or at least didn't kill him. Well, a couple did try! Anyways, six years later Van Derveer, now using his real name, brought that character back for a series of spy adventures in the pages of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, albeit a tad less chauvinist-piggish. A tad.
  
  
• 04/04/2022 - The opening line in My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium is "This is a silly, silly series designed from the get-go to be so." It is very true. Tom Arto, Special Agent is designed to be silly and it fulfills that requirement.
  
  
• 04/02/2022 - From 1957 we enter a series dedicated to the men and woman, albeit about one fellow in particular, Frank Hawthorne, who served in the O.S.S. during WWII. It was a British ITV television series that made the transit across the ocean to air on ABC. It also had a good number of its episodes given graphic novelizations which were pretty good.
  
  
• 03/31/2022 - From the late 60s comes a strange (in several ways) spy series called The Secret Service. The oddities include: a) it is about an Anglican vicar who is also a spy, b) he has a device that shrinks his assistant down to fit into a suitcase, c) the stories about him use "Supermarionation" puppetry.
  
  
• 03/29/2022 - For today's entrant into this fine collection, we head back to just a couple of years before I was born. The year is 1949 and the airways carried all across the nation The Adventures of Frank Race, a former lawyer turned OSS operative during WWII and now an adventure-seeking insurance investigator whose cases take him all over the world usually making use of his spycraft (and his fists). Many of the tales are standard hard-boiled detective and many are cloak and dagger fare.
  
  
• 03/27/2022 - From the writing desks of two already well-placed spy-fi authors, each with a couple of series already having their spots in this compendium, comes another action-filled series. Alex Mason is the operative in question and he is an agent from ODIN. That's a new one! These are fun books to read.
  
  
• 03/25/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium we head to Japan for one of the coldest assassins, and one of the busiest and long-lasting, to join the group. Golgo 13 is not a spy per se and he is most definitely freelance but he is hired repeatedly by various spy organizations or is pursued by them for work he has performed. Most of his adventures are, sadly, still only in Japanese but there are enough in English to whet appetites.
  
  
• 03/23/2022 - A fascinating series about a man who is involved in London's high finance world while having ties to the IRA and paying dearly for them joins the compendium today. I held off far too long entering the world of Henry Crowne but now that I have finally opened that door and stepped in, I am hooked! The subtitle for these adventure is Paying the Price and boy, does he!
  
  
• 03/21/2022 - Today's entrant is interesting in that The Baron is a series of books in which the man started out as a jewel thief and turned into an antique expert who was fond of solving mysteries. He had a couple of espionage-style escapades but that was it. Then the character was moved to the small screen and suddenly he is up to his neck with spies and such. As a result, he belongs and doesn't belong.
  
  
• 03/19/2022 - From the early 80s comes a television spy series with an accompanying novelization about a character I describe as "cold-blooded and merciless as a deceased mackerel". Aubrey Percival is the fellow's name and he is fun to watch be so cool and removed from the violence he either orders or causes to happen.
  
  
• 03/17/2022 - Back in 1973 a delightful series about a man for whom that adjective would never be applied hit the bookshelves. Simon Bognor is the name of the fellow who works for -- get ready for this, spy fans -- the British Board of Trade. Does not sound very spy-ish, does it? And Bognor would be the first to agree. But he does get involved over and over with all sorts of nasty spy fellows who want to sneak things in using normal trade means or smuggle things out using the same or steal technology or recruit scientists or inventors. All very spy-ish, much to Bognor's dismay. Then again, just about anything would cause Bognor dismay.
  
  
• 03/15/2022 - As I state in My Comments for today's entrant into the compendium, I held off for many years before deciding on inviting G-8 and His Battle Aces to join. I thought it an air battle series, not a spy series. Obviously my opinion has changed so he is now very much welcome.
  
  
• 03/13/2022 - A very short-lived (for good reason) comicbook series from 1939 joins the compendium today. Swift Of The Secret Service has 3 adventures which are noteworthy because they exist, not because they had anything to note.
  
  
• 03/11/2022 - A four-book, okay, really five-book series about an agent with an organization that is a joint operation between the FBI and CIA. Kristian Clark is one of their best agents for a reason he will show several times over.
  
  
• 03/09/2022 - For today's entrant into this compendium, I move back 56 years and pop over to Israel with a four book series about Tami Shimoni, a police detective who also works closely with a fascinating spymaster named Pappa Barzalai. Shimoni is the main character but Pappa almost was, he is that important and interesting. These are really enjoyable combinations of spy-craft and police-craft.
  
  
• 03/07/2022 - From over 60 years ago in a British teen adventure publication comes a short series of really entertaining stories about a terrific case of mixed-up identities. Ben Bloggs - Extra Special Agent is a lot of fun to read and well worth the time. Silly, yes, but still fun.
  
  
• 03/05/2022 - From the pages of British youth publication Bullet comes a spin-off series from a sister magazine Warlord and its primary character. The spin-off is a fellow with the non-name of Fireball who often worked for the British Secret Service and at other times just happened into international intrigue and coups and ousters, all the time having other types of exciting escapades. I had a blast reading the 150+ graphic adventures for this fellow.
  
  
• 03/03/2022 - In the mid months of 1943 in Canada when legal restrictions prevented American comics from heading north of the border, a couple of Canadian publications had to switch to local talent to fill the pages of their comics. Today's entrant into the compendium was one of those. Marvo Power is a British agent who had a scant 3 adventures before he apparently disappeared forever.
  
  
• 03/01/2022 - I mention in My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium that when I first tried this series about Gun Cotton, I did not like it very much. I worried that I was being unfair so I waited several years and got a couple more books in the series and tried again. Nope, still do not like him.
  
  
• 02/27/2022 - A really terrific series joins the compendium today. I had a blast reading the three books (so far) and ended the last with the hope that the next would be soon coming. Axe & Haley are two very entertaining characters who each have very impressive skills that mesh well with each other.
  
  
• 02/25/2022 - Step back in time to the 1920's with Marion Bailey, a British historian turned Middle East radical and then forced British intelligence asset. This is a fascinating set of adventures that are very well written and very much worth the time reading.
  
  
• 02/23/2022 - Returning to television land for today's entrant into the compendium, heading back to 1959 to do so. I was pretty small back then but was still taller than Mel Hunter, the main character in the espionage drama World Of Giants. It seems that Hunter was too close to a strange radiation explosion while on a mission behind the Iron Curtain and later shrunk down to just 6" tall. There were 13 adventures of this diminutive chap.
  
  
• 02/21/2022 - A very interesting, short graphic adventure series about a poor fellow who is 'enlisted' into a ultra secret British government intelligence organization. The quotes indicate sarcasm because when he went in for emergency heart surgery (possibly caused by them) they implanted a device which sends his heart into major pain when a button is pressed. Work for us or die. Nice chaps. The poor fellow has the name of 'Ticker' Tait. No, I am not making that up.
  
  
• 02/19/2022 - From back in the 1960s comes today's entrant into the compendium. It was yet another cool spy series that did not survive very long and soon The Man Who Never Was was no more. That was a shame as I really enjoyed anything Robert Lansing was in.
  
  
• 02/17/2022 - Finally, after quite a few years of waiting, I add to the compendium a contemporary of Richard Hannay, the interesting retired grocer and dedicated long distance hiker, Dickson McCunn. As I mentioned in my comments, looking at the sort of trouble McCunn got into out strolling for fun, I would make it a point to stay home.
  
  
• 02/15/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium is named Price. No first name that I could find. Just Price. He is an agent with a secret department inside the British SIS called the Increment and he is one of those guys who is tasked with doing things when no one else can or wants to. "Do whatever it takes" is the motto of that group and Price takes it to heart.
  
  
• 02/13/2022 - In 1936 in the pages of issues #25 and #28 of the Operator #5 magazine, the short stories about Naval Intelligence operative Sam Farrell were printed as side stories. They were interesting and I would have liked more but apparently the author had other topics to write about.
  
  
• 02/11/2022 - I have had a soft spot for police procedurals since I first encountered the 87th Precinct and later ran into Inspector Maigret. And then there was my favorite, George Gideon. So when I cracked open the first of the two books in this series and saw it was a combination of spy-hunting and police work, I was thrilled. Ian Pepper is a two-book series about a very experienced and capable detective working in the British Special Branch. Both books were very enjoyable.
  
  
• 02/09/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I welcome a female operative from MI6 named Nikki Sinclair. These adventures, written in the last couple of years, deal with events happening in the mid-70s. This makes for interesting missions and challenging times for Sinclair who, in addition to being an agent, is also a practicing, albeit mostly closeted lesbian, something very much a no-no in the intelligence community fifty years ago.
  
  
• 02/07/2022 - A silly television spy series from 1974, a British version of Maxwell Smart but possibly even a tad wackier, takes its place in the compendium today. The Top Secret Life Of Edgar Briggs only lasted 13 episodes - considering how clueless Briggs can be at times, it is surprising he lasted that long.
  
  
• 02/05/2022 - From slightly in the future, written now of course, comes a two-book (so far) series about an impressively good thief discovered young and trained by the CIA to steal on their behalf. Annabelle Perkins is a fun read and I liked her (plus she has the same first name of my granddaughter!).
  
  
• 02/03/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a fellow with a lot of wry humor that I enjoyed a great deal. The Prendergast Files is a trilogy presented in a fairly unique manner - excerpts from reports and logs from different viewpoints though largely from Prendergast himself. It reminded me of The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry and that is high praise.
  
  
• 02/01/2022 - Jumping way, way back (nearly a century) for a 6-book series about a very nasty fellow named Paul Vivanti. This former famous doctor and scientist decided he needed to rule the world and when British secret agents prevented that, he got snippy and came back several times to try to wipe out England. In case this piqued your interest (the stories, not wiping out the UK), be aware that it was written by Sydney Horler so you should not set your expectations very high.
  
  
• 01/30/2022 - Today's entrant into the compendium starts out as a paid assassin, formerly with Russian Intelligence, named Nadia Kuznetsov. She changes identity to become Marie DeClerq, agent with the CIA. That is something that does not happen every day but I enjoyed very much the way that this switch went down. So will you!
  
  
• 01/28/2022 - A former special forces soldier and now a freelance 'finder' of things and people joins the compendium today. Stone is the name everyone knows him by and that he is most comfortable with and that matches his personality - most of the time. He finds things and the sort of things (people) he is hired to find in these adventures more than qualify him for membership here.
  
  
• 01/26/2022 - From just over a decade ago comes a 3-5 novella spy-rom series about a bureau called the IATO which means International Anti-Terrorism Organization so you get the idea what they do. The series mainly revolves around two characters, Jason and Emily, and the fact that these two never seem to be on the same wavelength when it comes to romance, all the while trying to stay alive from bad guys after them.
  
  
• 01/24/2022 - The unusualness of the tag line for today's entrant into the compendium was what grabbed me, as I am sure it was meant to. "An Owl The Assassin Novel". What-the-assassin? Owl? Okay, you got me. And it held me for its three adventures.
  
  
• 01/22/2022 - I am staying in television-land for the entry into the compendium for today though we head a couple decades further back than the last entry. Tales of the Gold Monkey was a fun romp taking place in the South Pacific dealing with Jake Cutter, a soldier of fortune pilot whose girl friend is a secret agent. Cutter gets involved in all sort of trouble any good operative should be used to, some due to his girl friend but most just because!
  
  
• 01/20/2022 - Heading back to just shy of two decades ago for a television spy series that did not capture the interest of enough people, apparently, to make it through all the episodes filmed in the first season. This was a shame, IMHO, because I watched it and I liked it a lot. Threat Matrix had lots of action and lots of fun and several darn good actors in it. I enjoyed a great deal refamiliarizing myself with it just now.
  
  
• 01/20/2022 - Site is back up again. My ISP said it had a major upgrade of their servers which took a day. They said they told me it was coming. Maybe they did and I missed it. Maybe not. Anyways, it is back.
  
  
• 01/17/2022 - I just happened to notice the number of series currently on the site. I would have chuckled politely and then stepped back slowly from anyone who might have suggested the number of series I would put into the compendium would equal the year! Who knew!?! Certainly not me!! And still lots more to come.
  
  
• 01/17/2022 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I have chosen a series that I considered almost two decades ago and opted out of. Now I have reconsidered him and decided that though his profession would exclude him, the work he often has to do while engaged in that profession really does warrant membership here. Hank Frost is the name of the fellow but he would tell people that They Call Me The Mercenary. For those who might argue he does not really belong, I would not mount any real defense. I also would not pull him out again, either.
  
  
• 01/15/2022 - From the early 90s and then a couple years later comes a fun (if you are willing to put up with tons of sexy young women walking and dancing and swaying in bikinis, which I am to better serve this compendium) television series. Acapulco H.E.A.T. takes a team of agents all over the Americas wherever it is warm enough to warrant wearing said bathing suits to fight lots of snarling, scary-acting bad guys. I may not rate it very high, but I watched me more than a couple of them.
  
  
• 01/13/2022 - Going back just a smidge over 40 years to add a delightful rogue forced by a decent frame job to start stealing for the good guys, entering the compendium today is Johnny Lawless with his personal Lawless Touch. It was an 8-mission comicbook series from Britain that was really fun to read.
  
  
• 01/11/2022 - From 1990 to 1993, 66 episodes comprising three seasons of a Canadian-American spy drama aired in syndication. Counterstrike was the name of the team put together by a billionaire out for revenge and justice when terrorists kill his wife. The billionaire was played brilliantly by Christopher Plummer. I have enjoyed revisiting it recently.
  
  
• 01/09/2022 - From 1969 comes a British television spy series called Codename. It lasted but 13 episodes, none of which I could find available for viewing. As a result, the grade I gave was based on other people's reviews. If anyone has personal knowledge, please let me know.
  
  
• 01/07/2022 - I admit to being a tad put off by the blurb about today's entrant into the compendium. He is labeled an ex-cult leader and that kind of sort of really made me less than interested. But then I read the first couple pages and was like, "what!?!". Very intriguing start to a series that has some interesting aspects to it that I never expected. Please welcome Christopher Wren to the collection. I would love to hear your thoughts on him.
  
  
• 01/05/2022 - From British adventure publisher IPC Magazines in their Battle imprint back in 1982-1985 comes an enjoyable, exciting action spy series about two spies traveling the world fighting the good fight for Queen and Country, all while using as their cover being actors in a television series about two spies traveling the world fighting ... you get the idea. It is fun and many of the tales are quite long giving the creators a chance to have some impressive tales. Check out The Hunters (1982).
  
  
• 01/03/2022 - An FBI agent with a counter-terrorism specialty and one very nasty and capable nemesis joins the compendium today. Ryan Stone is a former DEA agent with a ton of experience who is enticed to switch to the Bureau to go up against terrorists instead of drug runners. Just as he was very good against the latter, he will prove quite dangerous against the former.
  
  
• 01/01/2022 - HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2021 was ... well, for me not as bad as 2020 but I am still glad it is gone. Series-wise, it was good and this next year looks bountiful as well. I start it off with a two-book series based several decades ago written by Noel Hynd, an author I have tremendous admiration for. Thomas Buchanan is his name and he is an FBI agent converted to a CIA agent who does work personally for both Truman and Eisenhower. Great pair of novels to start the year off right.
  
  
• 12/30/2021 - Nearing the end of the year, another one that was better than the previous one but not by a whole lot, I add a romantic spy series about a woman who seems to have a life as complicated and stressful as 2021. Anika Washington is the woman's name and she is part of U.N.I.T., a group I am quite happy to not be working for. She does have some interesting things happen to her.
  
  
• 12/28/2021 - At the strong suggestion of two fellow spy-fans, I add to the compendium today the now long-running animated spy series about Archer. This handsome secret agent has been foiling bad guys and chasing women for a dozen years now and has been renewed for more to come. I was not a fan when it came out because his whining got to me but I am now seriously planning on revisiting him since to have stayed around this long, there has to be something in it.
  
  
• 12/26/2021 - From the pen of Alex Shaw, the same author who gave us the highly entertaining series about Aidan Snow comes a new series, two books so far, about an SAS operative turned SIS agent. Jack Tate is the man's name and I am having a really good time in his adventures.
  
  
• 12/24/2021 - Merry Christmas Eve, my friends. Today I add a fun little snippet of a series to the compendium. By that I mean the entrant is an almost universally known cartoon character who would never, ever fit the requirements for membership in this collection. Except!! In the mid-60s, Disney's spokes-animal, Mickey Mouse, had a very, very brief period where he worked as a "super secret agent" for an organization called 'Police International' which looked and acted quite similar to U.N.C.L.E. So, at the risk of losing my Internet cred, if I ever had any, with tongue firmly in cheek, I send a welcome to the anthropomorphic rodent.
  
  
• 12/22/2021 - From the pages of a British comic magazine called TV Fun put out during the 1950s comes an intrepid motorcycle-riding British Secret Service operative named Alan Brady, codenamed Z.9. He was summoned for his missions by the phrase Calling Z.9.
  
  
• 12/20/2021 - An interesting British spy series from the mid-60's joins the compendium today. It is really two series, at least on paper. The first was The Mask of Janus, 11 episodes aired in 1965. The second was a re-tool called The Spies, which had 15 episodes in 1966. In both series, the field operatives doing the leg work and putting their lives on the line were the same so I have joined the two series into one entry.
  
  
• 12/18/2021 - To be a successful Wall Street negotiator, a person has to be ruthless and determined. Those two adjectives describe today's entrant into the compendium, John Van Der Beer, aka the Bear. Then his office in the Twin Towers came down and he turned his attention from making more money, which he had a lot of already, to getting revenge on those who were behind the attack.
  
  
• 12/16/2021 - First Look: Joining the compendium today is an interesting though so far quite confusing series about Eleanor Braithwaite, an MI6 agent who might be good at her job but is definitely not someone you should think about romantically.
  
  
• 12/14/2021 - An interesting time travel of sorts for today's entrant into the compendium. We head back to 1964 for a series that takes the reader further back to WWI. Zigimar, Master Spy is the protagonist of a good number of short but entertaining graphic adventures about this one-named British agent. I could find about half of the stories and enjoyed them.
  
  
• 12/12/2021 - First Look: The series entering the compendium today is called the Aydin Trammell Chronicles. He is definitely the main character and the stories are centered around him but his wife, Allison deserves a whole lot of attention, too. Just saying!
  
  
• 12/10/2021 - In the now over 2000 series contained herein, I have seen many, many different organizations for which the main character works, some of them quite real and many fictional. Today's entry, Winter is the first character to work for GCHQ, a very real British intelligence gatherer which is a UK cousin to the US NSA. Very cool!
  
  
• 12/08/2021 - For today's entrant, we move forward a several decades from the previous entry, heading to 1969 and an operative who joins the ranks of agents using professional sports as a cover. Philip Driver, Golf Spy is the fellow and for the next three years he would partake in a dozen adventures told in serial format in a British magazine geared to young men, Tiger.
  
  
• 12/06/2021 - It is back to 1940 that we travel for today's entrant into the compendium. Nickie Norton of the Secret Service is the ID of the man for whom 18 adventures existed in graphic form in the pages of Thriller Comics. I was not impressed.
  
  
• 12/04/2021 - 2000 !!. That is a lot of series. I have known what some time that this incredible number would be reached and I have pondered what series I would want to add here to mark such a milestone. I have chosen one that I have been enjoying for some time and I hope that those of you who are kind enough to read these words will give a go with it.Erika Lehmann is a German spy during WWII and after. Her father is a close friend of Adolf Hitler and she is close to Eva Braun. She is a proud member of the Nazi Party, up until she learns the truth of the horrific camps and then isn't ever again. Life will cause her to become a reluctant agent for the OSS and later the CIA and along the way she will slowly build a cadre of support characters interesting enough to go out on their own but they stick with her. Twenty books there are so far in this series. The books are not perfect. Tastes vary so others will not take to her like I did. But I gave this series an A+ rating and, IMHO, she deserves this special attention.
  
  
• 12/02/2021 - Jumping back to 1980 today will have this compendium seeing the addition of a short television spy series from our cousins to the North. The CBC network presented 8 episodes about a retired Canadian agent and his former girl friend, a retired British operative, being pulled back from retirement to help Canadian Intelligence with a few things. The pair was known as The Phoenix Team, not to be confused with Mack Bolan's pals in the Phoenix Force or MacGyver's employer, the Phoenix Foundation.
  
  
• 12/01/2021 - Beginning in 1974 and producing an exciting, death-defying adventure every week for the next 12 years, amounting to over 600 missions, Peter Flint, Codename: Warlord provided entertainment in a magazine of the same name, Warlord. I mention in my write-up how impressed I was considering it would have normally taken a week for Flint and his boss to a) decide a mission was needed, b) plan the mission, c) get into enemy territory, d) perform the assignment, and e) get home again. All in a war that lasted, for the Brits, from 1939 to 1945, 6 years. Like I indicated - impressive!
  
  
• 11/30/2021 - As November ends, I present a sorta 2-book, sorta 5-book series from back in the 1930s. Frank Garrett was a major support character in two of the Benbow Smith spy adventures before getting his own two stories. Then he would have his last appearance in the third Inspector Ernest Lamb mysteries. So if you see a listing of author Patricia Wentworth's works, you will likely see only 2 books listed for Garrett while in fact he is important in 5 altogether.
  
  
• 11/28/2021 - I am heading back to 1950 and radio-land for this apparently entertaining series about a foreign correspondent who is asked join the American Intelligence community as a counter-espionage agent who travels the globe. I say apparently because I have only been able to listen to one of the many episodes but I do hope to be able to afford more in the future. Bob Barkley is one of the spellings for this series - read my write-up to understand what I mean. I was particularly amused by the fact that since this was one of the first instances of a spy using a reporter cover, albeit an authentic one in this case, the creator/writer caught some heat from both real reporters and real spies.
  
  
• 11/26/2021 - Let us slide back in time to just a few years shy of a half century and a series that was on the air while I was out-of-country so I never watched (or knew of it). The Kids From C.A.P.E.R. is actually a crime-fighting group of four teenage boys who love to break into song (some of them actually enjoyable, if you like 70s bubble-gun music which I do). However, some of the things the fellows get involved with make the show fit this compendium.
  
  
• 11/25/2021 - Happy Thanksgiving! I write this in the late evening hours after enjoying a terrific meal prepared by my wonderful wife and two grown daughters. I have so much to be thankful for, not the least of which are oodles more series to be presenting in the days ahead, my health and the Good Lord allowing. Cheers!
  
  
• 11/24/2021 - A couple days ago I added to the compendium one of author Talbot Mundy's most famous characters. Today I add another one, a fellow who came from Mundy's imagination before Jimgrim and about whom a couple of movies have been made to join the books and novellas that exist. Athelstan King is an agent with the British Secret Service in colonial India largely during and just after WWI.
  
  
• 11/22/2021 - We are not going so far back in time today. Just shy of 40 years and a not-so-memorable series called Codename: Foxfire about a female agent, codenamed - duh! - Foxfire, who was asked to put together a small team of females to handle missions for the President. The hook here was that Foxfire had been framed by a fellow agent and spent 4 years in prison so she was not in the best of moods.
  
  
• 11/21/2021 - After far too long, I add to the compendium a fellow who should have been a member years ago but for my desire to do a deep dive into the seemingly large number of titles about him. It turns out to be a good number though not so large due to re-titling. Whatever the case the books and stories about James Schuyler Grim, aka Jimgrim, are awesome reads and can take the reader back in time now just over 100 years ago. Through the words penned by Talbot Mundy the life and times of the Near and Middle East come alive, warts and all. Thanks to fellow spy-fan Bob for his push a year ago to add Jimgrim, as well as several other excellent recommendations.
  
  
• 11/19/2021 - Traveling back just shy of 50 years today for a series written in 1973 about a government bureaucrat/historian who works for the British Cabinet and occasionally is asked to look into the odd matter here and there, all part of being in charge of the 'Contingency Committee'. These extracurricular cases throws him firmly into the cloak and dagger world. Check out John Boldre when you have a moment.
  
  
• 11/17/2021 - A cute, non-spy spy series joins the compendium today with a series written for tweens about Agent Arthur, a teenage boy sent all over the world to solve problems, all in a manner that presents puzzles and logic problems to kids. Hey, he was an 'agent' and there were stories about his adventures so he belongs here!
  
  
• 11/16/2021 - What got me interested in the Tiger Standish rewrite I mentioned a couple days ago was delving further into the activity of Standish's Intelligence boss, Sir Harker Bellamy, who had a couple of adventures before Standish came around.
  
  
• 11/15/2021 - Sticking with Sydney Horler's works, I add to the compendium today his first series character, the British Secret Service agent with the unlikely name of Bunny Chipstead. Not sure if I had a real first name of Buncombe I would consider Bunny an improvement.
  At any rate, there are 4 books in this series starting in 1927.
  
  
• 11/14/2021 - Revisiting the pen of Sydney Horler from the 20's-50's, I have done a good edit of the Tiger Standish page including several more plot synopses than I had before.
  
  
• 11/13/2021 - In a trio of adventures written just recently (last few years) we travel far back in time to the Elizabethan era (first one) and the adventures of a young man who gets drawn into the cloak and dagger world because of a desire to impress a young woman. Edward Hunter will find that foray will change his life's plans quite a bit.
  
  
• 11/11/2021 - We have often gone back in time for an early spy series but today's entrant takes us further back into the past that ever before. 123 years into the past! 1898 is the year the first of the two adventures we have of Mr. Sabin, a dastardly bad guy who is mesmerizing in his capabilities.
  
  
• 11/09/2021 - Just shy of a month ago, I added a very busy British secret agent working during WWII mostly in the Pacific theater. These short stories were published in the teen publication Lion during the 60's. After that agent's long run came to an end, the very next issue of the weekly magazine saw the start of the adventures of Dan Dexter, another British secret agent who is working mostly in Nazi-controlled France. He had 80+ escapades to his credit.
  
  
• 11/08/2021 - First Look: Raki, a frequent recommender of interesting series to add to this compendium, brought me a handful more, one of which I decided to do a quick look at today.
  Reporter Jon Swift sounds quite a bit like myself as he is described as "cynical, cantankerous, and overweight", although I do not think of myself as that cynical. I look forward to learning more.
  
  
• 11/07/2021 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a delightfully entertaining two-book cozy mystery series about the Bard's Bed and Breakfast, a rest area for spies. It is run by Bea and Ben on behalf of the CIA and it is a place where aging spies in need of assistance or injured operatives who could use some extra care can go for a week or two or five all in a safe environment. Of course, when operatives trained to kill get together, things sometimes go awry. I write in My Comments that I hope the author decides to revisit this area because I would gladly read them.
  
  
• 11/06/2021 - A new two-book series about a former CID detective who is seconded temporarily to MI5 joins the compendium today. Ben Swan is the man's name - or at least it was before he was given a new one at his new job. Secrecy and anonymity are key elements to his new life and the latter starts to chafe. This is a good combo of spy-fi and police procedural.
  
  
• 11/04/2021 - Last week I added a series which took us back more than a decade. The same thing happens today, though this 12-story series about a German female operative doesn't go quite so far back - it lands on 1917. These adventures of the Countess von Schaumberg were printed in an impressive number of newspapers around the country, once a week in some papers and daily in others.
  
  
• 11/02/2021 - First Look: A series with seven books and two novellas joins the compendium today, providing us with the adventures of a former special-operations solder with the Israelis who is "invited" to join one of that nation's clandestine services. While we do not know the full name of Molka, we do know that in the department where she works, her employment is dubbed Project Molka
  
  
• 10/31/2021 - Happy Halloween! Today's entry has nothing to do with the holiday but I love the holiday. I also love what I have read so far on today's awesome entrant into the compendium. The same terrific author, Charles Cumming, who gave us two terrific spy series already, gives us another incredible one to entertain and fascinate us. Lachlan Kite is the character we are able to follow as he works for the ultra-mysterious Box 88.
  
  
• 10/30/2021 - A two-book (well, sort of) series about a hostage recovery team that has some unfortunate run-ins with MI6 joins the compendium today. The author refers to it as The Shadow Series but I have it listed here as Jenkinson & Golden. Whatever name you choose, it has lots of good action and writing.
  
  
• 10/29/2021 - Another travel far back in time today to a series which got its start in 1914. John Solomon is a short, pudgy fellow with Cockney accent who lives, at least when we first meet him, in the Middle East and knows that area well. I have him listed as a spymaster because while he will get involved in matters himself, he is more likely to be the man behind the man.
  
  
• 10/28/2021 - Not sure how this 7-book series snuck past me for as long as it did but eventually I caught on to it. Tim Burr is the name of this member of MI5. I appreciated the sort-of round-about way that Burr, working in the Ambassador's office in Paris was asked to do one little simple favor for his boss, an act which would change his life.
  
  
• 10/27/2021 - A very enjoyable series dealing with an agent with British Intelligence in the days just after WWII joins the compendium today. Harry Tennant is the chap's name. There are three books in the series so far, all of them darn good reads.
  
  
• 10/25/2021 - A fellow spy-fan reminded me about an animated television show that belonged on the site - The Secret Show - which I had to admit I had never heard of! A couple of hours on YouTube rectified that somewhat although I think I need to watch more - just to extra diligent, you know.
  
  
• 10/24/2021 - Joining the compendium today is a recently written three-book series about a former street urchin named Wiggins, once the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars and now an impromptu operative for British Intelligence. They are really fun to read, especially when Wiggins demonstrates the talents he learned while working for Sherlock Holmes.
  
  
• 10/23/2021 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a spy organization which has already been entered here, several times in fact. In a way. Awesome British author Mark Dawson gave us the terrific John Milton, Beatrix Rose, and Isabella Rose series, each of which I adored. One connecting line between all three is the ultra-clandestine Group 15. That organization gets its own entry here because of several novellas dedicated to it. Enjoy!
  
  
• 10/22/2021 - A two-book series (so far) about an employee of a clandestine organization called The Company who knows a lot about their nefarious activities and plans - and doesn't like them. Unfortunately, someone knows how he feels and frames him for murder. Life get complicated for Marcus Grimshaw.
  
  
• 10/21/2021 - Imagine your spouse of 20+ years finally reveals that for all that time she (or he) has been an assassin - but one nice enough to clean up after himself. That is the initial premise for today's entrant into the compendium. Nicole Portman is such a person as she is part of the Cleanup Crew, a private firm often working for the government to remove certain people from this life and then clean up afterwards. It is a fun series to read.
  
  
• 10/20/2021 - Yesterday's entrant was a spoof/homage to crimefighting and spy series from the 60s. It had a terrific costarring character named Sandra West and I liked her a whole lot more than the named star. Luckily others did as well and a couple years later, she was back with her own even better adventures fighting T.H.E.Y. on behalf of T.H.E.M.
  
  
• 10/19/2021 - Just for the amusement factor alone, I take pleasure in adding to the compendium today a set of webisodes about an agent of T.H.E.M. who fights the baddies of T.H.E.Y. This fellow is a costumed crimefighter said to be one of the greatest spies around. Superseven is a fun spoof and homage of those who entertained us back in the 60s.
  
  
• 10/18/2021 - A fellow spy-fi fan named Raki was nice enough to let me know about the excellent series I enter into the compendium today. Prior to his suggestion email, I had not heard of Peter Hanington's three-book (so far) series about BBC international reporter William Carver. Having met him and enjoyed reading about him, I am not likely to forget him. And if you have not yet checked him out, you should! Thanks, Raki!
  
  
• 10/17/2021 - From back in 1959 to 1961, the British young adult magazine Lion released a weekly story about an ace British Secret Service agent operating mostly in the Far East against Japanese forces during World War II. Max Malone had over 150 exciting adventures!
  
  
• 10/16/2021 - Joining the compendium today is an entertaining young adult series about a trio-plus-one team of high school girls who are also spies with The Authority. This now quartet is codenamed The Gems and each member is in her own way quite precious.
  
  
• 10/15/2021 - A CIA agent who goes from being a field operative to training to become one of their best paramilitary experts (usually it is the other way around) joins the compendium today. There are two adventures out dealing with P. J. Carpenter, both of them fast, action-filled stories.
  
  
• 10/14/2021 - A year after the Man From U.N.C.L.E. hit the airways, British teen publication Lion came out with their own version. Nelson Lord was an agent with T.I.G.E.R., an international crime fighting organization, who fought each week with agents of A.T.A.C., also a global concern but one dedicated to anarchy and mayhem. 60+ adventures came out about him and many of them are fun to read.
  
  
• 10/13/2021 - Today's entrant is Ben Keegan, hero of a 5-book (so far) series about the man who runs Dark Horse Guardians. That company is a private security firm, one of several the CIA uses for jobs it wants done without doing them itself. Also in the series and, at times, even more important (IMHO) is Lara O'Connell. Keegan gets the starring credit here but not by much!
  
  
• 10/12/2021 - Now entering the compendium ... a three-book series about a former SAS soldier hired by the clandestine British organization SI6 (not a typo). The agent's name is Jack Cross and the adventures have a ton of action and excitement in them and are fast, fun reads.
  
  
• 10/11/2021 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I am traveling back in time. Way back. In fact, this is the earliest spy series I have found yet. In 1892, William Le Queux, prolific British author, released a book with a dozen stories in it about a Russian Nihilist and spy named Vladimir. Four years later, he re-released the book with 3 more stories added and the name of the main character changed to Anton Prehznev. As the tales are in the Public Domain, I am including the tales for your reading pleasure.
  
  
• 10/10/2021 - Quite a few years ago, I added to this compendium a series starting in 1969 about Dingle & Jones. They are a pair of British operatives whose adventures were a lot of fun to follow and I gave the series a darn good grade. I did lament that finding the books was difficult and rather expensive. Today I heard from the author, Geoffrey Osborne, who told me a couple of awesome pieces of news. The first is that the books, all 6 of them, have been reissued in ebook format at a very inexpensive price. I snatched up my copies immediately. The second is that he has started up a new series, this one being police procedurals featuring a Detective Inspector Dorothy Fraser. I grabbed a copy of the first book as well. Considering that Mr. Osborne is, as he put it in his email to me, "still plodding along at the age of 91", I am thrilled to sing his praises here.
  
  
• 10/09/2021 - A fellow spy-fi fan alerted me to the fact that a second book about SOE operative Elisabeth de Mornay was just released, making the adventures of this fascinating character now qualifying for my site. I got it and put it on my TBR list but took a moment to read the first page or two. Or fifty. Or more. This is a very well-written series that I am enjoying a lot.
  
  
• 10/08/2021 - In a follow-on to the entry from yesterday, as I was researching that gentleman, I learned of another operative whose adventures were chronicled earlier that year. "Handsome Jimmie Calvert" is that fellow's name and his seven adventures, plus the one he joined in with his colleague, are very enjoyable tales and, now over 100 years old, quite good history lessons as well. Since they are in the Public Domain, I have included them for your reading pleasure.
  
  
• 10/07/2021 - We are traveling back quite a ways today for a six-adventure short story series about a Secret Service agent who gets involved in several very interesting cases with international ramifications. Grantham Waldron is the agent whose stories graced magazine pages back in 1913. Since these have long ago passed into the Public Domain, I have included the stories for your reading pleasure.
  
  
• 10/06/2021 - First Look: A fascinating series that I have just begun but want to make note of here is five books, so far, about Reim, someone I consider a combination of police detective and counter-espionage operative in the waning days of East Germany. Its not often I can say I have added a series where the protagonist is a member of the Stasi.
  
  
• 10/05/2021 - Today I enter into the compendium a fun combination of spy-fi and sci-fi with Jayne Austin, Interplanetary Spy-For-Hire. I describe her as 'sassy' which is more than justified. The two adventures out so far are a hoot and I hope the author will send us more.
  
  
• 10/04/2021 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we are traveling fifty years into the past for a five-book series taking place a thousand years into the future. Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service operative Coyote Jones is a red-bearded folk-singer and unapologetic devotee of women who has a series of loosely connected adventures all over the hundreds of planets in that storyline's Federation.
  
  
• 10/03/2021 - A three-book series that is quite interesting joins the compendium today. The first book about Rosie Winterbourne has nothing to do with her subsequent work in the espionage field but rather deals with her time in the Royal Navy, her love of sailing, and her mental issues thanks to a rare condition that is both a blessing and a curse. It was a terrific read - confusing at times but fascinating. And the books with her as an operative are darned good, too.
  
  
• 10/02/2021 - Set in the universe of the fellow I added to compendium yesterday, Jericho Black, comes a CIA agent who plays a vital role in one of Black's adventures before going on to have his own series of stories worthy of individual mention. Jack Bonafide has a terrific back story, just like Black does, and the writing for this series is as smooth as the other.
  
  
• 10/01/2021 - Entering the compendium today is a 6-book series with a handful of associated novellas either dealing with the main character Jericho Black or one of his colleagues. I was intrigued to find while reading the first book how the "main character", Black, does not show up for the longest time and the attention fell on some dude named Will Hessler. The book cover clearly stated this was a "Jericho Black Thriller" and yet no Black! Nifty trick. Good series.
  
  
• 09/30/2021 - A fascinating series of novellas joins the compendium today. It deals with the activities and the teachings of a CIA operative who is only known to us as The 24th Name. This series is so different from anything I have ever read and I loved it.
  
  
• 09/28/2021 - First Look: I have only a small bit of information about the two-book series from 1947 that I enter into the compendium today. I have the first book and started reading it but so far it is a slow slog. I will post more info on the series at a later date but for now I just want the adventures of Colonel Marley posted here for other comments.
  
  
• 09/26/2021 - A four-book, two-novella series about a private investigator who is really more of a clandestine operative joins the compendium today. I am enjoying the books so far and really having fun with Tom Wilder as well as the team he works with and also his impressive daughter, Lucy.
  
  
• 09/24/2021 - Joining the compendium this morning is a British private investigator named Karen Andersen who will find her interest in combatting cyber-bullying will lead her, through no desire on her part, into dealing eventually with traitors and terrorists and neo-Nazis and even Chinese operative active inside England. I am really enjoying the books.
  
  
• 09/23/2021 - Two cybersecurity experts who get into quite a tussle with North Korea, among others, joins the compendium today. Filed under Chen & Anderson on this site, the two non-spies who get involved in a lot of spy shenanigans are Wendy Chen from Singapore and Guy Anderson from Britain who go up against the Hermit Kingdom in Hong Kong.
  
  
• 09/21/2021 - An interesting woman joins the compendium today. There could be some valid arguing about whether Vera Kelly could actually live and work as a solo operative for the CIA in 1966 Argentina while being a woman of alternative lifestyles. Reading these two novels about her, though, I find I did not care about that. She and her thoughts and her observations make these books quite enjoyable reads.
  
  
• 09/20/2021 - A two-adventure graphic spy series about a British agent belong to a group called the X-Section joins the compendium today. Jake Jeffords had his adventurous days back in 1975. They were good fare; nothing noteworthy, they are still enjoyable to read.
  
  
• 09/19/2021 - A five-book series (so far) about a British reporter-novelist who also works for MI6 during the mid to late 70s joins the compendium today. Mike Ward is the chap and Christopher Bradbury is the author. I quite enjoyed them.
  
  
• 09/18/2021 - Far too long has gone by since I decided to add a series that should have been one of the first. Who knows (not me!) why the delay. Why ever, it is here now. Secret Agent X, the pulp magazine master of a thousand faces, joins the compendium and about time, too!
  
  
• 09/17/2021 - In the world of crime fiction, Scandinavian Noir has been quite popular for the last decade-plus but in spy fiction, not so much, at least not to my knowledge which may be limited in that department. Well, today I add a two-book series written in Swedish but translated to English. It concerns an analyst for an organization named Vektor. It seems Max Anger is a former spec ops soldier who gave up the danger to sit a desk. It does not work out like he expected.
  
  
• 09/15/2021 - Today I enter into the compendium a person with a unique occupation, at least for this site. Lillian Whyte initially works as an emergency room doctor. She will get deeply involved with spies and such, including eventually marrying one, when she has a bit of trouble at work and is 'advised' to take a sabbatical and help out in Africa for a while. It is there her life will change a whole lot.
  
  
• 09/14/2021 - A very recently written two-book series joins the compendium today but as I say in My Comments for it, it feels like it reached out from the 70s. The Death Master has the same vibe as The Death Merchant did back then.
  
  
• 09/12/2021 - From 2015 and then 2017 come a two-mission series about a former Russian crime boss turned one incredible operative coerced into working for the ultra-secret American intelligence bureau, the EON. Annika Malikova, Codename Baboushka, is a dynamite action hero and her two adventures are terrific reads that I took way too long to stop and read. My bad. I loved 'em.
  
  
• 09/11/2021 - I was interested in the series entering the compendium today for two reasons when I first saw it. One, the main character was working as a real estate agent, something my wife did for a good number of years. Two, it was happening in the South of Spain where I lived for several years. That got me to start reading the first adventure. The excellent writing and story-telling about Ryan Chaise kept me reading. You should check this fellow out.
  
  
• 09/10/2021 - In the pages of the trilogy being entered into the compendium today, the reader is taken back to 1943 Shanghai and a Japanese-controlled Chinese region that I know so little about but which fascinates me. Red Asscher is a very enjoyable, captivating read that I think most spy-fi fans and history buffs will get a kick out of.
  
  
• 09/09/2021 - It should go without saying (so I will say it anyways) that the same person who added to the compendium about spies and secret agents characters such as Lancelot Link and even Tom and Jerry would not hesitate to add today's entrant. However, I did hesitate, for a while, but then my frequent and awesome contributor, EdRoy, kindly sent me copies of the two graphic novels containing the series about Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and after reading it, well, here it is! Is it spy-fiction? Nope. Is it fun? Yep. Does it belong here? Ah, well, it is here regardless. And I am glad it is.
  
  
• 09/08/2021 - A solid, interesting without being flamboyant operative joins the compendium today. David Reece is part of a secret division of MI6 called SG9 which it tasked with hunting down terrorists before they can strike terror. He is a former 20+ year veteran of the Special Branch so he knows a thing or two.
  
  
• 09/07/2021 - From the pages of a mid-60's weekly British teen boy magazine comes a not-too-shabby set of adventures about a civil engineer with a love of underwater exploration. He joins the British Army's Royal Engineers but is soon coopted to help out the Intelligence operations for both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. The stories are quite well written but the title of the series, The Spy With Flippers, is, well, 'nuf said.
  
  
• 09/05/2021 - A mighty fine trilogy joins the compendium today, one that had me hooked from the beginning to the end which is what a reader wants, of course, but which did slow me down in my adding to this site. I file this series under the name of Blackhawk, the codename of the main character but the author refers to it as the Scarlet Trilogy. Whichever name you go with, it is a well-written set of three books.
  
  
• 09/04/2021 - In keeping with my recent habit of, well, losing it, I add an Australian-Italian animated television spy series about three 10-year-old girls who are agents for the BIA. In My Comments on this show, I ask the question, "Where are the parents?" Please welcome the Berry Bees to the compendium.
  
  
• 09/03/2021 - A two-season, 40 episode spy spoof from .... joins the compendium today. In a concept obviously borrowed from Charlie's Angels and The Mod Squad, three beautiful, alluring women who were expecting to spend their best years behind bars for crimes they most definitely did commit are given a chance at freedom by working as spies for the government. This trio is given that not so flattering title of She Spies.
  
  
• 08/31/2021 - An exciting, two-book series that I mention would have worked just as good on the big screen as it does on paper joins the compendium today. Jim Peregrine, not surprisingly codenamed Falcon, is a former SAS operative who will go to work with MI6, bringing with him a beautiful co-agent and picking up another along the way. Lucky b*****d!
  
  
• 08/30/2021 - New books in the following series have been added: Lance Spector, Adam Drake, Jason Trapp, Chuck Brandt, Sara X, Rayna Tan, Adelaide Becket, Levon Cade, Brady Hawk, and Clarke & Fairchild.
  
  
• 08/29/2021 - From over a hundred years ago comes a 6-story series that my frequent contributor, EdRoy, sent to me. I was impressed with the quality of these stories and have enjoyed reading several. Through our combined efforts, and that of magazine archive sites and newspapers.com, facsimiles of the stories are available here on the page for Valentine West.
  
  
• 08/27/2021 - Two operatives from an 'ultra black-ops government agency' called F.O.R.C.E. join the compendium today. Pike Harriman is an experienced F.O.R.C.E. operative working with NOLA's SWAT to re-sharpen his skills and Voodoo Laveau is a Creole SWAT officer who gets pulled into F.O.R.C.E. when Harriman is recalled for a mission. What I've read so far has been fun and I really like Voodoo.
  
  
• 08/25/2021 - If you are looking for lots and lots of action and a really enjoyable main character to follow, you cannot go wrong with today's entrant. Jon Deats is an NSA field agent who certainly gets around and finds trouble every where he goes in this 10-book (so far) action-adventure series.
  
  
• 08/23/2021 - Today I add to the compendium a very exciting and quite enjoyable series that fits this collection but also doesn't. Ryan Kaine is a former SBS Captain who goes to work for a security consultancy. His life is changed forever when a simple job of testing a SAA missile is turned into an act of terrorism by the people hiring him. It turns Kaine into Britain's most wanted terrorist and puts him on the trail of those who masterminded the horrible event. Then it sets up Kaine's new purpose in life - being a protector to the 83, the families of those killed in that event. I really liked this series. A bit wordy at times (ironic observation coming from verbose me) but darned good and addictive.
  
  
• 08/22/2021 - Let's pop back 35 years to a pair of really fun spy-mystery adventures taking place during WWI. These books star a young man who is the son of the great detective Sherlock Holmes and who will, or so the supposition is, someday retire to New York under the assumed name of Nero Wolfe. When we follow him in these stories, he goes by the name Auguste Lupa as he goes up against German spies while working with a French operative and then later against all sorts of spies in the final days of Nicholas II.
  
  
• 08/21/2021 - Joining the compendium today is an American woman forced by circumstances to work alongside an MI6 agent to take down some very dangerous Russians and then an even more deadly terrorist group. She was the first female US Navy SEAL who now is thrown back into the action when someone from her military past strikes at her daughter. Diana Weick was already suffering with anger issues as a result of PTSD. Endangering first her daughter and then her son? Not a smart move.
  
  
• 08/20/2021 - I received an email from J.F. Norris, the fellow behind the excellent Pretty Sinister Book correcting me on my entry on John Meredith a while back. In it, I used a quote from his site which left the distinct impression that he did not like the book he was talking about. In his email to me today he pointed out that I had not quoted enough, which is true. Re-reading his comments, I see I was amiss and I apologize to him and to those of you reading that First Look entry. I thank Mr. Norris for the kind correction and hope to do better in the future when I cite other people's opinions.
  
  
• 08/19/2021 - Today's entrant into the compendium comes to us from 1977 though this graphic adventure series deals with a kick-butt British S.O.E. operative during WWII. Gaunt is the undercover agent with a major hatred against the Nazis. Considering what one of their Gestapo goons did to his right hand at the beginning of the series, it is easy to understand.
  
  
• 08/17/2021 - For action-adventurer fans, I have a darn good one today in the [so far] 9-book series about Mason Walker, former SEAL now working for a CIA group called Onyx. He is fun to read about and his support characters even more so (IMHO).
  
  
• 08/15/2021 - As my frequent contributor, EdRoy, reminds me, there was a popular television show in the 60's dealing with a group of spies operating inside Germany during the Second World War, performing amazing feats of espionage, sabotage, and general mayhem, in addition to working with the Underground and assisting downed pilots get back to England. Today I add to the compendium this series. Please welcome the incredibly funny Hogan's Heroes.
  
  
• 08/14/2021 - First Look: Not a lot is known about today's entrant into the compendium and what is known comes from a history of pulp magazines that is too pricey for me these days. Nevertheless, the little I do know about Kara Vania, of Scarlet Adventuress magazine fame I have entered on her page.
  
  
• 08/13/2021 - Hold onto your hats (or wigs) for today's entrant into the compendium. And then read what I had to say about Tom & Jerry before dismissing me as the old, senile, going-through-his-third-childhood goof-ball that I really am. How in the name of cloak-and-dagger can these two deserve membership!!! Well, they do! Sort of, of course. And all in fun.
  
  
• 08/12/2021 - A three-book series entrant today being added to the compendium. Brian Webb of the White Dove Chronicles is about a genius operative working for a secret government agency.
  
  
• 08/11/2021 - As I mention in the My Comments section for today's entrant, part of this four-book series about Bertram Lynch goes way-way-way back and half goes just way-way back. That's 1933 and 1936 and 1956 and 1959. Lynch is a fun-to-follow fellow who purloins an innocent bystanders and repeated uses him, all friendly like, as his sidekick and sometimes as bait.
  
  
• 08/09/2021 - For today's entrant we go back to 1969 and legendary comicbook writer Gil Kane for a very gritty new spy series he was pushing but which did not find a backer. It has an interesting history and what looks like a promising resurrection by current day comicbook scribe, the very talented Steven Grant. Check out Gil Kane's Savage to see what I know about this fellow.
  
  
• 08/08/2021 - A short, simple, pretty much throwaway series gets its membership spot today. From Britain's TV21 weekly magazine had a go an undersea spy series with the 'clever' name of S.N.O.R.K.E.L. and its star agent, Johnnie Webb. It was excellently drawn, IMHO, but the stories were lackluster and the character, who looked interesting at first, became pretty blah.
  
  
• 08/07/2021 - I have been blessed over the many years I have been adding to this site by coming across a large number of really good series. A few have been exceptional and have, for various and varied reasons, totally hooked me and held me. Today I add one of those to the compendium. Miranda Chase and her team of investigators and friends so captivated me that I could not stop reading their adventures until I had consumed every one, and there were 8 of them. Truth be told, I never tried to stop. Had there been more, I would still be reading! The author promises more to come. I hope he was not just teasing me.
  
  
• 08/06/2021 - I seem to be on a television spy series loop this week because today I add Spy Game, a light, fun, very short-lived series from 1997 created by Sam Raimi and dealing with experienced agent Lorne Cash and techno-whiz agent Maxine 'Max' London. There were 13 episodes made but only 9 were aired originally.
  
  
• 08/05/2021 - I remain in the land of television for today's entrant but the star of yesterday's entrant is a major player in today's. This time he plays another tech expert who used to be a field agent, now working as the handler for novice CIA operative Annie Walker as she gets involved in Covert Affairs. This show was, IMHO, a highly polished presentation with interesting characters and fun plots.
  
  
• 08/04/2021 - To me it was not too long ago but the calendar insists that it 18 years have passed since I was able to become a huge fan of, and then one of those mourning the demise of, Jake 2.0, a fun television series about an IT guy for the NSA who gets a nasty dose of nanobots inside him and turns into one heckuva cool secret agent. It did not last long but what it had, I watched and enjoyed a lot.
  
  
• 08/03/2021 - While I am still reading today's entrant into the compendium and enjoying it a great deal, I decided to make the entry before finishing it. Let me assure you I will finish this series because it is really, really good. Neva is the name I have given the series because she is, IMHO, the main character but another chap named Michael Kensington, working for MI5, is just as important. The series is titled The House Of Killers by the author.
  
  
• 08/02/2021 - Military meets operative in today's entrant into the compendium. This three-book series about Marvin Styles stars a just-discharged Marine sniper, let go because you are not supposed to punch a superior officer, no matter how many fellow Marines he gets killed through stupidity. The President needs a killing machine to go on covert missions against terrorists and Styles is his choice.
  
  
• 08/01/2021 - A very bad, IMHO, 4-episode television series from 1966 joins the compendium today. I have no idea how any of these 4 made it to actually be aired. I also have no idea why the name of the program was The Corridor People. A very strange British program, made stranger by being marketed as a "cult" fantasy series.
  
  
• 07/31/2021 - New books added to these series: Sam Raven, Jason King, Will Slater, Alex King, Harry Bauer, Corps Justice, Ryan Savage, Chase Fulton, and Bob Danforth.
  
  
• 07/30/2021 - A major character in the Eva Destruction spy series gets his own three-book series, published the year after her series was published. Charles Bishop is, as I say a couple of times in my write-up, a stereotypical British agent but what makes this fellow fun to follow is that the author does this, IMHO, very much on purpose and has a good time pulling it off.
  
  
• 07/29/2021 - A two-book combination of black-ops CIA work and military action joins the compendium today. Gordon Mitchell is a former Special Forces and ex-CIA operative who is pulled back into his former line of work to take on a particularly dangerous opponent - a man who was once his closest friend.
  
  
• 07/28/2021 - A three-book series (so far but more promised) series about a new agent (well, really two) joins the compendium today. The books about Marcus Peterson are fun, easy-to-read excursions that would make a good television series along the order of (IMHO) Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
  
  
• 07/26/2021 - Every hundredth mark in this compendium has been a special event to me. As I enter the 1,900th member in this collection today, I feel it desirous to have that position be filled with a special person so I felt it apt that it be Myra North who had Special Nurse in the title of her very enjoyable comic strip run back in the latter half of the 30's. Do not think, as you take a few minutes to check out the adventures she has, that hers is a busy-body soap opera life. Ms. North is definitely a nurse and wants to practice that profession but she is also someone who loves adventure and who gets involved in quite a few extraordinary ones, almost every one making her worthy of membership here.
  
  
• 07/25/2021 - First Look: This 'look' is more of a quick peek because of how little I have learned of it. Knowledge of this 'Indian James Bond' named Mark Ray came to me thanks to an email by learned Indian literature expert, Narayan Radhakrishnan. I appreciate what you had, sir, and your kindness in passing it along. To anyone else knowing anything else, please let me know and I will add it promptly.
  
  
• 07/24/2021 - A series comprised of five short books dealing with a military intelligence officer who works in essence for the President and which take place a hundred years ago joins the compendium today. Alexander Armstrong has missions back in 1915 and then several more after the War and all are well written and fast reads.
  
  
• 07/23/2021 - Today I welcome into the compendium a 'bean-counter'. That's pretty much what she thinks of herself as being when she is sent into the field not as an agent but as the forensic analyst that she is. Unfortunately the bad guys think of her as an operative so unless she starts acting like one, Maggie de la Cruz knows she will have likely countered her last bean.
  
  
• 07/22/2021 - My friend and fellow spy-fan, EdRoy, who finds all manner of really cool things to add to this site and has for some time now, today celebrates his birth so to him I say "Happy Birthday!" He is the one who pointed out this series which I had so far not thought about adding. Matt Hunter is the series protagonist in what was to have been possibly a movie series back in the mid 80's featuring the incredible Chuck Norris. The first movie had Chuck but he passed on the second and it was rewritten a tad and given to another action star. Thanks as always for the tip and the good amount of useful data on it you provided, EdRoy, and enjoy your special day.
  
  
• 07/20/2021 - In 1975, a prominent British comic book publisher came out with a rough-and-tumble Dirty Harry-ish New York cop named Jack McBane who is injured in an altercation and loses an eye so from then on the adventures we have of him as a cop tag him as One-Eyed Jack. His place in this compendium would come many months later when he gets fed up with his job and switches to work for a government spy agency fighting terrorists.
  
  
• 07/19/2021 - First Look: I have learned very little about today's entrant into the compendium other than, well, that he existed. He had at least two, though possibly more, adventures told in magazine serial form back in 1934. While I do not know that much about John Silence, I can surmise he was well thought of because the author dubbed him the King of Spies!
  
  
• 07/18/2021 - Today I enter a fellow whose occupation I put down as 'Other - Wanderer', a rather unique and not a little odd vocation. But that is what Wade Ross is doing when danger sort of falls in his path and he does not jump back.
  
  
• 07/17/2021 - A young-ish woman who works for the Recruitment Agency as one of the very best assassins in the world, Raven Winter, joins the compendium today. An interesting woman that I was sort of taken to and sort of scared of.
  
  
• 07/16/2021 - Today I reach back more than 100 years for a very enjoyable series of 11 short stories about a British Intelligence operative who routinely snuck into and out of WWI-era Germany on missions. John Dudley Frazer used the services of a specially allocated submarine designated Z1 to accomplish these forays. He also picked up a very interesting and redoubtable adversary in the lovely Fraulein Minna Schumacher. The author, Edgar Wallace, was regarded a genius storyteller and these show why.
  
  
• 07/15/2021 - First Look: Fellow spy fan and authority on Indian writing in English, Narayan Radhakrishnan, was kind enough to send me yet another agent of Indian Intelligence from the early 1970's. This man's name is Netto and he is said to be a thinking-man's kind of agent.
  
  
• 07/14/2021 - For today's entrant into the compendium, we travel to TV Land and 1990 and watch the brilliant Nicholas Lyndhurst portray a tech whiz being pulled into a tech-phobic MI5. The character is named Peter Chapman but because he thought all agents had codenames, he got one so the adventures are named The Piglet Files. Piglet being the next animal name on the codename list, you see.
  
  
• 07/13/2021 - Taking a time-out from big kid spy adventures to a fun but also rather silly small kid spy series. Agent Darcy & Ninja Steve is a four-book series for 8-12 year old's (which would indicate me on more and more days). I would not really recommend it to adults but if you have kids in the age group, they should be shown this one, boy or girl.
  
  
• 07/12/2021 - A specialist in languages, a college professor named Mark Aldin, joins the compendium today. This three-book series deals with his abilities at Middle Eastern who has worked on a consultancy basis with the CIA for some time but now his involvement is going to get a whole lot more.
  
  
• 07/11/2021 - I mention in the My Comments portion of today's entrant into the compendium that I love a series where a dog plays a major role (as long as the dog acts like a dog). That is the case with Jake Wolfe and his war-dog, Cody. Wolfe is a sometime agent with the government who finds trouble wherever he goes. Watching him and Cody handle that trouble, along with the assistance of Wolfe's love, Sarah, is a lot of fun.
  
  
• 07/10/2021 - A five-part novella series joins the compendium today. It deals with the career of an unusual agent named Kyle Shatter who, after a major medical emergency, now hears that inner voice we are all said to have. Except his is a voice that Shatter talks 'with', not 'to'. Luckily for him that voice is very, very smart because Shatter will need it.
  
  
• 07/09/2021 - As I celebrate today my 39th birthday for the 30th time, I reach back further than even that long ago event for today's entrant into the compendium. I regret that I have not yet obtained a copy of the book containing the stories about Cuthbert Croom, dated 1905, but nevertheless I do have an interesting amount of information on this one-of-the-first spy series.
  
  
• 07/08/2021 - Another foray into TV Land, this time not going back too far, for a really fun, easy to watch but far too short series about four agents of the CIA who work for a division with the nickname of Chaos.
  
  
• 07/07/2021 - Today I reach way, way back for a 4-book series that started in 1910. If my math is correct, that is 111 years ago. Now, it is valid to point out that this series about Ashton-Kirk is far more detective, ala Holmes, than it is spy, ala Bond. Still there are reasons as I mention in my comments why I feel it deserves membership.
  
  
• 07/06/2021 - Another television spy series joins the compendium today. This one is really quite different than, well, anything. It takes place in 1801 in a French colony in the South Pacific and features the adventures of American spy Jack Stiles, known here as a Jack Of All Trades. Totally irreverent and anachronistic and plain silly, it gave us Bruce Campbell and that is reason enough for me to watch.
  
  
• 07/05/2021 - I travel back to the year of my birth, 1952, for today's entrant into the compendium. The television and radio program was named Spycatcher and dealt with the work done during WWII by Lt. Col. Oreste Pinto, a Dutch counter-espionage expert who worked for the British during that period.
  
  
• 07/04/2021 - Happy Birthday, America! No new series added today. Just relaxing and enjoying my wife's company. Plus grilling sausages and eating her awesome potato salad. Watching fireworks. And reading the latest Nero Wolfe mystery (I know, a non-spy series!). Good day!
  
  
• 07/02/2021 - A very enjoyable mixture of spy-fiction and the paranormal joins the compendium today in the form of Jessie Richter, a young woman with a pretty unique ability that makes her really, really good at intelligence gathering.
  
  
• 07/01/2021 - As we move into the summer month of July, I prepare for a 90+ day in the Carolinas stunned to see the temperatures in the Northwest making my sweating look balmy. In the spy series realm, I present a series of vignettes of which I have learned just a little but hope to learn more, possibly from you reading this. John Pond was a counter-espionage agent in seven super-short stories printed in various mystery magazines. Please drop me a line or add a comment if you know more or have access to any of the stories.
  
  
• 06/30/2021 - Once again I travel to TV Land to bring back a series that both my wife and I enjoyed a lot - so naturally it did not last even one season and vanished into obscurity. Undercovers was the name of the show dealing with a married couple, former spies who gave up their cloak and dagger careers to make their marriage work but who are now more than a little bored with every day life and so not needing much of a push to get back into the old life.
  
  
• 06/29/2021 - We take a trip back to the mid to late 60s today and a series of mostly spy-related stories found in several very popular mystery magazines of the day. Richard Verner is the protagonist and he is a professional heuristician (read the series page to learn what that means) who is called in to solve a nice variety of problems.
  
  
• 06/28/2021 - A young adult series of spy adventures joins the compendium today, having an "origin" that is fun to consider. In another series of non-spy stories meant for even younger readers than this one, Ruby Redfort is a fictional spy that the young girl in that series loves to read about and quote frequently. After doing this for the three books in that other series, the author decided to bring that character "to life", so to speak. Ruby has a set of 81 rules to follow, several of which I mention in my write-up and one I especially like: Rule 79: What to do if you meet a bear - wish you hadn't!
  
  
• 06/27/2021 - Regardless of what I had planned to enter today on the site, the entry was pushed back a day to add this 'gem' from 1986. As I mentioned in the thank-you email I sent to the man who told me about this series, fellow spy site blogger, Johny Malone (Una Plaga De Espias), once I stopped chuckling over his find, I immediately got to work researching it. Thanks to him, we have today Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, a small group of operatives answering to the Director of 'the Agency' who answers only to the President. I may get drummed out of the spy club for this but I love it!
  
  
• 06/26/2021 - I gotta root for any operative whose codename or callsign or nickname is 'Boy Scout'. That's what it is for Layne Parrish and though he does his best to prove he is no boy scout, he nevertheless seems to be always prepared. This is good because lots of bad things keep happening around him.
  
  
• 06/25/2021 - I enter two series at the same time because they are related, figuratively and literally. One series is a continuation of the other, really. Both are meant for young children, age 6-9. The first is a 14-book set about Jack Stalwart, age 9, an operative for the GPF while looking for his missing brother, Max, also an agent. The second is a 4-book set about Jack and Max Stalwart which follows the first series and deals with some adventures the two boys have once the older one is found and brought home.
  
  
• 06/24/2021 - If you are looking for a really smooth-reading, quite interesting spy series taking place during WWII, today's entrant into the compendium is a good catch. Dragan Kelly, called Dan by his friends, is a British Royal Naval officer whose ship was sunk by a U-boat off Norway and who found his career path changed to one of espionage as a result. Two books so far and I have been enjoying them a lot, especially whenever Sybilla is on hand.
  
  
• 06/23/2021 - We go back in time in TV-Land today, to 1972 and a British spy series called Spyder's Web. It was a very low-budget production that dealt with a woman and man team named Lottie Dean and Clive Hawksworth. Dean is interesting to me. Hawksworth decidedly is not.
  
  
• 06/22/2021 - Back to TV Land for this entrant into the compendium but not very long ago - just a handful of years. K. C. Undercover is a charming teenage action comedy in which the main character is a very pretty and very capable teenager who has just learned that her parents have been spies her whole life and need her to join the department and help out. It was fun watching a couple of episodes to learn what this show was about and it must have been enjoyable to the target audience because it lasted three season.
  
  
• 06/21/2021 - It is the first full day of summer and it is bloody hot and humid here in North Carolina. And my grass really needs mowing. And I am looking for any excuse to stay indoors. None of which has anything to do with today's entrant into the compendium. The Hitman's Bodyguard, which joins the group today, is not about spies per se but the first is about taking down a brutal dictator and the second about fighting a very nasty terrorist so IMHO it fits. Plus, as I point out in My Comments, the movies have Salma Hayek!
  
  
• 06/20/2021 - In addition to consuming good food like I mentioned just before, I am having a fun time adding another series to the compendium. This time it is a physics professor who gets involved in action going up against some very nasty people but luckily for him back by some very capable good guys. The author calls the two-book series "Kestrel" but I have it listed under Neil Aldridge. Check it out!
  
  
• 06/20/2021 - Happy Father's Day to me and all others to whom it may apply. In a little while I will be munching on a homemade angel food cake and watching the latest Wonder Woman movie, thanks to my all-grown-up "kids". I hope you all have a good day as well.
  
  
• 06/19/2021 - Fellow spy-fan and frequent contributor, Bernard, pointed out today's entrant into the compendium. I had known of it but had not yet looked into it until his email provided intel and prompted my exploration. Ghost Squad is the name of the series and it follows the adventures of several British undercover policemen as they fight a whole lot more than just crooks in this international adventure series.
  
  
• 06/18/2021 - I have in the last couple weeks added one or two really strange series to the site, enough to make the few who weren't already certain of my craziness come over to that line of thinking. For the two or three hold-outs, I present one heckuva fun secret agent. We all know her. We just did not all know she had such an interesting hidden life. Please welcome to the compendium ... wait for it ... Cinderella. No, I am not kidding. Check out her page and grin.
  
  
• 06/16/2021 - Another television spy series, this one from just 6 years ago on the TNT network, Agent X, joins the compendium today. I liked it but I was apparently in a minority because it only lasted one season of ten episodes.
  
  
• 06/15/2021 - I have been reading new series, honest! But I have also been binge-watching the nearly two decade old series Deadwood and that has dominated my spare time. Still, thanks to my frequent contributor EdRoy, I have also spent a little time revisiting an old secret agent cartoon series from the 60s and thus Cool McCool joins the compendium today.
  
  
• 06/13/2021 - A two-novella series about a member of a private paramilitary corporation having extremely close ties with the American Intelligence community joins the compendium today. Devlin Stone is a part of Z Section and if they are after you, well, don't start binge watching any new series.
  
  
• 06/11/2021 - I have invited a couple of ministers (theological, not governmental) into the compendium before. Today I do so again when I ask Leona Foxx, former CIA agent and now Lutheran pastor to join. She is an interesting contradiction in that she really wants to never have to use again the gun she never leaves home without.
  
  
• 06/10/2021 - I do not have the opportunity to invite membership to many Physics Professors but Neil Aldridge gets one today. This fellow is not only a learned individual, he also gets involved in lots of hair-raising activities in connection with a group called Kestrel, an elite EU special forces team. I am part way into this so-far two-book series and I am liking what I am reading.
  
  
• 06/09/2021 - A three-book series with at least two more books all prepped to be released joins the compendium today. The adventures of Lance Spector are action-filled and exciting. They are also filled with a couple of support characters who more than deserve their own series. I have enjoyed the trio that are out now and think you will, too, if you are looking for lots of action.
  
  
• 06/08/2021 - Yesterday I added a very silly entry just for fun. Today I add a series because it ranks as one of the very best television series I have had the pleasure to watch. I mention in the My Comments section that I rank it just a smidge behind The Sandbaggers. I am talking about Mr. Palfrey of Westminster, a show that ran 2 way too short seasons, giving us 10 exquisite episodes available now on Amazon Prime. I would like to thank Matthew Bradford and Jeff Quest for their recent episode on the excellent Spybrary podcast (#152) which convinced me to finally give this show a try. They loved the show and SO DO I!
  
  
• 06/07/2021 - A week ago I introduced, with a fair amount of grinning on my part, a spy series about a chimpanzees. Today I do another silly entry about a cartoon rodent who is also an operative. Secret Squirrel is the lead agent for the ISS, he and his faithful sidekick, Morocco Mole. Oh, my! Do I have no shame? Ah, nope!
  
  
• 06/06/2021 - I am travelling back nearly 50 years to the 1960s for a British television series about a British Secret Service agent operating 60 years before that (I am not doing the math!). Virgin of the Secret Service is the operative, along with his possible fiancee, the widow Mrs. Cortez, and his intrepid batman, Sgt. Doublett, who had over a dozen harrowing and exciting missions all across the globe wherever the Crown had an interest.
  
  
• 06/05/2021 - We have all been there. We finish the last page of the last (in this case hopefully latest) book in a series and feel so lucky to have had the pleasure of the read but then dealing with the sadness that there just ain't no more. That is what I went through with the St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking books that I enter into the compendium today. The author, Dana Haynes, had already impressed me with a previous series but has gotten even better with this one. I strongly recommend it for people who like lots of action, really interesting leading characters, and delicious banter.
  
  
• 06/04/2021 - As I mention in My Comments on today's entrant into the compendium, it is good to give a character a personal reason for handling a mission and the author does that in style for Mitch Herron. Not just the first book, either. Different book - different motivation. I liked it!
  
  
• 06/03/2021 - Today I add to the compendium a darned entertaining character and series. I labelled Case Lee as a freelance agent but he would likely go with private investigator. Considering the kinds of things he gets involved with, well, read him and decide for yourself. Whatever way you go, I think you'll like the journey.
  
  
• 06/01/2021 - An interesting new two-book series comes to join the compendium today. It is about a young man working for the CIA in what sounds like a terribly boring position and wondering if he would ever find any excitement. And then he does. Nathan Frost is enjoyable to read about and even more so is the lovely and capable Diana.
  
  
• 05/31/2021 - I wish I could tell you what prompted my late night decision to add to this compendium the 1970 very strange 17-episode children's television spy series Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. I assure you there was no spirits or pharmaceuticals involved. I even watched one full and one partial episode to refresh my memory. That did not half create some odd dreams!
  
  
• 05/30/2021 - Let us return to 1989-1993 for just over two dozen adventures which take us back to the 1959-1963 time frame. Canyon O'Grady is a U.S. government agent reporting directly to the President as he travels all over this country and even south to Mexico. These are fast, enjoyable reads about a red-headed operative as ready to draw his six-gun against a bad guy as he is to drop his drawers for every young filly that smiles his way (and a lot do).
  
  
• 05/29/2021 - From the land of the Kiwi comes today's entrant, a juvenile television series about a group of juveniles working for the New Zealand intelligence organization known as Secret Agent Men, or S.A.M. It did not last long almost two decades ago but it is worthy of being noted here.
  
  
• 05/28/2021 - I was knee-deep in research on a couple of series and enjoying the heck out of a third when my old friend, Johny Malone of Una Plaga de Espias was nice enough to send me intel on a movie spy series from 1909. Yes, 112 years ago!!! I dropped everything and had a blast learning all I could about Nan, The Girl Spy.
  
  
• 05/27/2021 - A series of 7 novellas were released a couple of years ago about a private spy organization with the rather non-covert name of SpyCo. From what I have figured out, one author created the concept and penned the first adventure and he and another chap wrote the remaining ones. Check them out!
  
  
• 05/26/2021 - Second Look: Thanks for a find by my fellow spy-fan, EdRoy, I was able to get a lot more intel on a British operative that joined the compendium not too long ago. Burt Kennedy is his name and you can learn what I did by going to his page.
  
  
• 05/25/2021 - A three-book series recently written and released takes the reader back to the early 1600's and the activities of an accomplished thief named Ned Savage who also spends time working for the Private Secretary of Queen Elizabeth I. These are very well written adventures that I have been enjoying and hope you will as well.
  
  
• 05/24/2021 - First Look: I have not yet read the few available stories, provided on the page, about today's entrant so today's entry is just a First Look. Harry Nettlefield is a spy who was operating for the British back in the days of WWI. The stories were penned by the prolific author William Le Queux back in 1915 so just from a historic perspective this series in interesting.
  
  
• 05/23/2021 - The excellent and always exciting author Ethan Jones who has already given us several great series about Canadian operatives adds another to his stable of agents to send out into the world to help defend democracy. Jack Storm is the new chap's name. I hope you treat yourself by checking him out.
  
  
• 05/22/2021 - Note on the entry made yesterday. Fellow spy-fan Matthew was kind enough to send me proof that my comment on Sherlock Holmes being associated with spies only in the last adventure was, well, less than totally accurate - another way of saying quite wrong. I stand corrected and thank Matthew for the correction. I have read all the canon a couple of times over the many years I have been reading but apparently my memory is not as good as I would like. I would be interested in opinions as to whether Sherlock deserves entry here.
  
  
• 05/21/2021 - I was asked a long time ago why I did not include the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes since he sometimes worked as a spy. My answer was that in the canon, as far as I know, only the last story had him operating in such a capacity. I do not consider the non-canon tales which might have him doing so. Of course, some day I might change my attitude but until then, I present a two-book series by the terrific British author Brian Freemantle. Sebastian Holmes is, in the author's version of the Holmesian universe, the son of the detective and nephew of Mycroft and, as the first adventure opens, is joining the nascent Secret Service run by his uncle.
  
  
• 05/20/2021 - If you are interested in some pretty intense action on the water in your spy adventures, Adam Weldon is a good character to follow. This fellow has some pretty interesting things happen to him whether he is whitewater rafting in dangerous rapids or sailing his boat to Greece.
  
  
• 05/19/2021 - Going back in time to the year I was born (just a coincidence, I assure you) I introduce a television spy series about an American operative who works largely in Europe chasing down communists, or so it would seem from the title. The Hunter starred, at first, Barry Nelson, the first guy to play James Bond on the screen.
  
  
• 05/18/2021 - A four-book romance/spy/crime series joins the compendium today. The group for which the main character works is an offshoot of the FBI but it's methods of operations are far closer to that of the CIA so I felt it belonged here. The main character is Faith Evans though she goes by a different name when we first meet her.
  
  
• 05/17/2021 - A movie that I enjoyed quite a bit and which later became a television series that I am also enjoying is joining the compendium today. Hanna is a teenage girl who was genetically altered in the womb to be a super-soldier and who escaped only to be sought by the CIA folks in charge of the program. Two seasons so far and I hope more to come.
  
  
• 05/16/2021 - An action packed series about a very dangerous woman who is in charge of a group of very dangerous operatives, all working for a, you get the picture. The organization is called EUOPS and the woman is a very resourceful and quite interesting woman named Greta Steiner. At least she usually is called that. It gets a bit complicated and quite a fun read in this so far 4-book series.
  
  
• 05/15/2021 - Taking a brief sojourn into the world of kid spies again today with a two-book series written by an Edgar-award winning author. City Spies is a very entertaining couple of young adult adventures about a team of five agents rounded up from all over the world to work for an offshoot of MI-6.
  
  
• 05/14/2021 - A couple of days ago I introduced a series whose name came with the (2) appendage. Today I add to the compendium the (1) in the equation with the welcoming of Hunter (1). This mid-1960s television series comes to us from Down Under and was for a couple of years an extremely popular show there.
  
  
• 05/13/2021 - First Look: Well, a very quick glance at an Indian operative that I have not yet read but which I was told about and wanted to add to this site in the hopes that anyone who knows anything can tell me. Jaz Zadu is the fellow's name and he is described as the 70s' Indian James Bond. I would love to read a book or two.
  
  
• 05/12/2021 - My fellow spy-fan and frequent contributor, EdRoy, sent me info on this series which I had not heard of prior to his email. Which is a tad embarrassing since I had access to and had 'checked out' both those magazines in question and never saw there were these two related stories. Which is a nice compliment for a couple of spy stories; they were able to hide their series identity in plain sight! At least from me, though not EdRoy. Now, I felt the stories themselves were less than awesome but you can read them yourselves by visiting the same link EdRoy told me about and that I mention in my write-up. The series is named Furness & Markowitz.
  
  
• 05/11/2021 - Today I add to the compendium a television spy series from 1977 which I know a good deal about from other sources other than from having the pleasure of watching it myself. I present that caveat up front as I welcome Hunter (2) to the group. Note that the '(2)' indicates there is a '(1)' which I am still working on them.
  
  
• 05/10/2021 - If you feel like a very funny romp through the tropes of spy adventures, told in a fantastically funny British humor style, I cannot recommend Spy, the adventures of Tim Elliot. Poor Elliot should never be a spy and yet he becomes one and while the public is not particularly safer for it, we the viewers were tremendously more entertained from watching this two-season series from a decade ago.
  
  
• 05/09/2021 - Brian Drake is the exciting and entertaining author of two spy series already covered in this compendium. Today I offer membership to a third fellow. Sam Raven is his name and I have enjoyed the first book tremendously and am happily well into the second. My thanks, Brian, for yet another fun fellow to follow!
  
  
• 05/08/2021 - If you are looking for a fast, really fun series co-written by one of the best authors in the crime/thriller/suspense/you-name-it genres, Max Allan Collins, today's entry into the compendium is just what you need. John Sand is a retired MI-6 operative during the early 1960s who finds his retirement not so retiring. Oh, and he is said to have been the inspiration for a fictional spy whose adventures are just becoming hits at the box office. I am not fibbing when I mention it is fun.
  
  
• 05/07/2021 - Yesterday I added a series about a chap calling himself the Yankee Eagle, though nowhere did I ever see a reason for that moniker. Today I add a series from one year later, 1942, about a different chap who also calls himself the Yankee Eagle. Once again, no reason is given for the name. This iteration of the name is totally different from the first, though, and a good deal better. He did have the decency to change his name, well a tiny bit. This version is Larry Noble, the Yankee Eagle. See what I mean about changed name? The first two letters are way different.
  
  
• 05/06/2021 - I am jumping back in time to 1941 for today's entrant into the compendium. It is a strange, and I emphasize that word a bunch, series about the rich son of a US Senator who likes to fight spies and saboteurs and the like. Okay so far but he also likes to talk to animals and they talk to him. And they all understand each other and they apparently like to do what he asks. I did mention strange which definitely fits Jerry Noble, the Yankee Eagle.
  
  
• 05/05/2021 - I add to the compendium a series of two sometimes CIA agents (and sometimes not) named Bishop & Rector. These fellows start off fighting an alien AI/living planet who comes to our solar system to escape a nova and then causes trouble here. Then they take on ivory poachers to stop terrorists. Then they have to deal with a new AI threat from a different source. Then ... well, by this time you are as likely confused as I was.
  
  
• 05/04/2021 - Happy Star Wars Day! A fascinating two-book series that, as I say in My Comments, does not read like most spy adventures I come across joins the compendium today. It concerns Glenn Cohen, an American expat to Thailand who is definitely not a spy but is in fact a retired criminal lawyer who got tired of doing that and left it all behind. He is not out for a new career and certainly not out for some of the highly entertaining things that happen to him. It is those things that bring him the invitation to this collection.
  
  
• 05/03/2021 - Usually when a book series has a movie or a television series adapted from it, that gets its mention in the appropriate section on that series' page. Once in a blue moon, however, I come to the conclusion that a version of a series is so different as to warrant its own entry. Such is the case today of the, IMHO, fantastic television series called Condor. This two-season (so far) interpretation of the awesome James Grady novel series is so good but also so different from the original, I felt it deserved to treated separately, hence this solo page. Whether you agree with the separation or not, I hope you take the time to watch one heckuva good show and maybe that will convince the powers-that-be to make a third season.
  
  
• 05/02/2021 - Today I welcome to the compendium a part-time British Intelligence asset who is also Pulitzer Prize winning journalist which definitely gives him the opportunity to visit all sort of danger zones. Jago Hale is the fellow and he has three exciting adventures for us spy-fans to enjoy.
  
  
• 05/01/2021 - May Day! I am talking about the ancient day of celebrating, not an urgent cry for help. Not that I am planning any of the former and hopefully not anticipating needing the latter. The hero of today's two-book (so far) series, Scott Hunter, could definitely use a lot of that latter, though, considering all the troubles that he finds himself in. This is an exciting and very entertaining series.
  
  
• 04/29/2021 - An assassin for a secret quasi-governmental group called the Watchers joins the compendium today. The main hero is a fellow with the very unusual name of Silence Jones though when you read about the reason for his mostly silent approach to life, you definitely understand.
  
  
• 04/26/2021 - I head back in time 85 years in today's entry. Three years before the legendary Batman graced the pages of Detective Comics for the first time, this operative was having his stories told in that magazine. And two years before the amazing adventures of the incredible Superman made it into a publication, the two men who created him would have another of their creations have the first of an impressive 76 adventures told. Bart Regan was the agent whose series title of Spy would be splashed at the top of each mission.
  
  
• 04/25/2021 - A two-book series from a really good author who has been silent from the spy-fi world for too long joins the compendium today. I call the series Welker & Saboy which is what the author or publisher called the second book. I have enjoyed the first book a good deal. I have not yet read the second one because it is way too expensive for me ($19 for the ebook) but if the price ever goes down, I'm on it!
  
  
• 04/23/2021 - I head back 40 years to 1983 (okay, 38 years) and a very fun, light-hearted spy series that was made so enjoyable by starring the ever-watchable Kate Jackson. Alright, some guy named Boxleitner was in it, too, but it was Ms. Jackson who attracted me. Scarecrow and Mrs. King was a lot of fun back then for this man in his early 30s at the time and re-watching it just now, still a lot of fun for the man in his late 60s.
  
  
• 04/22/2021 - A gust of wind that did not seem that strong took down a very old and very large oak tree in my front yard two days ago. Luckily it fell away from the house, though it did also take down power lines and a nearby power pole. Hence I did not do much in the way of entries the last couple of days. Major Kudos to Duke Power for the super fast response time and also to the Division of Highways of North Carolina for the awesome clean-up job they did on the street. All I need to do now is replace a mailbox/post and get someone to cut up and haul away a quite thick and long trunk.
  
  
• 04/20/2021 - First Look: In James Reasoner's terrific blog, Rough Edges, he talked about an American intelligence operative named Valentine Easton from the early to mid 1930s. I had never heard of the series before but Mr. Reasoner did such a good job describing each of the five adventures written that I am able to present this First Look.
  
  
• 04/18/2021 - What does it take to turn a young 18-year-old newlywed from the States honeymooning in Europe into an agent with British Intelligence? If you are like Stella Bled in 1938 Austria, it starts with witnessing things you never thought existed when the Nazis show their true selves. This 3-book (so far) historical spy novel is a darn good read.
  
  
• 04/17/2021 - As I mention in the My Comments section of today's entrant into the compendium, the two adventures we have of Adelaide Becket are of the novelette size and it is one that works exceptionally well. I was looking for something a bit different and these two historical spy stories fit the bill very nicely. I enjoyed them and look forward to more.
  
  
• 04/15/2021 - A mildly interesting comicbook spy series from Britain in 1983 joins the compendium today. There are only two adventures of Gil Hazzard, both from the pages of Eagle magazine and one of them was printed in 3D requiring special glasses to read it, which I lack. Still, what I have available to say and show might be of interest, if only for history sake.
  
  
• 04/14/2021 - Six months after the debut of Get Smart on NBC in 1965, ABC came out with a mid-season replacement for a failed show with another comedy about a secret agent - sort of. The concept for The Double Life of Henry Phyfe is that a foreign agent named U-31 is killed in a hit-and-run right after arriving in the States. A US government agency decides to replace the agent with a look-alike and the best they found was meek and mild accountant Henry Phyfe. He is today's entry into the compendium.
  
  
• 04/12/2021 - I often blur the lines of distinction as to what is a 'spy series' with an entry for a lost antiquity hunter. I do this because the type of exciting dangers the two disparate professions get into, at least in the fictional world, are often similar. And often there are would-be world conquerors or destroyers out after the same things as the heroes. Jamie Saintclair is sort of in that category. He is an art recovery expert who once in a while hunts for things that powerful people to not want him to find. Does he belong here? Well... But he is exciting!
  
  
• 04/11/2021 - Today's entry comes to use from England in the mid-70s. The fellow in question goes by the last name of Sydenham and if he has a first name, well I could not find it. He officially works for "the Home Office" but his specialty is finding spies.
  
  
• 04/10/2021 - Today I enter a television series from 1962. Man of the World was a short-lived British production starring an American, the terrific and ever-watchable Craig Stevens, as a photojournalist who goes all over the globe reporting on newsworthy events while also getting tangled up in intrigue and danger. Especially when once in a while, his trips are at the request of American Intelligence.
  
  
• 04/10/2021 - Happy Birthday to my bride of several decades. Dear Bonnie, your patience is amazing and your tolerance of my crazy obsession laudable. I still love 'ya!
  
  
• 04/09/2021 - A very short (too short, IMHO) graphic adventure series that gave us only two stories joins the compendium today. Luckily for readers here I am able to provide a copy of these tales. Rosa, Master-Spy is the name of the series and the character. Rosa is a freelance agent during the 1867-1870 time frame and I not only enjoyed what there was, I could see so much potential for what never had the chance to be.
  
  
• 04/08/2021 - I take another tour into the graphic adventure spy-fi world with an entry from 1964 that my fellow spy-fan, Johny Malone, told me about. It is another incarnation of The Shadow with this one being a blond-haired secret agent as well as being the Shadow. At least for a while. Then the writer and artist decided to put a superhero costume on him and ruined everything!
  
  
• 04/07/2021 - First Look: I am still working on this entry but I thought I would share what I have so far on a series from the early 40's in which the main character is a woman in the Resistance who has a handful of adventures (two described so far) that show why the female is the deadlier of the species. Check out X Of The Underground.
  
  
• 04/05/2021 - A new take on an existing series joins the compendium as its own entry. Robyn McCall is a fresh take on the concept of the Equalizer, a combination of spy and vigilante adventure that I have so far enjoyed tremendously. Believable? Don't know. Don't care. Love the concept. And definitely have loved Queen Latifah for ages. Consider me a devoted fan.
  
  
• 04/04/2021 - Many years ago I added the entry for the Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers. I added as more or less a footnote to that entry the revisit to the series that was done in 2007. Thanks to some excellent investigative work done by fellow spy-fan Bernard, I have not only added some interesting tidbits to that first entry, I have given the second Jaime Sommers her own entry. The storyline is totally different, once you take away the bionic-ly enhanced woman working for a government agency (this time, quasi-) named Jaime Sommers part. Check out this new Bionic Woman entry.
  
  
• 04/03/2021 - Though today's entry was written just a couple years ago, through the adventures of Blake Drysdale we are returning to the mid-1970's. Drysdale is a 'pilot, smugger, and all-around crook' who is asked to help British Intelligence on a few assignments. What I have read so far I have enjoyed so I will keep reading. You might want to as well.
  
  
• 04/02/2021 - Today the entry into the compendium is a 'gun-for-hire' specialist in hostage retrieval by the name of Luke Bridge. It is a 3-book series, so far, and has a whole lot of exciting action in it.
  
  
• 04/01/2021 - A very well-written five-book (so far) about an American professor teaching at Cambridge college in England during the days leading up to and into the Second World War. Tom Wilde is the name of the man who finds himself constantly in the thick of very dangerous matters strongly immersed in the cloak and dagger world.
  
  
• 03/30/2021 - A few days ago I added a series but apparently forgot to mention it in this spot, so .... A terrific book and movie from the early 60's with a follow-up adventure that came out of 1980. Von Ryan is the nickname handed the colonel in the American Army Air Corps during WWII. His efforts with getting his fellow POW's to safety and then later joining the Resistance definitely makes him qualify for this compendium.
  
  
• 03/28/2021 - Another return to the Second World War via the pages of a black & white British comic book magazine from the mid 70s joins the compendium today. We never learn his name but we do know he is called The Black Crow based on the calling card to leaves behind.
  
  
• 03/27/2021 - Today I present a three-book series about a man who is spending a life behind bars for a murder he cannot remember doing. Max Doyle is a decorated U.S. Army Ranger who is released temporarily to attend the funeral of his wife and daughter but then is told that the same woman who attacked his family was also the real killer of the man Doyle is serving life for killing. He is asked if he would like a chance to get even. Simple question.
  
  
• 03/26/2021 - We travel back in time a quarter century ago (stunner that it is that far back!) for a short-lived series on television that I really enjoyed a lot. It had Scott Bakula who I greatly enjoy and Maria Bello who I GREATLY enjoy. And it dealt with spies. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Smith did not last long on the airwaves, although they did do enough to provide the foundation for a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as well as a made-for-TV movie two years later.
  
  
• 03/25/2021 - A former colonel with the US Rangers, Pat Walsh joins the compendium today. He is working in Afghanistan as a civilian to supplement his income, injured when his construction business is unfairly hobbled. It is there that the CIA comes asking for a little assistance and Walsh's life will get a whole lot more complicated.
  
  
• 03/24/2021 - From the pages of a handful of newspapers around the country back in the years of 1953-1955 comes a government agent devoted to investigating unusual occurrences. Jet Scott is the man who works for an American department based out of the Pentagon called the "Office of Scientifact". [I am not sure how that last word is actually pronounced.] The tales were fun ones and I invite you to read them by clicking on the link with each plot synopsis.
  
  
• 03/20/2021 - Spring is here. Still chilly outside but I saw getting the paper this morning the first indication that my lawn needs a trim. Me, I am planning on staying inside today where I will be reading and making an entry for the first time in several days. I have been working on a couple of new entries that have a lot of data to them but I took a break from them to present Masquerade, an oddly named American television spy series from 1983-84. It did not last very long, which I found disappointing back in the day, but it did give me a chance to watch the ever-excellent Rod Taylor and the ever-appealing Kirstie Alley who had just finished her terrific role in The Wrath of Khan. It also had the enjoyable Greg Evigan, fresh from his B.J. and the Bear days.
  
  
• 03/14/2021 - I take a quick First Look at a co-star in the Chris Collins series by John Hopton and David Berens. Tsu Kim is an agent with South Korean Intelligence who works often with Collins and who, IMO, deserved to go off on her own once in a while. Now she has so she gets her own series entry.
  
  
• 03/12/2021 - I take a First Look at a new fellow named Matt Drake, written by Don Bentley. This chap is an agent with the DIA who suffers from PTSD and survivor's guilt which will have to be dealt with when he is called back into active duty for a very nasty mission. I am not far into this book but I am really enjoying the heck out of the author's very easy writing style that makes the story flow so nicely.
  
  
• 03/10/2021 - A new series joins the compendium today, one that sorta belongs and sorta doesn't. David Diegert is an agent with a group that is not a government agency but is, sort of, at the same time. The organization definitely has more power than most governments. And Diegert is the enforcement hand of that group.
  
  
• 03/08/2021 - Today I enter what really amounts to a First Look as I have not read all that much on it but like what I have read so far. Max McLean is a British government assassin who has never missed after 23 years of service. You would think someone with that pedigree would be respected and trusted and not treated like he is. To me it does not make sense to make an enemy of such a man but then again, not every person put in charge is a genius.
  
  
• 03/07/2021 - I head back to the mid 80's British television for today's entrant. Fellow spy-fan Bernard reminded me of a series that I had heard of, though only a little, but never watched until he brought it up. C.A.T.S. Eyes is an action drama about three female operatives who come from different backgrounds to make up the team that uses a private investigation agency as a front while working for the Home Office. My thanks for the tip and for the great intel he sent on it.
  
  
• 03/07/2021 - Since my initial entry of Roger Lincoln was added, I have found a fair amount more information on the series, including a bunch of the missing Sunday editions that had been plaguing me. I have done a re-write of that entry and now include the missing story-arcs. Check it out!
  
  
• 03/06/2021 - I had been planning on an entry soon about the television series from last year concerning the Treadstone project of Jason Bourne fame but I still have two episodes left of it and am properly muddled. Instead, I present two books in Joshua Hood's two-book series about Adam Hayes, another of the Treadstone operatives with a lot of skills and a lot of problems.
  
  
• 03/05/2021 - I heard from the publisher of Brian Landers' Thomas Dylan series that the 3rd book in that series is now available, Coincidence of Spies. I was also informed that a 4th book is nearing release and that there is an interesting blog "in which Brian talks about his research and real-life inspiration for the stories told in The Dylan Series". You can read that blog by going here.
  
  
• 03/04/2021 - I have a silly, crazy, totally unreal, and FUN collection of three novellas today. They make up the adventures of young government agent Herbert George Wells, aka H. G. Wells. These tales are meant to be super over the top and then are. They are not meant to be taken seriously and I didn't. They are meant to be fun and I think they are. Best of all, they are short, novellas at best, novelettes really. Which means they are fast reads and, for me, fun ones.
  
  
• 03/01/2021 - We travel back to 1976 for a comicbook series taking place in 1940-ish. Operation Shark concerns an undercover British operative at odds with German occupiers of the Channel Islands. This man with no name except the codename of Shark uses a small cadre of teenage boys to help with his sabotage efforts. Simple but fun stories meant for teens the age of the lads helping the agent.
  
  
• 02/28/2021 - I enter here a comic strip series that I have been working on for quite some time. Lots of clipping and massaging and studying to bring information on a fairly obscure government agent from the early 1950s that got its start in the pages of a different series that was in a completely different genre. Roger Lincoln is the man's name and I had a blast learning what I have about it, even though there are still one or two items still in the shadows. Please take the time to read what I have about him. I certainly had fun writing the entry.
  
  
• 02/26/2021 - I heard today from James Quinn, the author of the intense and very enjoyable series about Jack 'Gorilla' Grant, nicknamed 'Gorilla' for a reason. "The latest, and final, Gorilla Grant book – Berlin Reload – has just been released, bringing the series to an explosive conclusion." I am looking forward to returning to the 1960's and the Cold War with Grant as he heads to Berlin to find and rescue his daughter.
  
  
• 02/26/2021 - I have been very busy working on two fascinating comic strip spy series of late which have really dominated my free time. As a result, I have not been adding to this site as frequently as I wanted to. Still, I have a heck of a good entry today. Agent of the Government is a nine-adventure series of novellas published in Blue Book Magazine back in 1909. That's 112 years ago if my arithmetic is correct. It is not the earliest - there are about a dozen before it - but it has a special place in spy-fi history as you will find out when you check him out.
  
  
• 02/23/2021 - First Look: An interesting and enjoyable series about an agent with an organization called Trinity. Her name is Caria Milosc. I mention in my initial write-up that I was not sure if I felt the character was the main focus of the series or the organization. I may change my mind as I get further into this one.
  
  
• 02/21/2021 - An action-packed three-book series about an American government assassin working for a ultra-secret department called the Bureau joins the compendium today. Carter Matheson is a very dangerous man who can eliminate opponents in many different ways which is good because he has a lot of people who need it.
  
  
• 02/20/2021 - At the suggestion of my frequent contributor, EdRoy, I present a wartime spy series from 1966 named Jericho. That name refers to the codename for the trio of agents who routinely went behind enemy lines to harass and disrupt the German war effort.
  
  
• 02/19/2021 - We go way, way back in time to 1929 for the first adventure of Colonel Ormiston, a man who apparently needs no first name because everyone calls him by his rank or his last name, even his wife. These are superb mystery spy adventures from a true master and deserve their place in spy-fi history.
  
  
• 02/18/2021 - I am a good way through today's entrant into the compendium and am already very impressed with the writing for the two-book Mayberry & Garrett series. It is given us by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former journalist and best-selling author Pete Earley. Now I am pretty sure that latter did the writing since that is his specialty but whatever part each did to create these books, they did a darn good job.
  
  
• 02/17/2021 - First Look: I present today's entrant in the hopes that someone will be able to fill me in on what is happening with it. So far, I have not understood the quarter I've read of the first book and am putting it aside for how. Joe Tiplady seems to be a former terrorist turned special education teacher who is still somewhat involved with the same sort of things that a deputy director of the CIA is. I could use a better explanation.
  
  
• 02/16/2021 - A very, very silly entry today which was prompted by seeing on one of the Facebook groups that I subscribe to a look-back at a super campy pair of movies about an evil genius wanting world domination and being fought by an American government spy organization. The moment I saw the entry on that page, I knew I had to make the good, well, bad, Dr. Goldfoot a member here.
  
  
• 02/15/2021 - Reaching back in time again, we reach into radio land for what is likely the series with the largest number of adventures. Now, I have learned of only 180+ of these episodes but apparently there were over 600 that had been aired about David Harding, Counterspy.
  
  
• 02/13/2021 - Matthew Dunn is the excellent author who gave us the Will Cochrane series that I enjoyed so much. He also gave us today's 4-book series about the just as enjoyable Ben Sign series. Of course, this presents a dilemma because I now do not know which series I would ask him to continue next. Maybe he can do both?
  
  
• 02/12/2021 - On the subject of bringing long forgotten agents back from obscurity, the great folks at Brash Books, one of whom is my friend, Lee Goldberg (little name dropping there), are reviving the works of excellent spy/crime/suspense author Tom Ardies. The first book to be brought back is Their Man in the White House, the lead adventure in the Charles Sparrow series. Learn when that book is available and more at this location.
  
  
• 02/11/2021 - Today I was able to purchase an ebook version of a new collection of all three Peter Baron stories originally printed in Intrigue Mystery Magazine back in 1965. Two of these stories had seen other printings in anthologies over the years but one apparently never did. Thanks go to Bold Venture Press for the return of this cool agent from over a half century ago.
  
  
• 02/11/2021 - Nice change of pace for today's entry. Ryan Quinn is a school kid who is used to moving having done it many times in his relatively young life. Now he is in NYC and liking it. But then his father disappears and his mother is kidnapped and, well, after that things get strange because though he did not know it, his parents were secret agents and they had been training him to be one as well. Fun two-book young adult series.
  
  
• 02/10/2021 - Travel with me today back to the year 1953. I was a toddler at the time so if my parents ever listened to the adventures of Douglas of the World (unlikely), I would not have paid any attention. Today there are 4 adventures out of the 26 made which are available on the Net. I talk about them in today's entry and I suggest any spy-fan who likes radio dramas check them out.
  
  
• 02/09/2021 - Today I enter into the compendium a fellow who has become quite good at removing the enemies of the country, or at least those that his employers, the Commission, deep to be enemies. Nathan Stone is the unofficial operative's name and his is an interesting and very action-filled set of three adventures, so far.
  
  
• 02/08/2021 - Heading back to the mid 60's with a 3-book series written just recently. Andrew Keeton is a specialist with the Cavalry, a department inside the CIA devoted to going behind the Iron Curtain to rescue people trapped there. Each key member of that group has a color for a codename. His is Agent Orange.
  
  
• 02/07/2021 - First Look: Today entrant is a female operative with the CIA. Jamie Austen specializes in sex trafficking cases but not just tracing them but going in and breaking them up. And she is very, very good at it which means she has made a whole lot of scum very unhappy with her. Not-so-spoiler-alert - she does not care. She is quite interesting to follow and worth the read. I hope to finish up her books soon.
  
  
• 02/06/2021 - Today I present a 5-book series which is interesting to me in that each book is filled with action and adventure but still has its own unique feel. The first is one of vengeance. The second is self-inspection and discovery. There is another that is very much a love story. And so on. Please welcome Dan Stone written by David Ness.
  
  
• 02/05/2021 - A really enjoyable two-book (so far) series about a lowly intern at the White House, Hayley Chill, joins the compendium today. Fellow spy-fan, Doug, recommend this one to me and I loved it. Thanks, Doug, for the nudge! He challenged me to see the twist at the end of the first book coming and I never did. Nor did I see the twist in the second one. Darned good writing.
  
  
• 02/04/2021 - Again I head back to 1972 and TVLand to recall a far-too-short series about a researcher with a photographic memory who works for the mysterious government agency answerable only to the President called The Delphi Bureau. I loved it!
  
  
• 02/03/2021 - When my fellow spy-fi fan EdRoy suggested that I add the series Taken, it took me about a second to decide, 'heck ya!'. I had a great time remembering this series and writing my thoughts.
  
  
• 02/02/2021 - For the entry today into the compendium, we welcome Jake Ramsey. Those not in the know see him as a college student. Those in the know see him as a member of Black Brick, the oddly named ultra-covert project of the CIA using young adults as their operatives.
  
  
• 02/01/2021 - First Look: Today I take an initial look at CIA operative Cat Ballentine who has an enjoyable (for us readers, not for her) ability to land in a whole lot of trouble and the skills to get herself out of most of them.
  
  
• 01/31/2021 - Quite a few years ago I entered into the compendium a pre-WWII spy named Mr. Moto (in the book he was a spy, in the movies he was a detective). That has been the only spy from Japan up to today when I enter Hiroshi Suzuki, a really enjoyable 2-book series about a spy very much his own man but also in his own way kinda Bond-like.
  
  
• 01/30/2021 - I do not like adding a series that I have not yet been able to read, which is partially true in this case, but I do so now because what I have learned is, to me, fairly interesting and I hope to open up some discussion by any other who might have actually read the stories in question. Jo Salis is a British citizen who because a spy in exploits that take place in the Russo-Japanese War and were written in 1905, making it one of the earliest entrants into the compendium.
  
  
• 01/29/2021 - I return to TV land for today's entrant into the compendium. The 26-episode series of 30-minute adventures that were given us about Biff Baker, U.S.A. came out starting in 1952 and lasted through to the next year. These are really fun, simple stories that are sure to put a grin on any spy-fi fan's face as long as that viewer is not expecting too much. Fun is the keyword here.
  
  
• 01/28/2021 - Wow!!! With recent additions to several series, I just noticed that the book count for this site has topped 10,000 books!!! That is wild. And there are lots more coming. What a terrific avocation this is.
  
  
• 01/27/2021 - Today I enter a television series which ran 44 episodes from 1986-1988 in Canada and the US. Adderly was an agent with the government's International Security and Intelligence who was injured in the line of duty and transferred to the less-than-thrilling Miscellaneous Affairs department. That small operation was meant to handle items of no real value but Adderly seemed to find major problems hidden in these minor problems. The creator had used a book he crafted back in 1971 as his source - Adderly was a character who had his own section of the book. Interesting section and interesting television show available online.
  
  
• 01/26/2021 - I have a terrific two-book series that was so good that I really wanted more but was pleased with the two that I had. Josh Thane is an assassin-for-hire who shows up at a target's home to find her already dead. And then finds out that MI-5 is very much interested in the killing and Thane's life gets a major alteration he was not looking for. These books have superb pacing and delivery and I remain a huge fan of the author, E.V. Seymour.
  
  
• 01/25/2021 - Today's entrant is an action-packed series of, so far, 22 novels and 3 novellas or short stories. The hero, Ben Hope, is an international hostage rescue expert but quite often the people needing rescuing are involved in hunting down ancient artifacts or documents and so the hype tag line that I liked on it was "James Bond meets Jason Bourne meets the Da Vinci Code".
  
  
• 01/24/2021 - We head back to the year 1943 and watch a couple of 15-part movie serials for today's entrant into the compendium. Rex Bennett is the government agent having to deal with Japanese spies infiltrating the country as mummies in the first one and heads to the darkest part of Africa to stop a German baron from pretending to be an Arab. I love the odd-ness of both. Japanese mummies?? And the Arabs in Africa are in the desert north, not the jungle (aka darkest) part. Still, these are fun.
  
  
• 01/23/2021 - Sometimes I grimace before entering a series into the compendium. Not often. Today is one of those times. Wednesday Mallory is a porn-industry addition to the spy genre from 1968. That's about as interesting as it gets.
  
  
• 01/22/2021 - I mention in my write-up on today's entrant into the compendium that Tom Sexton was for a good number of years a Fighting Sea-Bee. The emphasis here is the 'fighting' part. Sexton will have to do a whole lot of that in this three-book series. Makes for a whole lot of excitement and action.
  
  
• 01/21/2021 - First Look: Today I enter a series from over 100 years ago, a collection of short stories that I am just starting to read so my write-up is sketchy at best. Ambrose Lavendale is an American Intelligence operative written by the great (to me) E. Phillips Oppenheim. This book is in the public domain so getting a copy either free or cheap should be easy.
  
  
• 01/19/2021 - My friend and fellow spy-fan, EdRoy, pointed out that a 4-movie series from 1939 existed about a Secret Service agent . Now two of the plots dealt with counterfeiters which would normally not qualify but one dealt with a gang smuggling illegal aliens into the country which possibly qualified it for membership here and the fourth had the agent going up against fifth columnists which fit nicely. What sealed it for me, though, was that the agent, Brass Bancroft, was played in all 4 movies by a fairly new actor named Ronald Reagan. 'Sold', said I and here is the entry.
  
  
• 01/18/2021 - Today I present a two-book spy series about a Chinese-American CIA agent named Bai Hsu. They were written a half decade ago so it is unlikely there will be any more but having checked these two out, I would not mind another couple.
  
  
• 01/17/2021 - It has taken me a while to gather up all the intel that I have on today's entrant into the compendium. Vic Jordan is a hero working with the French Resistance during the Second World War. I really liked him.
  
  
• 01/16/2021 - A very enjoyable two-book series about a woman who is a bioterrorism expert, a psychiatrist, and a former employee of the CIA joins the compendium today. In My Comments, I say that it is enjoyable because Anne Damiano reads like the kind of woman I would enjoy having a friend, assuming she did not drag me into trouble she gets involved in. If you are looking for a couple of fast reads that still have a lot of things to make you think about, this is a good series to grab.
  
  
• 01/15/2021 - Thanks to the suggestion of fellow spy fan Bernard, and a whole lot of research he did for me, I pushed to the top of the to-do list today's entry into the compendium. A 30-episode television show, along with one tie-in book and a movie made out of two episodes, that is what is available to us about 'Mac' McGill, aka the Man In A Suitcase.
  
  
• 01/14/2021 - First Look at a British agent, though I have not yet sussed what agency he works for so I just label it for now as British Intelligence. Matt Stewart is a hard drinking, hard loving, hard playing kinda guy who attracts women quite easily though some of them are not very nice. I have not read much yet but will let you know more when I know more.
  
  
• 01/13/2021 - Today I enter another series from television-land, this one coming to us from 1979 and featuring one of my favorite action actors from, well, ever, Robert Conrad. Like his previous spy series role, this one too did not last very long but A Man Called Sloane had one very cool sidekick in the ever-handy Torque (if you do not understand the pun, read the entry).
  
  
• 01/11/2021 - Heading back to the mid-80s for this television series entrant into the compendium today. The very lovely Jennifer O'Neill stars as the wife of a government agent decides when he is killed in the line of duty to go up against the people who killed him. Helping her was the handsome hunk Jon-Erik Hexum. Together they are the Cover Up team.
  
  
• 01/10/2021 - A four-book series about a British soldier who was on a pleasure cruise with his wife and baby daughter when it was attacked and a massacre took place, killing everyone except Acer Sansom who barely escaped and who, after being marooned on a Pacific island for a year, is back for revenge. His story qualifies for membership here in this compendium because the British Intelligence is also interested in the same people Sansom is after and is not above using him as a very determined tool.
  
  
• 01/09/2021 - I am travelling back 90 years today with the latest entrant into the compendium. I am inviting for membership the 'red-haired dandy' who heads the Bureau of Current Political Intelligence, a department in the U.S. State Department responsible for, well, any odd-ball and quirky event that its young director, Dennis Tyler, might find interesting. These cases are a mixture of satire, mystery, and intrigue and not only fun to read on their own but also terrific, non-stuffy history books of things happening on the diplomatic front back in the decade leading up to the Second World War.
  
  
• 01/08/2021 - A rather silly and illogical and still kinda fun for short periods group joins the compendium. The graphic series Victoria's Secret Service presents 4 gorgeous and excessively endowed young women working on behalf of the Crown.
  
  
• 01/07/2021 - An interesting series that I have not been able to view as yet but very much want to joins the compendium. David Hedison played for 16 episodes back in 1959 the counter-espionage agent Victor Sebastian, codenamed Five Fingers, on NBC. I would love to hear your thoughts.
  
  
• 01/05/2021 - First Look: A retired CIA who seems way down in his luck and his mood joins the compendium. Arch Patton will hook up with an old flame and land in a good amount of danger.
  
  
• 01/03/2021 - First Look: In a couple of recently crafted books about events in the 1970's, today's entrant into the compendium, Dick Frame, is an entertaining one. The only quibble I have is wondering if he works for MI5 or MI6 and that is more on me than the author.
  
  
• 01/02/2021 - Today I bring into the compendium a man who, well, the best I could do to identify his 'occupation' is to say he is a consultant to the FBI. I would love to know what you would say in my place about Bobby Bridger in this new two-book (so far) series.
  
  
• 01/01/2021 - Happy New Year!! Emphasis on the New. Today's entrant, however, is not new. Dangerous Assignment got its first start in 1949 so it is 71 years old but after listening to, well, one heckuva lot of the still existing radio episodes, it is still a lot of fun, especially the opening's to the episodes starting with #19. Check out my write-up to see what I mean.
  
  
• 12/31/2020 - Just a couple days after adding a 'corporate spy' to the compendium, I learn about another one which I am inviting to join today. This fellow, Max Sargent, is highly experienced in the business world and well thought of throughout the UK in that regard. When he makes one lapse of judgment and it all looks to crumble, he is approached by MI5 with a chance of redemption. They need someone with his skills to go undercover to do a little snooping for them. They do not really mention that such snooping will likely get him killed.
  
  
• 12/30/2020 - Today I enter into the compendium a two-book, two-novella series about an Australian former agent now more or less a freelance agent who has some very exciting adventures very well presented by the author. I enjoyed them a lot. Simon Ashcroft is the kind of man you want on your side, although maybe not actually standing alongside you because, well, people shoot at him - a lot.
  
  
• 12/29/2020 - I really enjoyed the heck out of today's entrant into the compendium. She is billed as a 'corporate spy' which is a turn-off for me since that evokes an idea of a sneaky traitorous kind of person but that is not at all what this series is like. It is a lot of fun and is well written and interesting. I am hoping for more in the future. Please welcome Finn Teller to the group.
  
  
• 12/28/2020 - I was hesitant to add this series today. So far what I've read is darned good. Unfortunately, sometime after I got the first two books a while back, both books and the third subsequent one have been pulled from, well, everywhere. Hopefully they will be reinstated. In the meantime, today's entrant is Harry Flynn, an operative in Britain's secret Department Seven during WWII.
  
  
• 12/27/2020 - Yesterday I entered into the compendium the first television incarnation of Nikita. Today I add the second. As I mentioned about the first, I saw very little of it as life got in the way. Life was still demanding when the second came out but since it starred Maggie Q, I told life to hang on a bit and watched every episode.
  
  
• 12/26/2020 - Looking into the world of television again today, this time going back to 1997 and a 5-season series that I did not get into back then (work and kids, mostly) but am trying again now. La Femme Nikita is the name of the series. I would love to know what you thought of it so send me your thoughts or, better yet, post them on the page.
  
  
• 12/24/2020 - Heading back almost 50 years again in the television archives for gander at a spy series, this one starring one of my favorite action stars, Robert Conrad, this time playing Jake Webster. Webster had originally been portrayed in a made-for-television movie pilot by soon-to-be big screen star Roy Scheider. The movie was Assignment Munich while the actual series moved the locale 240 miles due east to become Assignment Vienna. The show did not last long, just 8 episodes, but Webster/Conrad looked pretty cool in the turtlenecks he wore. The man was the epitome of cool. The series, though, not so much.
  
  
• 12/23/2020 - We are heading back in time again just not quite as far as yesterday's entrant. This time it is to 1955 and the operative we follow is Major Bill Morgan in a 22-episode television series titled Secret File, USA. Morgan goes all over Europe in this entertaining, though not so compelling, series.
  
  
• 12/22/2020 - Let us travel back to the mid-40s for this two-book entry into the compendium. The author, Ross MacDonald, would become quite famous for his Lew Archer private investigator series. The books in the Chet Gordon mentioned here were written before he came up with Archer, indeed, when he was first learning his craft. That might explain why they were not as good or it just could be that spy thrillers was not his forte.
  
  
• 12/21/2020 - Everyone needs a reason to chuckle and I provide one with today's entry. I am sure eyes will roll and people will think me more daffy than usual but the newest entrant into the compendium is the famous teenage sleuth, Harriet The Spy. Hey! Come on! It is a series. And she is a spy. It says so in the name!
  
  
• 12/20/2020 - In the movies mentioned in yesterday's entry for Spy Kids, there was a character who had a minor role in the first and bigger ones in the others. Machete was the name of the kids' Uncle. He was a bad-ass, or at least as bad as you can be in a PG world. Then there were two R-rated movies about the man and, wow! Quite a difference. He gets his own entry here because the two movies we have of him without the kids, he gets involved in some quite interesting situations.
  
  
• 12/19/2020 - For some time I had planned to add a page dealing with the kids movie spy series Spy Kids. Finally I got to it and was surprised to learn that in addition to the 3 movies I knew about, there was a 4th. And a 2-season television animated series. And over a dozen young adult books. Pretty impressive.
  
  
• 12/18/2020 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a two-book series from a couple years ago dealing with Thomas Thornhill, an agent for an American branch of the intelligence community called Glass. The character is interesting and the action pretty constant. The nature of Glass and its opponent, The Twelve, was a bit confusing to me but then me being confused is not unusual.
  
  
• 12/17/2020 - The second of the two series by Caleb Pirtle III joins the group today. Roland Sand is the operative's name and he has three novellas written about him and his association with, well, The Association.
  
  
• 12/16/2020 - The first of two series written by Caleb Pirtle III joins the compendium today. This one, crafted a couple years ago but set during the Second World War, deals with the adventures of a man who has his brain scrambled to make him have no memory of his life before working for American Intelligence. Ambrose Lincoln was part of a strange program that is better for you to read for yourself.
  
  
• 12/15/2020 - I seem to be on a television kick this week. My entry for today is another one from the small screen, this one also from many, many years ago. Rod Taylor played Glenn Evans in the 26-episode hour-long series about an American reporter working out of Hong Kong. The many incidents of international intrigue that man gets involved in makes him definitely belong here.
  
  
• 12/14/2020 - I present for membership in this compendium a truly amazing series today. There are so far three books in the life of Jay Qasim, a British citizen of Pakistani descent who attracts the attention of Muslim extremists wanting to recruit it and MI5 agents wanted to, well, if not actually recruit him, certainly to use him. The writing of these books is incredibly and compellingly good. I am a huge fan.
  
  
• 12/13/2020 - Yesterday I entered an older television series into the compendium, Today I enter a made-for-television movie series from 15 years ago. Jane Doe was a delightful (to me) Hallmark version of a spy series. As I write in My Comments, hokey. But fun.
  
  
• 12/12/2020 - Popping back in time to a couple years after I was born, we have the pleasure of the company from 1954 of Steve McQuinn who starred in the 39-episode television series Passport To Danger. I had a blast revisiting a couple episodes (okay, visiting for the first time cause though over 65+ years old, they were still new to me).
  
  
• 12/11/2020 - First Look: A young man but still a fairly experience operative for Mossad joins the compendium. David Avivi has several exciting adventures to get your adrenaline level up there so check him out.
  
  
• 12/10/2020 - Today a three-book series about an agent with a mysterious organization who also has the private number to the President joins the compendium. Clayton Wolfe is the operative's name and he leads an ad hoc team loosely named after him that make the series even more enjoyable.
  
  
• 12/09/2020 - Heading back to 1982 television land in today's entry. Gavilan was a non-hit wonder that came and went very quickly. 13 episodes were made. 9 were shown pretty much weekly and then 2 months later the 10th was aired. The last three never were seen. Even now I do not believe any are available. Still, it was a spy-series of sorts so it belongs here.
  
  
• 12/08/2020 - We travel back in time to 1944 through 1957 for this excellent radio spy series, later turned into a television spy series. Ken Thurston, A Man Called X, came into our living rooms to enthrall us with over 100 episodes on the radio and then a few years later on TV with 39 more. Very well crafted and wonderfully acted, these remain a treasure today and the radio episodes are delightfully still available on several sites dedicated to Old Time Radio.
  
  
• 12/07/2020 - An enjoyable series that I had fun reading joins the compendium this morning but from the sound of its title, I would gather he would rather not. The Reluctant Spy is the series title given us even though the series is really about two main characters. I believe the reluctant one is John Henry. His sometime partner in excitement is Melody Fuller. We get to follow them in three different adventures, so far.
  
  
• 12/06/2020 - I have often in the past entered two series on the same day. I have not, as far as I can remember, welcomed two in the same entry. Two characters in one series, yes, but two in individual series, I do not think so. I do so today. Gerard deFerrier and Madeline deWinter are separate series and do not ever meet each other and yet ... well, you have to read my write-up(s) to understand more.
  
  
• 12/05/2020 - A British diplomat who, in the course of her duties, gets involved in international intrigue and rather gruesome murders, Jess Turner, joins the compendium today with a three-book series that is a lot of fun, quite realistically drafted, and well worth the read.
  
  
• 12/04/2020 - A six-book series about an agent with a British government agency called MI7 which has a sub-department operating inside America, that is the entry for today. Commander Jack Connor is the agent in question. Check out what I know so far.
  
  
• 12/04/2020 - Hey!! If you are looking for a really enjoyable series AND you want a heckuva bargain, I just heard from the author of the Thomas Bladen series that for a limited time, all five of the books in the series are available in ebook format at a terrific price. Free for Kindle Unlimited members and 99¢ for others. I'd snatch them up if I didn't already have them. You can check them out at here in the US and here in the UK.
  
  
• 12/03/2020 - An expert in counter-terrorism who suffers, according to one army shrink, from 'hypomania' (that does not sound good) is the protagonist of the series joining the compendium this morning. Kade Sims is pulled into the fight with America's enemies by the FBI. Check out this two-book, one-novella series.
  
  
• 12/02/2020 - From 1975 comes an interesting short series in graphic format (i.e., comic book) about a British citizen working undercover during the early days of the Great War (WWI, of course. The War to End All Wars). There is not much information on him so far but what we have found we show you on the page devoted to Phil Jackson, aka Geminis.
  
  
• 12/01/2020 - We welcome today a college professor and occasional analyst/agent with CSIS, northern cousin to the CIA. Patrick Wensley is one very sharp fellow who gets involved in several pretty interesting missions.
  
  
• 11/29/2020 - It is hard for me to imagine that it has been nearly a decade since Chuck left the airways. I got such a kick out of that show. I figured it was time to add it to the compendium so here it is. There are a couple of other sites with a bunch more intel on it than I give, of course, so I provide links to them.
  
  
• 11/28/2020 - A three-book (so far) series about a germaphobic code breaker named Quint Cord joins the compendium today. The man has some very impressive skills and some very interesting oddities which make his adventures interesting.
  
  
• 11/27/2020 - Looking at the nationalities of the residents of this compendium and we find just 1 from India. That is now 2 with the addition of Andy Karan, a reporter and part-time operative for The List.
  
  
• 11/26/2020 - Happy Thanksgiving! As always I have a whole lot to be thankful for, mostly my wife and grown children. I am also thankful for the tremendous number of great books and stories and movies and so on that I have been able to enjoy. One of those is this one which I have been working on for some time. As I enter series #1700 to the site, I am pleased to present The International Bureau, one of those very, very early spy series, this one from 1908. It was penned by Clarence H. New, a man who was incredibly prolific during his day and would give us two more series, one of which (coming soon) was l-o-n-g!
  
  
• 11/25/2020 - First Look: An agent from the Department of Homeland Security joins the compendium today. At least he will be one eventually. His life will go through some very interesting hurdles along the way, well worth following. Please welcome Blake Jordan to the group, membership for which he has been deserving for some time (my apologies for the slowness, sir).
  
  
• 11/24/2020 - First Look: We do not get too many agents from 'the other side' but that is what we have joining us today. Oksana Volkova is an agent for the GRU with some very impressive plans for the future of America, plans which are not quite anything we would have liked. The actions take place back in the 1960s and the writing so far is very good.
  
  
• 11/23/2020 - I take considerable pleasure in presenting a two-book series today for membership in the compendium. I do so because I took considerable pleasure in reading an very off-beat take on a secret agent who really isn't one but who firmly believes he is. Some of those around him know the truth. Some do not. That is the beauty of these well-crafted adventures. James Flynn was a lot of fun.
  
  
• 11/22/2020 - A really interesting and rather unique radio spy series joins the compendium today. The uniqueness comes from the origin of the series - South Africa. For a couple of years starting in 1975, British DI-6 agent Adam Kane combated foreign agents and would-be tyrants and was pretty cool doing it. 40+ of the episodes are available at several OTR sites so check them out.
  
  
• 11/21/2020 - First Look: Lord help me, I know so very little about today's entry. 'Red' Steele is an Australian secret agent whose many adventures were told in graphic format (i.e, comicbook) in the mid-40's in Australia. I have a good number of the covers but that is it. Mark this as a call to anyone who knows more cause I really want to!
  
  
• 11/20/2020 - We travel way in time with a series written not too long ago, in fact the third book just came out this month. The time travel is to the turn of the 20th Century and the adventures of Ingo Finch, a physician who gets involved in espionage through being in the wrong place at the right time. Not to mention he is a bit curious. Darn good writing makes this a very enjoyable series to spend time in.
  
  
• 11/19/2020 - A police officer is the entrant into the compendium today. Leila Reid is a copper in Britain who is a member of the police's Counter-Terrorism unit and she is a very good, very confident one as well. She does, however, speak her mind and follow her instincts, no matter what boss she miffs, and she miffs pretty good.
  
  
• 11/18/2020 - Coming to us from 70 years ago entertaining folks via radio comes the series adventures of Baroness Karin Geza, a very sultry-voiced femme fatale who used her elevated station coupled with incredible allure and even more courage to take on the Axis power of Germany on behalf of the Allies. 17 radio adventures are said to have been aired with 15 of them still available to download. I have listened to several and hope to listen to more as time permits. BTW, the series image I use on the page was created by me using a publicity photo of the star and co-creator, Ilona Massey, a true beauty.
  
  
• 11/17/2020 - Today I enter officially into the compendium a series I have been working on for quite some time, ZX-5. Good old 'ZX', as his friends literally call him, is an American operative who operated before, during, and then a few years after WWII. He had over 100 adventures, about half of which I have read so I have a plot synopsis, but all of which I have made available to read here. As I say in MyComments, the pre-War stories were pretty bad but historically valuable. The War tales got better and better and the post-War tales, most of which were private-eye related, were very enjoyable.
  
  
• 11/16/2020 - Slowly I am entering into the compendium the dozens of spy series that have entertained us on the small screen over the past 70+ years. Today the series is the Barbary Coast which gave us William Shatner as a government agent working for, who knows!
  
  
• 11/15/2020 - A two-issue graphic adventure from the U.K. in 1971 joins the compendium today. Mike Brady is an agent with a department known as SM-7. He has the help of an assistant named Mandy which is a good thing because she saves his life a couple of times in these interesting and lengthy stories.
  
  
• 11/14/2020 - From Down Under comes a set of secret agent graphic adventures about a fellow named Michael Chance. We know he is a secret agent because the comic is so named. What we do not know is much else about this fellow because the title is apparently hard to get hold of. Still, my pal EdRoy found enough to pique my curiosity so here is what he and I found out.
  
  
• 11/13/2020 - Our newest member is an MI6 agent about whom we have two adventures, recently drafted but depicting the 1930's adventures of Scott Rutherford. Both touch upon an area I have seen a couple times in passing, literally and figuratively, back when I was in the Navy, but never got to: Gibraltar.
  
  
• 11/12/2020 - Thanks to a question by David P. I have taken another look at the 9th book in the Anna Fehrbach series, Angel In Peril, which is no longer available anywhere from what he then I have found. I reviewed my ebook copy and found it was a repackaged version of the 7th book, Angel of Destruction with new artwork and new copyright date but the exact same text. What is the truth? No idea but I no longer have that book in the listing.
  
  
• 11/12/2020 - For today's new entry into the compendium, we go with the lovely and 'fiery' Jenna Royal, a British operative with MI6 along with her sister until someone higher up betrays their mission, sis is killed, and Royal gets royally miffed (understandably). She quits but somethings are just in your blood and she allows herself to be pulled back in with a new department called The Company.
  
  
• 11/11/2020 - First Look: An 18-book series from 1936 to 1951 about which I know very little joins the compendium today in the hope that others who may know more will enlighten me. John Meredith is a secret agent turned police inspector turned maybe spymaster with British Intelligence.
  
  
• 11/10/2020 - I seldom make note of a single new book in a series, waiting until I have several series to comment on, if I say anything at all. Today I make an exception because the 7th book in the terrific Catesby series is available - well, it's been out apparently since June but I just learned of it and want to make sure others know it as well. This is one very solid, enjoyable series I have recommended for years and now it is one book bigger.
  
  
• 11/10/2020 - A former U.S. Ranger turned agent for NESO (no idea what that stands for) joins the compendium today. James Donovan is involved in adventures in five novels, along with a more than capable woman named Magdalena.
  
  
• 11/09/2020 - From the mid 60's in television-land comes today's entry. The popular singer/crooner Robert Goulet also enjoyed an acting career and was picked to play David March, the last member of a group of undercover agents in the Blue Light program in Germany during the Second World War. It lasted just 17 episodes of 30-minutes each before being cancelled. Several of the first shows were then stitched together to make a theatrical release in Europe.
  
  
• 11/08/2020 - Another frequent contributor to this site and the man behind the terrific Spanish-language site, Una Plaga de Espias, Johny Malone, was the gent who tipped me on about today's entry. Morgan Wayne is a hard-boiled kinda private detective who is also sometimes an intelligence operative.
  
  
• 11/07/2020 - An IT specialist and an investigative reporter join the compendium today, not because of what they do per se but more because of those who try very hard to keep them from doing to. Harris & Knight are the two in question in this 3-book series.
  
  
• 11/06/2020 - Thanks again to my friend EdRoy, we have an agent entering the compendium today who works for the Secret Service but who operates mostly in Europe. 15 short stories were written and released starting just after the start of World War I. They were then turned (IMO) as fix-ups into two books. There was even a silent movie version of one of the stories, quite a rarity back then. Check out Kestner of the Secret Service.
  
  
• 11/05/2020 - I add another adventurer (my term, not necessarily the author's) who gets involved with lots of international bad guys and emergencies and even answering a call from the White House. Sam Reilly has nearly two dozen tales available to amuse and entertain the reader.
  
  
• 11/04/2020 - From 4 years ago comes a series about an MI6 agent operating more than 80 years ago. Scott Rutherford is an operative handling two missions in the mid 1930's dealing with two quite interesting locales - Gibraltar and the Azores.
  
  
• 11/03/2020 - My friend and frequent contributor, EdRoy, presented to me a series I had never heard of. Victor Gaunt is an intrepid agent of the British Secret Service in the early 30's in the dangerous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. These were published in a very popular boy's magazine of the time but reading one of the stories, I have to wonder what age group they were aimed at because these are no children's books. As always, if others out there know more about the series than EdRoy and I have been able to uncover, please let me know.
  
  
• 11/03/2020 - I voted! I hope you did as well, regardless of for whom you voted. Far too many brave men and women gave their lives for our right to do so to just sit it out.
  
  
• 11/02/2020 - First Look: Today's entrant is one from 1940 about which I know virtually nothing except that it exists. I do not even know who wrote it! That's hardly enough to make anyone pay any attention, I'll grant you, but it seems to me better than not knowing about it. Well, maybe a tad better. Anyways, the spy about whom I know so little is British operative Burt Kennedy who had four adventures taking place during the Second World War.
  
  
• 11/01/2020 - Today as I turn my clocks back an hour, I add a 2-book series by Paul Vidich that turns the clock back 60+ years. George Mueller is a CIA agent who served in the OSS during the War, worked on Wall Street for a while afterwards, and then answered the call to join the nascent Agency soon after its creation. He is a weary and, I think, lonely man who is asked to put his life on the line by people he does not trust in answer to a goal he no longer really understands.
  
  
• 10/31/2020 - Our newest member of this lethal compendium comes to us through the graces of the Defense Intelligence Agency who, in order to get accomplished some pretty gnarly (did I just use that word?) missions that the State Department did not want high visibility units like Delta Force and the SEALS involved in, makes use of contract agents like Mike Ducane. Highly skilled, extremely dependable, and totally expendable.
  
  
• 10/29/2020 - First Look: Today I enter a series I have known about for many, many years. Every few months I look to see if a copy exists that I could afford - oh, heck no! - or maybe put in ebook format since it is way long ago entered into the public domain - no again!. William Le Queuex's Donovan of Whitehall seems to be almost kinda sorta a Holy Grail for me these days. If you know more, let me in on, please!
  
  
• 10/28/2020 - A series that looks back at a time in the early 1940's joins the compendium today. Drex Ellis is a man who is used by MI6 to do some interesting work, as well as by American Intelligence a bit. It is currently a 2-book series but more may be coming.
  
  
• 10/27/2020 - Having a wilderness/hunting guide as a new member to the compendium might seem an odd choice unless one learns why the man had chosen such an isolated life style. Hawk Tate had a darn good reason for wanting most of the world to leave him alone. Too bad for him enemies when they don't.
  
  
• 10/26/2020 - Today I add a two-book series about a man whose vocation is not being an agent but being a diving expert. I love this kind of adventure and can almost pretend I understand some of what the man goes through, having gotten scuba certified myself, doncha know. Of course I did it only a couple of times before moving away from the ocean and never, ever very deep. And that was 40+ years ago. John McCready does it almost every day and goes deep enough to take him a very long time to be able to come back up. Totally different experiences but still I kinda pretend. Check out these adventures. They are fun.
  
  
• 10/26/2020 - An FBI agent (well, she didn't start out to be one but ...) joins the compendium as Jana Baker is pulled into the cloak and dagger world first by the Bureau and later by the CIA.
  
  
• 10/25/2020 - As regular visitors here know, I have been 'off-the-air' for a couple of days. My database got royally messed up. I thought it was something I did wrong but my hosting provider, GoDaddy, thinks it was something of a Denial-of-Service attack.
  
  Of course, if it were the latter, being a spy fiction site, I have to wonder about Russians, or Chinese, or Iranians, or domestic terrorists, or .... oh my! the list is so long, ending with 'or aliens'.
  
  Anyways, since I religiously keep back-ups, restoring things was not the problem as much as finding ways to halt the DOS, if in fact that was the culprit.
  
  The site is back. For now.
  
  
• 10/22/2020 - First Look: A British government assassin who had the audacity of deciding he would not eliminate the latest target, a woman MP, joins the compendium today. I am intrigued so far with Michael North and hope to finish the first of two books tonight.
  
  
• 10/21/2020 - I introduce a series today that takes us back in time in two ways, really. First, it was started back in 1975 so that is 45 years back. Second, it takes place back in and around 1855 so that is another 120 years back. John Pendragon is a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade who is given a chance to continue to serve the Crown by working as an operative for what was a precursor to British Intelligence. This is a terrifically written series that I enjoyed a bunch.
  
  
• 10/20/2020 - I love coming across a series I have never heard about before. It does not happen that often anymore but on occasion .... That is the case with this series of short stories found in the pages of British magazine Lion. In 1962-63, each week that publication came out with numerous recurring stories, some text and some graphic. Tuff Dawson was in text format and there are nearly a full year's worth - 46 - of adventures altogether.
  
  
• 10/19/2020 - Today's entry is a bit different and I like that. The agent is question is Zoya Khalatnikova who will eventually work for/with the CIA and not too happily at times. What makes it different is that in the beginning, before she 'joins' the Agency, she is the very wealthy daughter of a Russian gangster-turned-oligarch who has a lot of grudges to settle in the Motherland.
  
  
• 10/18/2020 - The two gentlemen who comprise the 'team' of Pinder & Turner come from totally different directions to become friends and co-workers in a couple of interesting adventures. Steven Pinder stars in the first book in a trilogy, Ian Turner stars in the second, and they meet and start working together in the third. Some time later they are re-united for another adventure and I hope they find a reason to do it again.
  
  
• 10/17/2020 - First Look: A British Secret Service agent active during WWII comes to us today via a 1940-1941 Canadian comic book called Three Aces Comics. I have not gotten my hands on any of the 9 (that I know of) issues that show Michael Lee adventures but he existed and I thought since I recently learned of him, I would add him in the hopes someone who knows more than I will educate me.
  
  
• 10/16/2020 - First Look: We are heading back in time to the Napoleonic Wars and the seconding of a British naval officer, Captain Justice to work for a mysterious organization with a very unusual name, all in defense of the Crown as the newly self-crowned Emperor looks to increase his domain.
  
  
• 10/15/2020 - Today I enter a series whose four books (so far) have covers and adventures that take me back to the adventures of the 70s and 80s. Lots of very bad guys being beaten by the heroes and lots of good ole rollin'-in-the-hay afterwards. Reb Rogers is a lot of fun to read about, once you realize that PC is not a factor.
  
  
• 10/14/2020 - First Look: From the excellent pen of Alex Gerlis comes a brand new series this year with already three adventures which look like more terrific work on his part. Richard Prince is a Detective Superintendent in Lincolnshire in 1942 when we first meet him, a man with an impressive reputation who is pulled into the work of first MI6 and then MI5. I am enjoying the first book a lot.
  
  
• 10/13/2020 - I did not plan this. Honest! The very day I posted an entry for a female agent who then moved to a nunnery, an entry for which I commented on the uniqueness, I came across and read a different series about Sister Jacobine, the agent for the Pope with the interesting series title of Nun With A Gun. And I really enjoyed this very strange series of short stories. Life can through you a few curve-balls.
  
  
• 10/12/2020 - An interesting series joins the compendium today with somewhat of a freelance agent in Nadia Laksheva. Trying to describe what she does and for whom, well, read what I have to say to see.
  
  
• 10/11/2020 - We have had added to this compendium a couple of darn good series in which an intelligence operative has given up their career in order to take up the cloth. Today we have another but this time it is a young woman, Charlie Jones, who will have an exciting adventure as an Australian agent before heading to a convent where she will have a couple more interesting ones, including saving the life of the Pope. Good way to get noticed by both the top man and the Top Man!
  
  
• 10/10/2020 - I present a very well-written and very exciting series about a former Army Ranger who becomes a mercenary working for some very secretive people. Does the series belong in this compendium? Not quite sure. I am sure I enjoyed what I read though. Check out David Rivers for yourself.
  
  
• 10/09/2020 - I do not often do this but I want to give a mention here about a new character that I hope will become a series soon. I enjoyed the one book out there already, The Swamp by Jeff Grant and I recommend it to all spy-fi fans. The character, Elizabeth Petrov, deserves a spot in this compendium so hopefully the next book that is promised, The Sewer, will be with us soon.
  
  
• 10/08/2020 - A very old question is 'who watches the watchers'. In this three-book series being entered into the compendium today, the answer is Dennis Cunningham. He is part of the Inspector General's department inside the CIA and his specialty is finding agents who are trained not to be found. He is also prone to speaking his mind which is yet another reason his fellow employees have issues with him. I, as a reader, had no such issues. You should see for yourself.
  
  
• 10/07/2020 - I am having a bit more fun with this series than I thought I would when I picked it from the TBR pile. Ayesha Khan is billed as a mostly man-hating woman (well, they have one usefulness, for a while) who does not have that much affection for women, either. She just seems disgruntled. All the time. But kinda fun in a "don't take the series too seriously" sort of way.
  
  
• 10/06/2020 - Entering the compendium today is a solid CIA agent turned security and recovery expert Steve Case in a three-book series. Accompanying him is Yinny, a female agent who deserves her own adventures.
  
  
• 10/05/2020 - First Look: A two-book series from a couple years ago joins the compendium. Max Fend is the son of a very right industrialist and likely not too badly off himself. He is also an experience operative who is about to get even more experience. Just started the series but enjoying it.
  
  
• 10/04/2020 - An odd series designed for young adults joins the compendium today. Hugo Dare is a 13-year old lad who wants so much to be a spy and then stunningly is given the chance. It is a dream come true and kind of sort of a bit of a nightmare.
  
  
• 10/03/2020 - Heading back in time with a new series just written, I add to the compendium the very interesting and not a little disconcerting Walter Berner of the German military intelligence group Abwehr during the Second World War.
  
  
• 10/02/2020 - What a terrific two-book series I enter into the compendium today. The author, Robert Dugoni, has already made an awesome name for himself, first with an impressive series about a lawyer and then with one about a homicide detective. His decision to bring his writing talents to the spy-fi world is a much welcomed one and the adventures with Charles Jenkins do not disappoint.
  
  
• 10/01/2020 - First Look: Hello, October. I add my initial thoughts to the Niki Finley series today. This young woman is a new operative with a group called the Zealots but before that she was a highly experienced scuba diver with some impressive adventures prior to being recruited.
  
  
• 09/29/2020 - Yesterday I re-entered the character, Heine, by the terrific author Edgar Wallace after re-reading and re-evaluating the stories. I did this because after reading the awesome stories that Wallace gave us about Major Haynes, who had been an important part of the Heine tales, I had to give the Heine stories another go. As you will see in My Comments, I loved these stories. When they were done, I sighed because they were all gone. Now, the Haynes stories technically come after the Heine stories but the reading order is not important for continuity sake and for true enjoyment of the character, I would recommend reading the Haynes tales and then the Heine ones. Whichever order you pick, though, I implore you to read them. They are fast and fun and so well worth the time.
  
  
• 09/28/2020 - Having re-read all the stories in Edgar Wallace's Heine series for reason I explain in My Comments, and then given plots for each of them, I have rewritten considerably my entire entry for this series. I really recommend reading it again. I have acquired an even higher appreciation of Wallace's writing and pacing.
  
  
• 09/27/2020 - For far too long I have sat on the extremely fun and exciting and over-the-top gloriousness (I know that's not a real word) that is the adventurer named only Dillon. But no longer. Today he gets admitted. He belongs in this compendium because of the number of times he has saved a world leader, or a country, or the whole planet. Plus he is a hoot and as a fan of spy-fi series, I welcome him.
  
  
• 09/26/2020 - Life is pretty okay when you get to read a fun, fast, enjoyable series like today's entrant into the compendium. Tony Falcon is said in a blurb to be a Star Trek fan who does not take himself too seriously. Both facts are true but he is not a Trekkie spouting lore wherever he goes nor is he silly or goofy. He is a very capable operative who happens to enjoy watching the sci-fi program when he can. He also points out the very real fact that "red shirts always die". I liked this series and hope the author decides to give us more in the future.
  
  
• 09/25/2020 - The very important and sometimes seemingly impossible job of keeping diplomats safe is a job I love reading about. Today I enter into the compendium a series about one such man, Alex Boyd and not only is it very well written, it is done so by a man who walked the walk for many years so he knows what he is talking about. Please check out this series.
  
  
• 09/24/2020 - Today we invite into the compendium an ace (well, once and future ace) reporter named Jack Emery who will have to put away a wrecked marriage, nearly wrecked career and possibly totally wrecked life to cover and try to survive some pretty interesting world events.
  
  
• 09/23/2020 - I've headed back 40+ years for today's entrant into the compendium. A British (to me) rip-off of the Six Million Dollar Man named John Probe but designated M.A.C.H. 1 is an agent who is enhanced via very odd scientific acupuncture (called compu-puncture) and then topped off (literally) by having a computer put into the man's head. Given the strength of 50 men and able to run and swim at incredible speeds, Probe is then given all sorts of impossible missions. It is a fun but unbelievable series I kinda enjoyed.
  
  
• 09/22/2020 - Today's entrant into the compendium would definitely be a good one all on his own but Lawrence Lander is joined in his adventure with Rivka and, boy, I'd love a book or three about her alone.
  
  
• 09/21/2020 - A British intelligence agency quite off the books to be able to handle covertly problems people do not want to talk about. That is who Maggie Black, agent with The Unit, works for. Her adventures consists of 3 books and 3 novellas, so far. They are fun to read so check them out.
  
  
• 09/20/2020 - A very short and very fast but enjoyable two-novella series joins the compendium today. Tom Black is an agent with an off-the-books British government agency called TEP. These were enjoyable stories that came out a few years ago. A full length novel was expected to follow but I have seen no evidence of it.
  
  
• 09/19/2020 - Added books to the entries for the following series: Jane Moneypenny, Vince Flynn, Michelle Reagan, John Mordred, Sam Wick, and Alex Dorring.
  
  
• 09/19/2020 - A very, very strange series joins the compendium today. It is brand new and would normally have waited on the TBR pile for a while but it meshed spy-fi and Star Trek and I had to check it out. I liked part of the Cord Devlin stories and did not like others.
  
  
• 09/18/2020 - Today I take a bit of a step back in time to the 1980s when the terrific talent of prolific scribe Ralph Hayes, a man who already has 4 series in this compendium and contributions to a 5th, gave us a 4-book series about an operative who works for The Escape Committee, an unofficial name for a small group of people led by the American President. Luther Gage is one of a handful of agents attached to this secret group who gets tasked with handling situations the Committee deems needing done off-the-books.
  
  
• 09/17/2020 - I love a fun, original story and I found that in today's entry into the compendium. Eric Swan is an agent with the secret governmental department known as Q2 and the blurb for him says "he can be killed -- but he cannot die". As I mention in my write-up, how could I not check it out?
  
  
• 09/16/2020 - Travel back with me today for five adventures in the 1960's about CIA operative Ed Maddux. Although written just a couple years ago, the author does a darn good job of capturing the feel from the mid-60's, enough to make me want to pull out my old mod clothes and ... okay, maybe not but these are still good adventures.
  
  
• 09/15/2020 - Today the lovely and quite impressive Alisha MacAleer, an agent for the CIA, joins the compendium. There are three exciting adventures about this woman that I think you will enjoy.
  
  
• 09/14/2020 - Today I introduce to my compendium Samantha Vagus, one very intriguing woman whose adventures are named "Scratcher" for reasons that ... well, read what I wrote. But another interesting feature of this series is the subtitle to each book. The first one is "Samantha Vagus Kills Too Many People". If it was designed, and I am sure it was, to get attention, congrats! It worked!
  
  
• 09/13/2020 - If you are in the mood for a good guffaw (and we all should be in these very odd times), I would recommend today's entry into the compendium. It goes by the series title of Partners In Crime and is a lot of fun following Peter Bolton and Piper Landry. Especially Piper. He is dangerous and exciting. She is very dangerous and very exciting.
  
  
• 09/12/2020 - I did a major rewrite to the Secret Agent 21 entry with lots of new adventures I recently discovered, including the time that this James-Bond-In-Space futuristic agent acquired magnetic abilities and changed his name for a while to Mr. Magnet. After that, he went back to normal but stayed an agent. Lots of fun adventures, all of which I have made available for viewing.
  
  
• 09/11/2020 - Today we offer membership into the compendium to Shirin Reyes, an agent with the Agency (not the CIA) which is, I believe, Australian. Not sure. Doesn't really matter. What I do know from having read the prequel novellas and the first novel is two things: 1) she can make a lot of people mad at her and 2) do not kill her husband because then she gets mad at you.
  
  
• 09/10/2020 - Today I add the third of Matt Rogers' three small series that got their start based on Black Force operatives. I enjoyed the other two. I really, really liked this one. Ruby Nazarian is a fascinating character with a backstory that is sad and interesting and really explains the woman she is today. There is so far only one book that she shares with another of his characters and one novella. I hope there will be more.
  
  
• 09/09/2020 - Yesterday I added a Matt Rogers novella series adjunct to the Jason King series. I add another one today in the as-yet two novella series about Black Force operative James Xu.
  
  
• 09/08/2020 - Matt Rogers is the author who gave us two series already covered in this compendium, Jason King and Will Slater, added three more though with considerably less adventures (at least so far). One of those joins the collection today when I enter Sam Rollins, a fellow Black Force operative with three missions told in novella format.
  
  
• 09/07/2020 - The adventures, one book and one novella, of Regina Livingston comprise today's entrant into the compendium. She is a very interesting and quite intelligent woman who is just becoming an actual field agent after having been an excellent analyst for the CIA for some time.
  
  
• 09/06/2020 - First Look: I am entering the three-book series about Donald Cairn, written in the late 30's just before WWII. I am hoping someone out there knows more than I do about this character and will let me know. So far I cannot find any of the books for sale.
  
  
• 09/06/2020 - Second Look at LePage & Dupuy, two French Intelligence operatives dealing with troubles at the turn of the 20th century.
  
  
• 09/05/2020 - I present a really fun, well-written series today that I am only part-way through but enjoying it a lot. Harry Bauer is an American who had served with the British SAS (didn't think that possible but what do I know) who is invited to join a very covert organization for the Five Eyes nations called Cobra. There are two books out and the third one due later this month. I recommend them.
  
  
• 09/04/2020 - While most of the residents of this compendium are listed as 'agents' there are a fine variety of other occupations. I believe Salvage Expert is a new one. That is what Morgan Fox does for a living and he is very good at it. That is what the CIA thinks and they like to call on him at the most unfortunate times.
  
  
• 09/03/2020 - In the old Monty Python skits, a recurring line used was "and now for something completely different". That is how I feel when I add to this compendium Bond, Jayne Bond. Not because she has a name so close to a more famous agent but because she is an agent with the VIS. That is the Vampire Intelligence Service. Told you it was different.
  
  
• 09/02/2020 - A computer hacker and former Marine who has made a powerful enemy out of the U.S. Vice President joins the compendium today. That is a powerful enemy, especially when he decides to run for the top job and wants to make sure that the hero, Gibson Vaughn, does not cause trouble.
  
  
• 09/01/2020 - Welcome to September. I start this month with a really good (I use that description several times in my write-up) three-book series about an NSA analyst/computer nerd who gets shunted over to the CIA and becomes a field agent. Darn good writing and, for me, darn good reading. Check out Stephen Connor to see what I mean.
  
  
• 08/31/2020 - Today's entrant is another one of those "Do anyone know anything about this series?" It was sent to me by my friend and frequent contributor, EdRoy, and is a 3-story series from the pages of Ace G-Man Stories from 1940-41. It deals with a pair of probable operatives named Evans & O'Connor.
  
  
• 08/30/2020 - First Look on Max Shaw, an operative for the Australian Intelligence Service and a gay man who has to try the impossible balancing act of doing the things he has to to get the job done while keeping enough humanity to have a home life. I have not read the books yet but since the author was kind enough to contact me about this series, I figured I would mention it here.
  
  
• 08/30/2020 - Yesterday's entry has a companion series. Clubfoot was the bad guy "hero" of his series, plaguing folks and nations for several decades. Today's entry is one of the few people who was able to defeat the man. Desmond Okewood is described in my write-up as intrepid and he is the poster child of that trait. He has his own entry because he does other things besides counter Clubfoot, though not as many as Clubfoot did.
  
  
• 08/29/2020 - What amounts to a package-deal comes to the compendium today, part 1 of 2 at least. Our time machine heads way, way back for this series, back to 1918 and one of the nastiest, meanest bad-guy spymaster you are likely to encounter. He is Dr. Adolf Grundt, aka Clubfoot, servant to both the Kaiser before and during WWI and to Hitler 25 years later. For someone who does not walk so well, the man gets around.
  
  
• 08/28/2020 - Three days ago I added a 3-novella series from 1935 about a man known as the Sphinx, an unofficial Intelligence officer. Today I add another series by the same author from four years earlier. Vincent Connor is the head of his own conglomerate in a very turbulent time in China. Connor gets involved in a half-dozen recorded missions which are designed to reduce the colonization efforts of foreign governments in that country. His efforts could be considered as instances of "white savior" fiction but reading the stories there is no doubt he loves China and deplores the foreign encroachment he sees from several fronts. Mind you, this is an American with a fortune already made by his father and he in China and so a bit of I've-got-mine but you-can't-get-yours. Enjoyable tales nevertheless.
  
  
• 08/27/2020 - If you are in the hunt for a sassy, kick-your-backside-for-nothing, do-not-make-her-angry female assassin, have I got a fun one for you. Matti Baker is not only a terrific person to have in a fight (unless the fight is with you) she is also the only agent in the entire compendium that is the mother of triplets. She is a hoot.
  
  
• 08/26/2020 - Today's entry is a character from a very famous movie. The name of the character is Harry Lime and he is the star of the entry but most people would remember the movie far sooner than the man, if they remembered the man at all. The Third Man was possibly the most popular movie of the year in 1950 and it was penned by the genius that was Graham Greene. Many people would rightly put this movie in the crime or suspense genre, and they would be right. Some have even listed it as noir and it definitely fits there as well. What it is really not so much is a spy movie though Greene was a master of that genre and the feel of the movie certainly fits. However there were 52 radio drama episodes made about the scoundrel main character, Lime, and many of those deal with international skulduggery and the occasional would-be revolution and other matters that would make it fit here just fine. And after the character was killed off in the movie's end (I know, spoiler! but the movie was 70 years ago so deal with it!) he got "better" because he mended his ways (and obviously his body) and went on to have 77 television episodes of his time after the Vienna death. Many of those dealt with spy-ish matters. So the series fits here and I hope you enjoy my write-ups as much as I had a blast preparing them.
  
  
• 08/25/2020 - Travel with me, if you will, back to just a wee shy of nine decades ago. The year is 1935. The pulp magazines are still going strong. Argosy was printing weekly terrific stories and was one of the favorite places for Henry Bedford-Jones, a giant in the pulp writing world. He had already created several terrific series in a variety of genres but the first I heard of was today's entry. John Barnes, aka The Sphinx, was an unofficial agent with American Intelligence and we have three pretty cool adventures of his to enjoy.
  
  
• 08/24/2020 - Tonight I add a series which has 5 books and 4 novellas as of this entry. Brice Bannon is a part-time agent of DHS working directly for the Head of that department. Brice is also a part-time private investigator. And in his spare time, he owns a bar along the coast of New Hampshire. Busy man. Fun series. I liked it a lot.
  
  
• 08/23/2020 - Over a half century ago, I enjoyed the adventures of young (so was I) Jonny Quest and his pal Hadji and his genius father Dr. Quest and the awesome teacher/bodyguard Race Bannon. They got involved in lots of "saving the world from bad guys" and Race was really an agent with the government and even Dr. Quest had a codename. So the stories fit in this compendium and so now, after over a decade of running this site and five decades after first meeting the young man, I present his adventures here. (Oh, some of the plotlines I am still learning from reading. Most I have but a fair number remain.)
  
  
• 08/22/2020 - A British private detective who gets involved in international crime matters as well as being asked on occasion to help out the British Secret Service. That is a good description of George Barclay, hero of six adventures from the late 60's, who is the chap joining the compendium this evening.
  
  
• 08/21/2020 - A two-book series about Nick Parker, a sergeant in the USAF during the final days of the Vietnam War as well as in the years following it who gets involved in a couple of activities at the behest of the CIA. Being a Christian, Parker quite often finds it difficult to follows his conscience and follow his orders.
  
  
• 08/20/2020 - Today's entry is Tommy Malloy, a man whose occupation is a first for me in the spy-series study. He is a comedian. And he is a successful one at that. But do not think that the three adventures we have of him are comedies. There are lots of light-hearted comments here and there but there is a ton of action, too. I really like them and I think you will as well.
  
  
• 08/19/2020 - I take a First Look at a pulp secret agent from the mid-30's today. I do not know a lot about him as yet because I am still hunting the magazines but the terrific Jeff Nevins with his The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes gave me a brief insight into the man known as 'Big Red' Brennan.
  
  
• 08/18/2020 - A few years ago I heard of an awesome graphic novel called The Coldest City starring a very deadly woman I would not want angry with me. I was sorry it was not a series. Then came out The Coldest Winter? Series? Well, yes and no. So I waffled for a couple of years. Then a friend sent me copies of both and finally I got to enjoy them and finally I am adding them here. I named the series what seems to be the more popular name since the terrific movie starring the awesome Charlize Theron came out: Atomic Blonde.
  
  
• 08/17/2020 - I am taking the odd, though not unprecedented, action of adding a series I have not only not read yet, I have none of the adventures in it. Sheridan Doome is a pretty scary dude not just because of his name and his reputation but also because of his appearance (read the write-up to learn more). There is a fair amount online about him but the stories are a bit pricey. But I do want to get hold of him because, scary or not, he sounds interesting.
  
  
• 08/16/2020 - An easy-going, fun series about an agent with (maybe) the CIA who works a lot of his time in Hawaii (lucky fellow) and has a very powerful and determined Slovakian out for his head (unlucky fellow) - that is the entry for today. Please welcome Agent Boudreaux to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/15/2020 - Back to comicbook land with a storyline from the mid-60's about a British spy who joins the Resistance in his own country when a powerful leader wrests control of the nation and becomes a dictator. Vic Gunn is the man who gives his all to bring the tyrant down.
  
  
• 08/14/2020 - Let us say hello to Tamari Banks, a top agent for the OIS, aka the Office Of Internal Security which the Director says was chosen because the title said virtually nothing about what the agency did. She is well aware of what she is supposed to do, though. She hunts down and eliminates terrorists.
  
  
• 08/13/2020 - 1600 !!! Another milestone. That is a lot of series! To mark this moment, I have selected a very unusual couple, Boris & Natasha, two no-goodniks who have been around almost as long as I have. Of course, they would not have found their way into our lives if it had not been for their ongoing feud with Rocky the Flying Squirrel and, even more so, Bullwinkle J. Moose. These two fantastic and iconic examples of enemy agents have graced the television screens in dozens of cartoon adventures, the movie screens, comic book pages, and even the comic pages of the newspapers. It is easy to write them off as kids entertainment but when you watch the episodes as an adult and even more so read the adventures in the comics (books and strips), it is amazing the topical and satirical humor that they contain. Welcome you two!
  
  
• 08/12/2020 - A delightful and well-written collection of pastiches to my beloved Mission: Impossible series joins the compendium on its own merits - that is, as its own series. Covert Ops: Gemini is a tribute to that earlier series written by a variety of people. I hope the producer decides to revisit the concept.
  
  
• 08/11/2020 - The author calls this series The War Planners and that is an excellent name for it since it deals so much with both the people who are determined to bring about a war with America and with those who are struggling to keep it from happening. I named the series about the main protagonist in the adventures who was involved in cloak and dagger activities, David Manning. Regardless of the naming, if you like reading about scheming and plotting and chess pieces being moved about, this is a good series for you.
  
  
• 08/10/2020 - I have been holding onto this graphic novel series for several years. I would read a bit of it and then decide to wait until later. Finally, I have ruled later to be here. Without any fanfare, I present Codename: Knockout, the multiple adventures of Angela St.Grace, agent of G.O.O.D. and for a while E.V.I.L., dealing with other agents of groups like H.E.A.V.E.N. and, of course, H.E.L.L. Oh, the things I do for this site!
  
  
• 08/09/2020 - The same man who has been giving up exciting tales about Nick Stone gave another 3-book series a few years about about an MI-5 agent named Tom Buckingham. Lots of action and excitement in these pages as well but that is kind of what I expect from Andy McNab.
  
  
• 08/08/2020 - A silly short and completely throw-away-able series joins the compendium today and I add it with a bit smile. Spy-Smasher Smith is a cute little spoof of the spy genre circa the early days of James Bond. Smith and Bond would have been, um, well, third cousins twice removed.
  
  
• 08/07/2020 - Today's entry into the compendium is a fellow is gets noticed by the President and invited to be his personal agent, which in spy-fi talk means that he will get pulled into a ton of different types of situations, all of them dangerous and all fun to read. Please welcome Aaron Hardy to the group.
  
  
• 08/06/2020 - This morning I add to the compendium a fun, light-hearted series about an intelligence organization that has a new "weapon" in their arsenal. It is The LBD Project and if you think that might stand for Little Black Dress, you nailed it. If you think it is a dress, you would be right. If you think it is just a dress, you would be wrong.
  
  
• 08/05/2020 - Another "I know nothing about this agent" entry this morning. Again my much appreciated contributor, EdRoy, discovered this two-story series from the pages of The Feds magazine from 1937 about Secret Agent F-8 by Alan Hathway. Since all we have are the covers, we do not know much. Anyone out there have any clues?
  
  
• 08/04/2020 - I am heading back in time again with today's entry. Recently written, these adventures take place during WWII and deal with a former US Navy officer sent to the OSS. His name is Conor Thorn and his stories are quite enjoyable. Working alongside him is a British female agent named Emily Bright who really deserves her own series.
  
  
• 08/03/2020 - Tonight I add a six-book series that I really enjoyed and which I hope will stick around and give me more adventures. The writing is very good, the plots are darned good, the troubles facing the protagonist worthy of my grinding my teeth of the unfairness, and the resolutions are satisfying. Good stuff in the Barrett Mason series.
  
  
• 08/03/2020 - The entry this morning is a whole lot of nothing dealing with a mysterious probable spy-hunter from 1929, Paladin, Master Spy on Spies. My friend and contributor, EdRoy, sent me the sketchy intel on him he had found and I confirmed it in www.philsp.com, a fantastic source of information on magazine contents going way back. The names, dates, and cover art for the magazines. That is all I know. Maybe, hopefully, someone out there will know more and pass it on.
  
  
• 08/02/2020 - I often experience a thrill when entering a new series into this compendium that I think fans of spy-fiction will get a kick out of. Today is that feeling twice over because through the incredible writing of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler, I was able to travel back in time to the First World War and feel like I was actually there. Christopher Marlowe Cobb is a reporter who also does the occasional thing or two for American Intelligence. This is exquisite storytelling.
  
  
• 08/01/2020 - With the heat index reaching beyond 105 today, I am sitting in my comfortable chair in a cool office adding a British comic book series from 1966. It is a tribute (or rip-off) of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. but not badly done at all. Please welcome S.A.T.A.N. to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/31/2020 - Well, as we close out an eventful month for me, I present a strange, strange series that is designed for those who are into light B&D, which I ain't. Blaze Lane is the sweet but dumber-than-dirt, albeit crack shot. agent who finds more and more ways to be tied up naked. Most of this three-book series is light-hearted silly fun. Other parts, not so fun.
  
  
• 07/30/2020 - A Second Look today at Peter Savage, a CEO of a small but successful company who is as smart as he is determined and he has a wonderful (for us, not so much for him) knack of getting trouble thrown at him. He does not duck. He throws it back!
  
  
• 07/30/2020 - A thriller/suspense writer I have enjoyed for several decades has penned a two-book spy series about Thomas Laker and I am excited to be able to add it to the compendium today. I am a fan and I think you will be as well.
  
  
• 07/29/2020 - Bit of a mystery presented here today. The series entering the compendium is given by me the name Randall McCarey. The mystery of sorts is that no one by that name is in the first book but the gent starring in the first goes by that name in the third and has for some time. In the second, a different fellow must take the identity of McCarey. It's interesting. See for yourself.
  
  
• 07/28/2020 - Second Look time again and today we take another gander at an NCIS agent who is really good at getting into a lot of trouble and then getting himself out of it again. Ruben Carver is the kind of man you want after the bad guys but I would not stand too close to him 'cause ricochets can hurt.
  
  
• 07/28/2020 - Travel back with me again to the Second World War, well actually a couple of years before the full hostilities begin. Alex Kovacs is a Czech who has been living and working in Vienna so long he considers it is second home. His hatred of Nazi aggression is understandable then when first his homeland and then his adopted home are sucked up. Pretty darn good writing here.
  
  
• 07/27/2020 - Of the many former spies who have entered this compendium because life keeps bringing back into the cloak and dagger world, there have been a couple who have left clandestine to take up the cloth. Today we have another one in Father Flenn, a very well-written three-book series. Check him out and I think you will be pleased.
  
  
• 07/27/2020 - I take a Second Look at the two-book series about black-ops soldier, Sean Havens. This is a series for you if you want lots and lots of action. It wasn't for me but then I am a wimp.
  
  
• 07/26/2020 - A government assassin working for an American covert agency called the NIA joins the compendium this evening. James Turner is one very nasty man to have to go up against and he shows it quite a bit in this two-book series.
  
  
• 07/26/2020 - Second Look time again, this one being a two-book Interpol agent who gets involved in a couple of adventures which definitely fits within the loose requirements of this compendium. Graham Wenby is a man who loves to go undercover and prefers to work alone while doing so, well except for the quite lovely Kelly but considering the way she is described, who can blame him.
  
  
• 07/25/2020 - A couple of pretty good writers got together to create this new series of which there are as yet two books and hopefully more to come. Sam Barker is, in his opinion, a mid-level IT guy who is not particularly exciting nor does he really want to be. He does, though, have some very useful computer and analysis skills that are desired by a secret British government agency called The Firm.
  
  
• 07/25/2020 - I take a Second Look at a series that starts off with three book-length missions and then switches to over a dozen novella-sized ones that really work well. Jonathon Stone is a CIA agent who liaisons with the FBI and other government agencies in the Southern California area as well as a few missions overseas.
  
  
• 07/24/2020 - I initially called this series the Blake Salinger series after one of the main characters and then thought The Salinger Family as a title but ended calling it what the author did - Bloodline. It is about two spies, father and son. It is quite interesting.
  
  
• 07/24/2020 - I introduce a 3-book series from the late 30's of which I know virtually nothing. Really. Only one book is currently on sale and it is going for $150+ which is way, way, way outside my budget. The Callaghan of Intelligence books are published under the pen-name of Michael Chesney, real name Alexander Wilson of Wallace of the Secret Service fame. If ANYONE knows ANYTHING more than I have written about him, please let me know.
  
  
• 07/23/2020 - Second Look at Sam Jameson, an operative with Homeland Security who is drop-dead gorgeous, keenly intelligent, and can kick behind like a pro.
  
  
• 07/23/2020 - Today's entry is a double-feature. The author considers them one series and he would know more than I, of course. That being said, I thought each character deserved individual mention because each has their own adventure(s) besides working together. Please welcome Maya Raines and Kendra Shaw.
  
  
• 07/22/2020 - Second Look at Jack Stone, an American secret agent in the near future (30 years) who is pretty interesting by himself but also has a fascinating young female agent who is worthy of her own adventure or two.
  
  
• 07/22/2020 - Tad jumping the gun on this one, something I am loathe to do. The first book about Brigitte Sharp came out in 2017 but the second one is not being released for over a month so, technically, it is not yet a series. However, I enjoyed the first one so much and am looking forward to the second so I thought, what the heck. The author, Antony Johnston, is a veteran storyteller with an impressive track record. I strongly recommend this series.
  
  
• 07/21/2020 - Took a Second Look at the Suicide Squad. No, this is not a bunch of bad superheroes forced to work for the government. This is a bunch of good agents forced to work for the government - at least in a capacity that is considered suicide to anyone's career.
  
  
• 07/21/2020 - For this entry we will look at a fellow whose adventures have just been penned but which take place a very long time ago. Oliver Wade is an "unofficial operative pressed into service" of the 1st Earl of Salisbury during the time of James I first taking the crown. I like an occasional bit of historical fiction and these were fast, enjoyable reads.
  
  
• 07/20/2020 - Having gone back in time three decades for the previous entry, let's go back another thirty years for a really enjoyable Canadian operative for NATO, Richard Sarel. While published under the pseudonym of John Bryan, a solidly male name, they were really penned, and penned well, by a woman named Josephine Delves-Broughton. I enjoyed them.
  
  
• 07/20/2020 - A prolific author who has written a handful of books but who has crafted 1300+ short stories for magazines of all types created a two-story series about Christian Gunn in the second half of the 1980's. They are part of a collection of stories he released a while back.
  
  
• 07/19/2020 - A hostage recovery expert named Thea Paris joins the compendium today with a two-book set of adventures. She is no spy, of course, but considering the international stage she plays on and the sort of bad guys she has to deal with, she definitely belongs. And the writing is really well done.
  
  
• 07/19/2020 - A Second Look at John Rexford, a former college football star tight end who decided the military and the CIA were better career choices than the NFL. Considering he was 5'9 and the defensive brutes would have soon demolished him, that was wise. And Rexford's sniper skills would have drawn major penalties on the gridiron.
  
  
• 07/18/2020 - Long overdue Second Look at C.W. Lemoine's Cal Martin series of 8 adventures in the sky and on the ground. The man has the callsign of 'Spectre' and has earned it.
  
  
• 07/18/2020 - A spy trilogy joins the compendium today. Jeff Stone is an agent with a small covert ops team that answers to the President. Stone and the President and the entire nation has an issue with Iran.
  
  
• 07/17/2020 - Back with a new series, this one another good character from the always enjoyable and reliable Ethan Jones. The man today is a Russian FSB agent named Max Thorne. I like this man's job - he moves people from Point A to Point B and lots of other guys try to stop him or kill his detainee. Check him out!
  
  
• 07/16/2020 - I missed the last couple of days posting new series because I had a heart attack Monday afternoon. It was not fun at all. I do not recommend it.
  
  
• 07/13/2020 - Added a Second Look to The Blackwell Files including giving it that name, which was what the author called it, because the initial main character, Alton Blackwell, is partnered for almost all of it with his friend, colleague, and soon wife, Mallory Wilson Blackwell and she is just too major a player.
  
  
• 07/13/2020 - Pretty extensive rewrite of the Honey West entry, just for fun, with several comic books added which should have been added long ago and plotlines added for each of the episodes. It was fun revisiting her.
  
  
• 07/12/2020 - And another Second Look, this time at Max Doerr, a former CIA sniper and case officer who is pulled back into service when his son is murdered.
  
  
• 07/12/2020 - I took a Second Look at Captain Maddox, a British operative during WWII who is a very interesting man involved in some very dangerous work. The writing is really good and the plots are both quite out there and totally believable (not an easy feat).
  
  
• 07/11/2020 - Today we add to the compendium a Mossad agent who has a frenemy in a former PLO officer for many years because the Israeli was ordered to use the Palestinian in a mission and then eliminate him. He chose to ignore the last part but that still kinda put the relationship on an odd footing. Shai Shaham is the agent in this 3-book series which had the first written in 1988 and the last two coming up just a couple years ago.
  
  
• 07/10/2020 - Today we add a 10-book spy series about three people whose lives would become entwined as each took different routes to end up working sometimes for Mossad and sometimes for themselves. The series has the unusual but totally true name of Spies Lie. I have no idea why it is called that but the truth is inescapable. Spies do lie. It's kind of their job.
  
  
• 07/09/2020 - Today I add one impressive series to the compendium. If you like "taut and suspenseful", as I called it in My Comments, writing, this is one you should not ignore. Karl Baier is a first generation American to heads back to the land of his parents working for the OSS, G2, and the CIA over the course of his career, all in Germany and Austria. Very impressive writing.
  
  
• 07/09/2020 - Happy Birthday to ME! I made it 68 years (so far). Lotta years lived - lotta books read. Since I still have so many on my TBR pile(s), hopefully I will have many more years to keep reading.
  
  
• 07/08/2020 - Second Look at Kiki Claymore, a young lady who can kick-butt in several regimens. She would only need one with me, I am sure.
  
  
• 07/08/2020 - It definitely helps a man involved in spying when he has a degree of ESP ability as does today's entrant into the compendium. Chris Starr is his name. There are two books out which are collections of three novellas each and they are fun escapist fiction which we all need at times.
  
  
• 07/07/2020 - Today we welcome to the compendium an agent with HID, a new one on me, which is an intelligence division with Homeland Security. Jack Coyote is an interesting fellow in that he does not seem to like himself very much nor does he seem too worried about others liking him. There are four adventures available in this series. Check it out.
  
  
• 07/06/2020 - Added to these series: Jonathan Grave, Samantha Starr, Sam Green, Brett Collins, Cassiopeia Vitt, The Housewife Assassin, and Paul Decker.
  
  
• 07/06/2020 - I enjoy a good cross-genre series. Most series enjoy some aspects of that - good spy-fi is often also good mystery or good detective work. This is a three-fer with the main character doing all sorts of spy-fi work for a secret organization while also handling it like a private detective. And he is also an alien from another planet. Please welcome Ishmael Jones to the compendium and when you read him, prepare for a more than a few grins on your face. It is a hoot.
  
  
• 07/05/2020 - This long holiday weekend as I stayed in and did little, I went back in time. 90 years back. To the late 1920's and then all of the 30's. I also went to England during that period, and Italy and Gibraltar and Cairo and Hong Kong, not to mention Paris and Moscow. I did not go alone. I went with a one-armed spymaster who did not let having one less appendage and a desk job stop him from donning a cloak and grasping a dagger. Leonard Wallace is the name of the gent I traveled with but he is more commonly known as Wallace of the Secret Service. Beautifully and excitingly written back then by Alexander Wilson, a man whose own story is as interesting as his characters, though considerably more sordid.
  
  I very, very strongly recommend this series to any fan of well-written spy fiction. Do not think that because it is old it is not exciting and interesting and full of delicious double-dealing. It really is worth checking out.
  
  
• 07/04/2020 - Happy Birthday, America! Today we have joining the compendium a 10-book series about a private company black-ops agent with a lot of experience and a really cool Dutch Shepherd companion. The man's name is Rex Dalton. The dog is called Digger. They make a heckuva team.
  
  
• 07/03/2020 - A really interesting female operative named Leonora Cavendish joins the compendium today. So do her two fellow male agents, Pete Stone and Nick Marriot. These adventures first came out in the first half of the 1980's but they have been recently renamed and repackaged and are worth checking out.
  
  
• 07/02/2020 - Today I present a really entertaining series about a Russian Military Intelligence officer who undergoes considerable change in his career, starting when he falls in love with an American. He would like to get out of the cloak and dagger business but neither the Russian SVR nor the American CIA seem ready to let that happen. Please welcome Yuri Kirov to the compendium. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have so far.
  
  
• 07/01/2020 - One more Second Look, this time with W.E.B.Griffin's huge 5-book series about the nascent CIA and a young but highly effective former OSS operative, James Cronley.
  
  
• 07/01/2020 - Took a Second Look at Jackson Guild, a Senate investigator who gets involved with terrorism big time.
  
  
• 06/30/2020 - A series consisting of a novella followed by a book joins the compendium today. I have given it the name of David Cox but the reader knows that is a fake. The reader never really knows who the real guy is. I disliked that immensely. We also know that the man will hit on any pretty female he meets, letting little things like having a serious relationship ad later a marriage play no part in his attempts. I am not a fan.
  
  
• 06/29/2020 - A new series that takes place back in the 70's joins the compendium today and I am delighted with it. Thomas Dylan is a new agent with the British DIS (read my entry if you don't know what that is) who knows he is just an intelligence analyst but he also knows that people aren't supposed to kill intelligence analysts. A fun two-book read with more promised.
  
  
• 06/28/2020 - Another Second Look at Michelle Reagan, a trained killer for the Agency. We get to follow her first when she is brand new in the business and later when she has quite a few mission under her belt and has the scars to prove it.
  
  
• 06/28/2020 - Second Look at Tony James, a computer expert who has the ability to sense almost instantly the core traits of people he meets. This talent makes him very interesting to the CIA and very dangerous to a lot of other. See my fuller write-up to understand more.
  
  
• 06/27/2020 - New items entered on the following series: Tom Locke, Sean Wyatt, Adam Drake, Holly Lin, Tracie Tanner, Jack Ryan, jr, Ryan Savage, Titus Black, Jack Adams, Dale Conley and I am sure a couple more I forgot to jot down.
  
  
• 06/27/2020 - An agent with a group called "the Program" joins the compendium tonight. It is a two-book series about Eric Steele, a man about whom is written "had the quiet reserve of a Green Beret, but the macho nonchalance of a SEAL mixed with the skill set of a Delta operator".
  
  
• 06/26/2020 - Taking the stage today is Code Raven, the series name for the novella adventures of The Raven Group which is a private intelligence organization run by a very rich and ultra-smart man and staffed with quite a few highly dangerous people. This is good because they go up against some really bad men and women - a lot.
  
  
• 06/25/2020 - Entering the compendium today is a CIA agent who gets tossed because he got someone above him very unhappy, enough so Jed Walker is not only let go, there are some who want him dead. Walker does not agree and decides to go on the offensive over a powerful group called Zodiac. Lots of action in this 5-book series.
  
  
• 06/24/2020 - Let's go back to 1953 for the start of today's entry into the compendium. It is a 5-book series about a freelance agent named Hart Muldoon and it is really, really good. I had been holding off on this series for it seems ages but then a note from the incredible guys at Paperback Warrior made mention of it on Facebook and I was off and running. I believe Eric Compton might be doing something with this series or this author and I so very much hope that is the case because their reviews are always informative and entertaining and I learn so much from them. If you are not already a regular to their posts and their podcasts, you owe it to yourself to visit them.
  
  
• 06/23/2020 - Today's entrant is Chase Fulton, an exceptional athlete who suffers an unfortunate injury and has to find another walk of life other than the MLB he had expected. Enter a college instructor and mentor with a pretty wild idea. This 10-book (so far) action adventure has good writing, good plots, and good characters. Scratch that last - make it great characters. Especially Anya.
  
  
• 06/22/2020 - A 4-book series spanning a couple of decades of an agent's career joins the compendium today. Laynie Portland is a beautiful, intelligent, resourceful woman who is willing to go undercover for years to serve her country because she a) believes it to be the right thing to do and b) her self-esteem is so low that she does not feel she is worth anything else. Very strange series.
  
  
• 06/21/2020 - Happy Fathers Day! Today's entry into the compendium is a two-book (so far) fun return to 1967 and a young woman whose introduction into the cloak and dagger world comes when she answers a knock on her door and a stranger falls dead in her foyer. Noelle McNabb is a would-be actress who is asked to help out a little-known government intelligence agency with the unfortunate name of SIAMESE. Her adventures are a hoot in this pair of cozy spy mysteries.
  
  
• 06/20/2020 - Following up on yesterday's entry, today we get the other of the two British agents who shared membership in the Secret Service Picture Library comicbook series. The man's name is Nick Bailey and he is another eyepatch-wearing go-it-alone operative with 14 adventures to his credit.
  
  
• 06/19/2020 - The first of two brother-in-arms series joins the compendium. These are comicbook spy series from the 60's that were good but could have been much better if we had just been given a bit more about the character. Gerald Blair is this British agent's name and he starred in 14 solo adventures.
  
  
• 06/18/2020 - A couple of adventurers join the compendium today. I use that designation because nothing else I thought of really worked. Kent & Lander are the two. Kent is a writer of growing reputation. Lander is a former Special Forces operative now teaching at a university. Together they, some often Kent's wife, get into all sorts of troubles, the likes of which more than qualifies them for membership in this group.
  
  
• 06/17/2020 - From Down Under comes a series an 8-book series about a woman who was formerly in the Australian Special Forces and is now working for the government's NatSat, a hush-hush part of their Intelligence community. Jo Modeen is a very tough cookie and a lot of fun to follow. This is an ongoing series so there likely will be more to come, if we are lucky.
  
  
• 06/16/2020 - The entry for today is a man who once worked for an American intelligence division of the Justice Department with the (IMO) unlikely name of 'Axis' but who now works for a private group of treasure and artifact recovers called IAA. The man goes up against tons of would-be world conquerors and enemy agents in his now more 'peaceful' employment. Say hello to Sean Wyatt.
  
  
• 06/15/2020 - The series presented today has two parts to it which makes it quite a treat - there is the period right at the beginning of the career of Andy Flint and there is the period when this CIA agent is nearing the end of his time of service. Interesting takes on both.
  
  
• 06/14/2020 - Today we have a Chinese-American, Yi Jichun, who becomes an agent with the W.T.O. I think the last part is a first. Very enjoyable series of books about a very interesting young man working in a fascinating part of the world.
  
  
• 06/13/2020 - Most private investigators, as much as I love reading about them, do not fit the criteria for membership in this compendium. Joe Johnson by Andrew Turpin does, IMHO, because besides having been a CIA agent for a few years and then with the OSI for even longer, he still agrees, not too reluctantly, to do the odd job for old friends. These adhoc excursions are why he belongs.
  
  
• 06/12/2020 - A very well written historical spy series written by the excellent Alex Gerlis joins the compendium today. It takes place mostly during the Second World War and while the key operatives may change from book to book, the spymaster behind their actions, a man known here as Major Edgar because he has no first name I ever learned, is controlling them. Very very good writing.
  
  
• 06/11/2020 - A reporting team, one of whom has ticked off the NSA and the other possibly GCHQ, get involved in a lot of pretty interesting matters of international intrigue in the series about Novak & Mitchell in this three-book (so far) series.
  
  
• 06/10/2020 - The former SAS author Andy McNab wrote a 2-book series about a young man who was looking for excitement when he learned about B.A.S.E. jumping and that in turn moved him to join a skydiving group which happened to work for MI-5. The man's name is Ethan Blake.
  
  
• 06/09/2020 - A Second Look at cybersecurity expert Tom Barrick. It is a very enjoyable combination of stealing-from-stealers and international intrgue. Not a bad combination at all.
  
  
• 06/08/2020 - I might have this wrong but I believe that before the Ryan Savage series I added a week or so ago was partially created by the author, Jack Hardin, he had another series already going. Ellie O'Conner is/was an agent (read my write-up to learn more) and she knows how to take care of herself. I like her.
  
  
• 06/07/2020 - A Second Look at former Diplomatic Security operative Dominic Grey, now a private investigator of sorts going up against strange cults and sects, some of which have some pretty far-reaching goals.
  
  
• 06/07/2020 - Adding an entry today on a supporting character who got some years back her own solo adventure and who definitely has deserved her own mention in this compendium for all those years. Delilah, no last name known, is a sometimes lover of the CIA assassin, John Rain, but she is also her own agent for Mossad and she is as dangerous as she is beautiful.
  
  
• 06/06/2020 - First Look: I took a quick peak at the first couple of pages of this new series to see what it was about and the next thing I knew, I was 20% into it. It is a fast, fun read about a remarkable woman who opts to join the CIA to honor her late father and seems destined to make her own mark. Kate Edison is someone I will be watching for, and certain to finish the first adventure as soon as I make this entry.
  
  
• 06/05/2020 - An MI-6 agent who got caught in-country and is now serving a good number of years in a very unpleasant prison joins the compendium today. Ali Sinclair is a pretty interesting woman to follow but do not follow too closely as bad things happen around her, often because she makes them happen.
  
  
• 06/04/2020 - A young college graduate whose NFL plans were curtailed by a helmet to the knee but whose computer skills gave him a Plan B joins the compendium today. Casey Reddick is one extremely fit athlete who joins a private intelligence gathering firm and then is given reason to do more than sit behind a computer.
  
  
• 06/03/2020 - With the thousands of adventures I read and enjoyed, it is safe to say I am not squeamish when it comes to violence. The series for today, however, turned me off very quickly and kept me that way long enough to decide my time could be better enjoyed elsewhere. Frank Ryder is a killer for the British government who does his job very well. Now this is a recurring theme for many of my favorite series so why not this one? The downside was that he kept doing it for no reason other than, well, I guess, the author wanted it. An old shepherd sees him walking across a field. The old man doesn't care about him, he's tending his flock. Ryder says, "well, too bad he saw me cause he must die." Here is what annoyed me so much. The shepherd would have almost certain said nothing to any one else and who would have cared if he did? So the murder served no purpose. But his missing body, or worse yet, his found dead body will speak volumes. So killing him was not only unwarranted, it was potentially disastrous. And this is not the first incident. Maybe I am extra sensitive today with all the protests going on but absolutely the senseless killing in this series turned me off. It is bad enough when a psycho bad guy kills innocents without remorse. When it is the "hero", ah, no.
  
  
• 06/02/2020 - Today's entrant into the compendium looks like a solo hero since I have gone along with the author's choice of tagging these three books and one novella series a Mike Walton thrillers but his wife Lisa plays just as big a role in the action and then there is the other character, Zima. This is an action-packed series with really good characters.
  
  
• 06/01/2020 - To my very patient bride, Happy Anniversary! Thanks for decades of love and hopefully a couple more to come. Now on to sort-of-business. From the late 70's-early 80's comes a young adult series about Doris Fein, a slightly overweight young woman who becomes a part-time agent for an American government agency. She had started as a support character in the first adventure but must have been interesting enough to the author that he moved her to the starring role and she stayed there for a half-dozen more adventures.
  
  
• 05/31/2020 - An agent from a division of Homeland Security called the FID joins the compendium today. Ryan Savage is the man's name and he works with other agencies as needed and directed but since FID has far less oversight than most other agencies, he can do what needs to be done.
  
  
• 05/30/2020 - An agent with a small department inside Homeland Security, Unit 28, joins the compendium today. In the 2-book 1-novella set of adventures, we find her going up against Islamic terrorists and dealing with her own personal issues. And we (I) enjoyed my time spent with Alex Thornton.
  
  
• 05/29/2020 - I love variety in my reading diet (my wife would say I do not have the same attitude when it comes to food). I stick within the spy-fi realm mostly because of this site (and I love it) but I also love other genres as well. When I can mix them, I like it and I definitely can do so with this excellent 4-book series from the late 80's. Gaffney & Tipper is a fantastically written combination of counter-espionage and police procedural which lets us follow along as these two experienced men in the British Special Branch take of moles, double agents, and traitors. The books are available again and I really recommend them.
  
  
• 05/28/2020 - Last fall I did a quick look at Yael Azoulay, a trouble-shooter for the Secretary-General of the U.N. Today I post my Second Look at this 3-book, 1-novella series and come away with an impressed feel for the author and the character. Good, good writing about a woman who has to put up with a lot to get the job done.
  
  
• 05/27/2020 - For today's consideration (channeling my Rod Serling here) I present Solomon Stryker, a head of a security company that is a child prodigy, genius, and bad-a**. The character is way over the top but a lot of people seem to like that in their action heroes. Also if you like exclamation marks, this one is for you!!
  
  
• 05/26/2020 - I take a Second Look at the adventures of Tim Hall which has added one to the collection since I first snuck a peak. Now the author calls these the Tim and Mary Ann Mysteries and perhaps I should as well.
  
  
• 05/25/2020 - A Second Look at Louise Moscow, a woman more comfortable behind a computer screen looking at spreadsheets but who gets pulled by circumstances, and a couple of governmental agencies, to deal with far more deadly matters.
  
  
• 05/25/2020 - Some time back I added the preliminary info on Fortune Redding, aka the Miss Fortune Mysteries. I did not say much because I was just passing through. Well, now I've stayed quite a while and would love for you to look at my pictures, so to speak.
  
  
• 05/24/2020 - Nearly three years ago, I added to the compendium a fellow named Hawk who worked for the government as an operative in a secret department named Firestorm. As the series progressed, another agent from that now-defunct group joined in the fun. That man was Titus Black and he continues as a fellow agent in the Hawk series to date. He also has had several of his earlier solo adventures in Firestorm released so he now gets his own spot on this site.
  
  
• 05/23/2020 - First Look: A former Marine fighter pilot working for the CIA in a contract basis flying a specially modified Lockheed YO-3 which gives stealth a whole new meaning. That is the entry for today. There are five adventures already in the series about Duncan Hunter and I think he is just getting started. Most of the aircraft jargon and specs are way beyond me but they sure sound cool and there is tons and tons of action to be found both in the plane and on the ground.
  
  
• 05/22/2020 - Some days I feel like I should apologize for an entry. Today is one of them. It is presented because I want to eventually cover all spy fiction series and this is one of them but also because I am, well, me. I will be honest in saying that in order to write about the plots of those episodes that I did, I watched them, dedicated as I am. Thankfully they were only 5 minutes each. Please welcome Tom of T.H.U.M.B. to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/21/2020 - Another Second Look today, this one at the Ian Fleming Files, a two-book fictionalization of the author's life during the early years of WWII.
  
  
• 05/21/2020 - Taking a Second Look at Henry Bride, an agent with DHS who is a trained sniper on duty and a fencing enthusiast when not. There are two good, solid adventures about this man with a couple of supporting characters who are as interesting as the star.
  
  
• 05/20/2020 - Today I add to this compendium an icon of the adventure world, a man whose name was for several years the epitome of excitement and derring-do. Dick Barton was and is a legend, not on in the fictional world but also in the entertainment business. Radio, movies, television, books, plays, comicbooks. You name it. He is there!
  
  
• 05/19/2020 - The author, Ethan Jones, has kindly offered the Ethan Jones Starter Pack, the first book in each of his series for free download. Go to Ethan Jones Books to get them. Breaking News: He also let me know that a new Carrie O'Connor adventure is coming out in July.
  
  
• 05/18/2020 - A British Secret Service assassin known as 'The Hit Man', aka Hugh Marston joins the compendium today. His adventures comes to us from The Crunch comic book in 1979. They are short and fast and full of action and quite fun.
  
  
• 05/17/2020 - An interesting take on a couple of concepts from television, The Equalizer and Person of Interest, made into the author's own joins the compendium today. Mike Recker is a former CIA operative brought to work with a former NSA computer expert to help people in trouble. I like it!
  
  
• 05/16/2020 - A Second Look at a CIA agent series about Jack McCall which has, in the short time since I first entered it into the compendium, has added two more adventures and morphed into a detective series. Still really good writing.
  
  
• 05/15/2020 - A Second Look at The Granger Family, a trio of people who let you know right off that messing with their family is not a smart thing to do. The writing is good and the action fast and steady. I liked them, both the stories and the characters.
  
  
• 05/14/2020 - Taking a Second Look at the young adult series about Christy Hadden, a teenager who is forced by circumstances to slide into the cloak and dagger world and then finds she is actually pretty darn good at it.
  
  
• 05/13/2020 - "Life is nothing without adventure." So says Peter Blake, a middle-aged MI6 agent who loves what he does and loves the excitement of it, as you would guess by his comment. Today's entrant has 4 adventures to enjoy, the first three being a trilogy.
  
  
• 05/11/2020 - Back in 1997 an author came out with a pretty darn good spy adventure. He was 64 at the time. Two decades later, he wrote a sequel to it. He was 86 at the time. And he still knows how to write a pretty darn good spy adventure. David Baird is a fun and very interesting series which I recommend.
  
  
• 05/10/2020 - Happy Mother's Day to my lady who a few decades ago gave birth to three (not all at once, thankfully). Anyways....Today I add to the compendium a 4-book (so far) series about a female airline pilot who gets involved in all sorts of adventures that has numerous governments and their respective intelligence communities sometimes wanting her help and sometimes wanting her head. Please welcome Samantha Starr.
  
  
• 05/09/2020 - Today I take a Second Look at former Delta operative turned member of an elite Special Response Team in the FBI, Luke Stone. Non-stop military-style action with Stone and his people going up, as the oath says, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
  
  
• 05/08/2020 - Today I take a Second Look at Aidan Snow, a former SAS operative who eventually gets picked up by the SIS so he only had to learn one new letter. I joke but this well-written series is no joke. It is filled with darn good action and drama.
  
  
• 05/07/2020 - Sometimes I enter a series I would prefer to have not read. Not often but on occasion. Simon Scarlet is one of those times. It is, umm, interesting. That is the nicest I can say.
  
  
• 05/06/2020 - As I said in My Comments, I first thought this was a young adult series. It might be but if so, the emphasis is not on 'young'. It is a very well-written series about 18-year-old woman who has been training to be a spy for the past six years and is now heading out to use her skills. Spy Girl is the name of the series but the woman goes simply by the letter 'X'.
  
  
• 05/05/2020 - Imagine a series where the main character is being hunted by a presidential candidate for something the person knows, then is hired to kill another candidate but decides to protect him instead, then is hired by the new President .... Sara X gets a bit odd but still is a fast, fun read.
  
  
• 05/04/2020 - A Second Look this morning at a really well-written series about a CIA agent who also helps out at the Smithsonian on occasion. Samuel Tolen is the man's name and there are several good adventures of his to enjoy - I did.
  
  
• 05/03/2020 - Today's series entry into the compendium has been hiding in plain site in my TBR stack for a couple of years and I have been remiss to not open the pages until now. The writing on this series is exquisite and I really, really like the character. Please welcome aging CIA agent Titus Ray to the group.
  
  
• 05/02/2020 - The same author who gave us two other spy series has been kind enough to craft yet another one working for the Canatian Intelligence Service. Javin Pierce is one very busy fellow as we see in the numerous adventures about him. And he is fun to read about as well.
  
  
• 05/01/2020 - More years ago than I like to think about, I got hooked on Milo March. Hooked first on the great, sexy covers and then hooked on the character inside. I loved March's approach to everything and really wished I could be like him when I grew up, minus the people out to kill him parts. Unfortunately for readers everywhere, the books faded in publishing memory and went out of print ages ago. Until now! The adventures of this very enjoyable character are again being offered and I hope very much that you will give him a try. He - and you - deserve it.
  
  
• 04/30/2020 - A Second Look at Scott Evers, an agent with the NSA who has a lot of problems to deal with, one of which is I could not understand what the problems he was dealing with were.
  
  
• 04/29/2020 - A two book series about a communications expert, who is a former Navy SEAL, joins the compendium. Zach Templeton is a man whose business and marriage are both suffering and just when that seems as bad as it can get, he gets pulled into a mess that is determined to escalate into a global war.
  
  
• 04/28/2020 - A children's British spy series with a couple of novelizations of episodes and some other odds and ends are what you will find with M.I. High, today's addition to the compendium. Cute show for the most part, except for Blane. Read my comments to see why I say that.
  
  
• 04/27/2020 - I take a Second Look at Alan Llewellyn, a high school teacher who does favors for people that more than qualify for membership in this compendium. One of those asking is the American President - kinda hard to say no.
  
  
• 04/27/2020 - Finished My Comments on Steve Black as well as Ben Dawson.
  
  
• 04/26/2020 - What a terrific, fun series to add to the compendium today. A fast read with two characters I would dearly love to have more adventures with, the Larkin & Colt stories were consumed by me in far too fast a rush. I need more!
  
  
• 04/25/2020 - The series for this morning has been around for a couple of years and I have been dutifully collecting it since the beginning but kept putting off reading. Once I did start following the adventures of Sophie Decker of Department 89, I was hooked. She is a lot of fun to follow - but do that from a distance as things go boom around her a lot.
  
  
• 04/24/2020 - A Second Look at a series that grabbed me from the very first and held me, which considering the number of series I want to read for this site is pretty good. Agent Zero is kind of a silly codename but, boy, are these adventures NOT silly. I liked 'em!
  
  
• 04/23/2020 - Finished My Comments on two series. John Levis is the first and Art Dodek the second. Let me know what your thought are.
  
  
• 04/22/2020 - Last year I took a First Look at Jake Noble and today I give it my Second Look. You should do the same because this is a good series.
  
  
• 04/21/2020 - I finally take the Second Look at the two-book series that is about Biao, a conscript to Chinese Intelligence during a major war between China, India, and Pakistan which then becomes World War III. I was not a fan and yet I kept reading.
  
  
• 04/21/2020 - Finishing my look at the fun television movie series about Joshua McCord, aka The President's Man starring the awesome Chuck Norris. What a guy!
  
  
• 04/20/2020 - With a Second Look at Darien Fawkes, I again take another gander at an invisible man. Fawkes is able to disappear thanks to an artificial gland that sends a substance called quicksilver to ooze from his pores which messes with light. Naturally the government wants him to work for them and he does.
  
  
• 04/19/2020 - Another Second Look today, this time at Peter Brady, aka H.G.Wells' The Invisible Man from 1958, thanks to the ability to watch the actual episodes on YouTube. I enjoyed them.
  
  
• 04/19/2020 - A Second Look at Jack Stevens, a charter boat captain in Florida that gets himself tangled up with the CIA and has lots of fun adventures - fun for us readers, not so much for him.
  
  
• 04/18/2020 - A very enjoyable and action-filled series about a man who works for the Bureau of Esoteric Investigation. I thought paranormal when I read that the first time but, nope! It is interesting all by itself and the books are a lot of action-filled fun. Please welcome Dale Conley to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/17/2020 - Today I take a Second Look at a British agent for Sector Three that in My Comments I talk about having the same vibe to me as Sam Durell and that is a very good thing. Robert Lane is a fun character to follow and there are five adventures to do it in.
  
  
• 04/16/2020 - Another Second Look at a series today. This one is Magus Crayle and let me tell you, if you like conspiracy theories and major international manipulation, this one has it in spades. The Illuminati, slightly renamed. You can hardly get more conspiratorial than that.
  
  
• 04/15/2020 - Today, Tax Day (deferred due to the pandemic), I take a Second Look at a fine wine of a series. Cormack & Woodward is a three-book series about two men from different walks of life who come together in three different times to pull of the near-impossible. Incredible writing makes this series a delight.
  
  
• 04/14/2020 - A Second Look at Nick Torr, head of a small section of British Intelligence called CO8 and a man who never skips an opportunity to get back into the field.
  
  
• 04/13/2020 - A twelve-book series joins the compendium today and it is, well, unusual. I could no more explain it in a short paragraph than I could run a marathon and that ain't happening. Paul Decker is the main character in this series and you need to read my write-up to see what I mean.
  
  
• 04/12/2020 - A Second Look at a two-book series about a injured soldier and a DEA agent who are in Texas when some very nasty terrorists decide to visit. Gray & Ray make a heckuva good team.
  
  
• 04/11/2020 - This next entry into the compendium is a series that starts out as spy-fi, melds into the paranormal, and then ends up pretty much sci-fi. Sam Noor is the agent of record in the first two adventures and is a good one. Then his wife Ellie takes center stage and the series melds into the other genres pretty quickly. Check it out for yourself.
  
  
• 04/11/2020 - Continuing Second Looks, I finish up my writing on Paul Duggan, an agent with Ireland's G2 as most of Europe heads into WWII. A mighty fine history lesson well written in rich spy-fi trappings.
  
  
• 04/11/2020 - Happy Birthday to my lovely bride of several decades. You continue to make life worthwhile and fun and you still, after all these years, put up with my stacks, physical and digital, of To-Be-Read books. I love and honor you today enough to promise not to insist on cooking you breakfast (that has never worked out well in the past).
  
  
• 04/10/2020 - Another Second Look today, this one being that of Julia Grant, a devoted pacifist who is asked to help U.S. Intelligence's War on Terror. Good writing with some good thought-provoking issues presented.
  
  
• 04/10/2020 - A Second Look at a terrific trilogy written just recently but set back in 1919 and so richly researched and presented I felt at times like I was truly there. James Maxted is, as I said in my comments, like fine brandy. Really, really smooth.
  
  
• 04/09/2020 - A Gorilla joins the compendium today. Not a real one, of course, but a man who got that name in the British army and kept it when he moved to MI-6 in the late 50's. He is a very interesting man to follow in this, so far, three book and one novella series about Jack 'Gorilla' Grant. I am enjoying them.
  
  
• 04/09/2020 - A collection of one novelette and three short stories comprise the series entered into the compendium this morning. Jack Russell is the agent's name and that really is about all we know of him except he gets into some nasty situations and he is a blast to follow. Each of the four adventures is quite a bit different but all are a blast to read. I am hoping the author keeps writing.
  
  
• 04/08/2020 - A Second Look at Jarvis Love, a young eager agent for the Global Intelligence Network who wants to prove himself but has a tough time because the head of the organization is his father. It is hard to be taken seriously when your father is a living legend, and your boss.
  
  
• 04/08/2020 - Added to these series: Robin Marlette}, Atcho, Eve Polastri (Killing Eve), and {{Ian Ludlow.
  
  
• 04/07/2020 - I return with Ben Ripley to Spy School for a Second Look. These are young-adult adventures which take a 7th grader who dreams of being a spy and plops him into a school belonging to the CIA to teach kids how to be a spy. They are silly and fun and fast. They are the kind of books I wish I had been able to enjoy as a kid but since I still am one, yippee!
  
  
• 04/07/2020 - JUST OUT! - Lee Goldberg's latest addition to the terrific Ian Ludlow series, Fake Truth, came out today. I loved!! the first two books in the series and will be starting this third one tonight. Treat yourself and get the book or the audio. Well well well worth your time. Learn more right here .
  
  
• 04/06/2020 - A Second Look at Richard Chase, a trilogy about a CIA agent who runs up against traitors in the Agency and the need to involve his estranged grown daughter in the danger. This story is as much about her as it is him and is a lot of fun - well, for us readers. Definitely not for him and absolutely not for his daughter.
  
  
• 04/06/2020 - A 14-book series about an agent of ECHO joins the compendium today. Joe Hawke and this is a fellow who had already finished one impressive career before deciding to start another. The first job was very dangerous. The second even worse.
  
  
• 04/05/2020 - A Second Look at a CIA NOC as a security expert, Peyton Stone is a 50-year-old agent who stars in a two-book series that I wished had more adventures. These are very enjoyable stories.
  
  
• 04/05/2020 - Today's entry is a really fun two-book series from a half-decade ago about a CIA agent is called in to help in a nasty mission by her computer expert sister and who then reverses things in the next adventure. Cat Powell is a pretty cool lead character but I was really drawn to the sister. Tell me what you think.
  
  
• 04/04/2020 - The WWII British comic spy Nick Douglas gets a Second Look today since we found a copy of the first comic introducing the character and got more information about him.
  
  
• 04/04/2020 - Again with a Second Look, this time getting far more info on college student Ryan Lane who can't seem to help noticing things other people would prefer not be noticed. And many of those people work for or against the CIA.
  
  
• 04/03/2020 - A Second Look at the futuristic Secret Agent 21, aka Brent Cleever. I have only a few of the actual stories but the inner-kid in me enjoyed them.
  
  
• 04/03/2020 - My 1500th series to be entered into the compendium. To me that is such a particularly significant milestone I wanted to give the spot to a series that I have truly enjoyed a lot. Leine Basso is a former government assassin who now is largely working to find and stop human traffickers which takes her around the world and gives the reader tons and tons of exciting situations. This is a super fun series.
  
  
• 04/02/2020 - A three-book series from a half decade ago joins the compendium today with the entry of Max & Carla. Max is a middle-aged man in search of adventure and excitement. Carla is a 25-ish woman who seems to be the embodiment of both. Together they get hooked up with a 'shadowy group' called the Organization and that gets them hooked up with the CIA, MI5, and who know who else.
  
  
• 04/02/2020 - Taking a Second Look at an MI6 agent named Alex Dorring who has gone through a ton of very unpleasant things in his career and that is all before the adventures begin!
  
  
• 04/01/2020 - A Second Look at Kate Moore, a two-book series about a woman who tried to leave her deceptive life-style behind when she and her husband and kids moved to Europe for work. Deception did not leave her, though. Like the other series mentioned today, I was not impressed.
  
  
• 04/01/2020 - Well, we made it through a very 'interesting' March and April is looking like nothing to Fool with. I am continuing my Second Look trend with a return to the future and the tales of Commander Craig. I am not impressed.
  
  
• 03/31/2020 - I take a more complete look at a former KGB agent named Mikhail Asimov who then became a freelance hitman and who is now working for the CIA as Max Austin. These stories are really good and exciting and I think you will like them.
  
  
• 03/31/2020 - Continuing my string of Second Looks, I bring again to you the exciting stories of a consummate liar and darned good government agent, Lance Priest. Watching this fellow stretch, twist, mold, bend and otherwise manhandle the truth is captivating.
  
  
• 03/30/2020 - Again a Second Look, this time at a terrific three-book series that takes us back to pre-WWII Europe and the actions of soldier-of-fortune Cal Jardine on behalf of the British government and more specifically, British Intelligence. These are excellently crafted tales worth every minute spent reading them.
  
  
• 03/30/2020 - A Second Look at Kate Adams, a college professor and lecturer in the field of finance who asks too many questions about her husband's mysterious death and ends up with agents from several countries now interested in her. Good series. Well written.
  
  
• 03/29/2020 - Second Look at a previous Coming Soon that deals with a trained CIA linguist and agent who operates out of the unlikely locale of Ottawa, Canada. I would not have thought much spying went on there but boy does Talia Reynolds keep busy.
  
  
• 03/29/2020 - Second Look at a sci-fi/spy-fi series about a genetically enhanced young man who is being sought by a very, very nasty international organization. Mark Midway is the objective for the bad guys but unfortunately for them, he is by no means an easy target.
  
  
• 03/29/2020 - Added to these series: Lance Priest, Gabriel Wolfe, Cotton Malone, Zeb Carter, Noah Wolf, and Pia Sabel.
  
  
• 03/28/2020 - A Second Look at a really fun series that had just two books when I initially entered it into the compendium and now has three and hopefully more in the future. Dani Britton lives a life experience similar to the Condor in James Grady's awesome novel. She is a data analyst whose place of business is destroyed by assassins and she has to go on the run. After that her life is quite a bit different and a whole lot of enjoyable reading comes with it.
  
  
• 03/27/2020 - A revisit to a Coming Soon entry from a while back gives up a longer look at Samantha Albright, a divorced 25-year-old woman who has gone back to college part-time and who gets pressured into helping the CIA. I liked her. I didn't like most of those around her, whether good guys or bad guys.
  
  
• 03/27/2020 - I take a Second Look at Alexandria Kingston today. I did not rate the series very high because of some factors I mention in the write-up but I nevertheless read all three books in the series and enjoyed my time with her, aka The Griffin.
  
  
• 03/26/2020 - Second Look at Ethan Clark, a CIA agent with a sardonic wit and years and years of experience with the Agency. I really liked the writing style of the author and am sorry there were only two books about this character.
  
  
• 03/25/2020 - I was not impressed by nor happy with today's entry into the compendium but since it is a translation, by the original author. from Greek, I should probably cut it some slack. Charles Grey is the name of this American agent for a super secret government agency.
  
  
• 03/24/2020 - A man who can more than take care of himself in all sorts of dangerous situations, and can prove it, while is still able to stand in front of college students and teach joins the compendium today. James Palatine teaches at a British college and invents things and is able to show his displeasure when his invention is taken from him because he used to work closely enough with the SAS that he was nearly one himself.
  
  
• 03/23/2020 - An officer in the U.S. Navy, an intelligence analysis expert, joins the compendium because this man is not only good at figuring things out, he apparently loves to get into the thick of things. I say that because the man is constantly doing just that. Which might say something not so flattering about him except it makes him a hoot to follow. From a safe distance. Please welcome Brad Rafferty to the group.
  
  
• 03/22/2020 - A fascinating woman who worked for a while as a military intelligence analyst and then as an analyst for MI6 and then moved on to other things joins the compendium today. Sam Green, short for Samantha, is a very intelligent woman who suffers greatly from PTSD after a war-time incident that nearly took her life. She also has an appreciable amount of OCD as well as a habit of doing things her own way. That gets her in trouble a lot. And makes her a blast to follow.
  
  
• 03/21/2020 - A Second Look at Dylan Hunter, a three-book series I entered many moons ago and just got around to finishing the books. This is one very enjoyable series that I liked a bunch and think you will, too.
  
  
• 03/20/2020 - An agent with the CIA who, after many years in the field, has earned the position of Deputy Director joins the compendium today. Chris Collins is a sailing fan who would love to spend his days on a boat, not in conference rooms or, as he used to, in dark alleys. He does not get his wish.
  
  
• 03/19/2020 - A four-book series about an ultra-secret government agency joins the compendium today. The Omega Department, no idea why that name, is the group and it is currently being led by a young U.S. Senator named William Bolton who brings his twin brother, Austin, in to help out. I did not care much for the series but you might have other ideas.
  
  
• 03/18/2020 - A trilogy from a half-decade ago about a former Swedish Intelligence black ops agent who lost his family to a terrorist act and is now determined to learn the truth joins the compendium today. Anton Modin is a drunk with no purpose in life when we meet him. Getting the truth and then getting revenge gives him a purpose.
  
  
• 03/17/2020 - TV Producer is not a common occupation for members of this compendium. Likely this guy is the first (too lazy to check). He gets into a couple of nasty messes and has to get himself, and sort of the country, so it is a good thing he was an operative with Military Intelligence in a past life. Kyle McBride is the gentleman's name. Say hi and check him out.
  
  
• 03/16/2020 - Today I add a three-book series about a man who worked for the CIA until he saw something he should not have, then got seconded to Interpol to get him out of the way for a while, then really saw something he was not supposed to have and then ... well, you need to check out Connor Montrose for yourself. They are well worth the effort.
  
  
• 03/15/2020 - Really a coincidence that the series I present today, a two-book series from 60+ years ago, has the same last name for the character. Or maybe just a bit of whimsy on my part. Whatever the reason, Paul Knox is a former police detective who now works for an international private detective firm that also works with the intelligence communities around the world. And he is rich. Interesting concept but a rather ho-hum implementation.
  
  
• 03/14/2020 - We return to the world of Daniel Knox, a First Look a while back. Knox is a linguist turned analyst for the CIA who would rather be earning his Ph.D. than dodging bullets out in the field but at least it is not sitting in a cubicle. [Actually, since I sit in a cube during the day and no one shoots at me or tries to blow me up, I do not complain.]
  
  
• 03/13/2020 - Today we enter into the compendium a fun, fast, fascinating two-book series from a half-decade ago. The man with the interesting name of Burroughs Rice is a former black ops agent for the CIA who has been off the grid for the past ten years but now that they have found him, is definitely back.
  
  
• 03/12/2020 - With considerable regret I have pulled one of the Coming Soon items and checked it out closer. I say regret because I could not get more than one quarter through the first book of three before I decided that I despised Cyril Landry far too much to continue. You'll have to read my opinion to learn why.
  
  
• 03/11/2020 - First Look: A DIA agent who does not officially exist works undercover in the Middle East, in the nastiest places he can imagine, all for a department in that organization that also does not officially exist. Nevertheless, Ethan Galaal gets a lot of action for not existing.
  
  
• 03/10/2020 - A four-book series, which I would have liked to be more (a good sign), about a woman named Alex Parker, joins the compendium today. I do not know if that Alex is for Alexandra, which is likely, because that is not her real name, just the latest alias that she happens to like. Whatever you call her, though, she responds with a lot of action. Fun series. I enjoyed all four adventures.
  
  
• 03/08/2020 - Finished my Second Look at Beach & Riley, a two-book series I entered back in September of last year. This is a very fast and highly enjoyable series about two guys from two different lines of work who get thrown into situations that they work from different ends to join up temporarily. The concept is well done and works quite nicely.
  
  
• 03/07/2020 - Today I present my Second Look at a terrific series I mentioned quite a few months ago. Having gotten back to Michael Prentiss, I am sorry it took me so long to do so because I really enjoyed the heck out of his young man's adventures and his growth. Please take the time to look at how good this seven-book series is.
  
  
• 03/06/2020 - Today's entrant has an interesting entry into the world of global terrorism fighting - his recently deceased grandfather's last wishes Jonathon Price could have ignored the request and no one would ever know about it except himself but that is not the kind of man Price is so the former SEAL leaves his peaceful life to take on enemies around the world.
  
  
• 03/05/2020 - A 2nd Lt in the U.S. Army Intelligence has the unfortunate history of having known in college a man who becomes a member of Al Qaeda and who has taken a CIA agent hostage. A sub-group in the Agency, the Caliban Program, has need of Eric Ritter to get their man free and since they consider Ritter expendable, they have no qualms about using him however they see fit.
  
  
• 03/04/2020 - I finished my Second Look at Xander King and have revised my sneak peek write-up. This is a hoot of a series, once you get past the whole business of him being nigh-onto perfect. This dude can kick behind with the best of them.
  
  
• 03/03/2020 - A two-book series about a whole lot of unpleasantness going on in the Pacific joins the compendium today. I chose one of its main characters, Mike Rohrbaugh, as the one to list the series under but it really is an ensemble piece.
  
  
• 03/01/2020 - On this First of March, I present the lovely and very impressive archaeologist Ava Curzon to the compendium. Not only does this woman belong because of the things that the American DIA has need of her expertise, before she went into her first love of archaeology, she had worked for several years as an agent with MI-6. Like I said, impressive.
  
  
• 02/29/2020 - Happy Leap Day! On this 'extra' day, I present a fellow high up in the Justice Department who is not a spy and does not want to be a spy but who gets involved in all sorts of spy stuff nonetheless. My comments show that while I was not a fan of the man himself, I was impressed with the author's way of handling him. Please say hi to Robert Carlton.
  
  
• 02/28/2020 - If there is one piece of advice I could give you on dealing with today's entrant into the compendium it is 'do not make her mad'. She is not someone you make mad. She is a highly trained member of the CIA's SOG team and she knows how to handle people. Please welcome Madeline McCallister.
  
  
• 02/27/2020 - First Look: A former military trainer and soldier for hire in his younger days joins the compendium with several adventures taking place when he is in his 40's and thinking about settling down. Life does not let Ron Young have that luxury.
  
  
• 02/26/2020 - First Look: A fellow named Thomas Bladen joins the compendium. He is a surveillance expert for a ultra-secret part of MI5 who is used to being just an observer but far too often for his liking, he gets a lot closer than is good for him.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 - I present a three-book series today about two 'gentlemen' that definitely need quotes around that term. These are not two fellows you would go for drinks with. Shanahan & Gawain, William and Jack respectively, are a pair you would notice in a bar and decide elsewhere is a better place to be. Anywhere else. 'Cause sure as Shinola (an old expression), someone is gonna get hurt.
  
  
• 02/23/2020 - First Look: The writer of fast action, drama-rich spy fiction is secretly a CIA agent routinely involved in fast action, drama-rich operations in this latest member of the compendium. Please say hello to Cole Swift, the author, who is also Cole Sudden, the operative.
  
  
• 02/22/2020 - A paid assassin who was quite happy on his own gets mixed up with the Conclave, an interesting government elimination organization which has gone off the rails. There are some mighty terrific stories in this collection of three short books. Please welcome Oliver Tunstall to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/21/2020 - I love magic. Always have. I sometimes try to guess how a trick was done but never 'have' to know. Just amaze me and I will be happy. I also have always been a huge Mission: Impossible fan with the idea of a team of specialists melding together to take on a bad guy. The Jonathan Barrow series entering the compendium today is both. Barrow leads an elite team of experts in their own fields who are also government agents. Two adventures exist now and both are a hoot.
  
  
• 02/20/2020 - One superb two-book series enters the compendium today after I dine with tremendous relish on both adventures. So pleased with what I had and so wanting more. That is a mark of excellence. Paul McGrath is, of all things, a janitor. Both in fact and just sorta. The things he gets involved in are awesome and so very well written. Do check him out.
  
  
• 02/19/2020 - As my local area gets ready for a dusting (or more maybe) of snow, it is a good time to head a bit further south. Key West and then on to Caribe, a multinational anti-terrorism task force with some fast and fun adventures taking place in and around the Caribbean Sea.
  
  
• 02/18/2020 - A while back I gave a First Look at Ethan Shaw. I did so because I was en route a good look at John Ransom. Both men are in a prison when we meet them. The man who freed both was after Ransom, a very dangerous killer who had put himself away in jail to stop the killing. It seems that benefactor has a job for Ransom. So, here is what I know about Ransom.
  
  
• 02/17/2020 - The young man who joins the compendium today is a very unlucky/lucky fellow. The former is because he seems to have the misfortune of being in the path of trouble. The latter because he manages to survive. Todd Boling is the fellow's name and if you seen a book about him, you might want to pick it up for a fun, fast read. If, however, you see him sitting in a restaurant, eat somewhere else just in case. Terrorists like to follow him around.
  
  
• 02/16/2020 - The pair that are entered into the compendium today are quite a bit different but who work wonderfully together, once they got past the maybe killing each other part. Kingsley & Harmon are, or will be, a partnership but when we first meet them, Jennifer Kingsley is an FBI agent and Jack Harmon is a black-ops agent working kind of for the CIA though you could never prove it officially. This is a very enjoyable three-book series that needs more missions. Okay, I need it to have more.
  
  
• 02/15/2020 - Joining the compendium today is a terrific three-book series (I am hoping for more, hint hint) about a black-ops agent for the U.S. government who returns home after the accidental death of his adoptive mother. There his life will change but his clandestine work will go on. Mark Landry is a very interesting character and his old girl friend, soon to be a lot more, Luci Alvarez, is the same. What I enjoyed a lot about this series is together they are very enjoyable to read about and when they each go to do their jobs, him as a covert op and she as a police officer, they stay just a fun. I do want more, indeed.
  
  
• 02/14/2020 - Added to these series: Alicia Myles, Matt Drake, Doc Ford, Casey Collins, Slough House, Zeb Carter, Michael Poe, Dylan Kane, Scott Stiletto, Bulldog Drummond
  
  
  
• 02/13/2020 - First Look: A two-book series about a CIA agent betrayed by a higher-up and now with a major axe to grind joins the compendium today. Meet Ethan Shaw who does not appreciate being disavowed. Can't really blame him.
  
  
• 02/11/2020 - First Look: A very young agent with Homeland Security joins the compendium today. Michael Poe is out to make a name for himself it seems though to his bosses, he is out to get himself killed or their careers ruined - or both. Luckily for Poe considering the annoyance he causes, he is good enough to get the job done regardless of how irked he makes them.
  
  
• 02/10/2020 - How about a British secret agent with a '00' designation working for a man codenamed 'M'? That's what we see added to the compendium today. Except this fellow's name is Jacques Duvall. Take a look at what I have to say.
  
  
• 02/08/2020 - Today's entrant takes us to the western Canadian provinces, an area I would so dearly love to visit, and a fishing guide by the name of Brand Coldstream. Fishing is not a common occupation for a member here but Coldstream was for many years an operative with the CSIS and, unfortunately for him, sometimes his old life intrudes on his new career. Solid tales solidly told.
  
  
• 02/07/2020 - I'm too lazy to check but I do not believe I have had a surgeon as the main character of a series up until now. This one, Dr. Scott James, is a plastic surgeon who specializes on the face. He lives for the cleft palettes and other serious deformities but he does the nose jobs and the like to pay the bills. He also gets into a whole lot of trouble with terrorists and pirates and other nasties.
  
  
• 02/06/2020 - First Look: Why would an American professor visiting Oxford and a British psychiatrist helping the American CIA get together? Good question. Bit of a lengthy explanation. Check out what I know so far about Hawkins & Farrow.
  
  
• 02/05/2020 - First Look: A contract killer who sometimes works for the U.S. government and sometimes doesn't joins the compendium today. J. C. Bannister is one very dangerous individual who has three other dangerous people as his backup. Together, they get very busy and make a lot of noise.
  
  
• 02/04/2020 - As I mention in my comments on today's entrant into the compendium, James Hicks is a very scary fellow but the readers should "remember with all this talk of killing you or spying on you or making you do things you do not want to be a part of -- Hicks is one of the good guys!" That will sound a bit odd or confusing so I recommend that you check out this three-book series for yourself.
  
  
• 02/03/2020 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a former Marine and former CIA black-ops agent who transitioned into a pretty good hostage rescue expert with his own company. Then he went up against the Bratva and paid horribly for it, along with his team and his and their families. He is out to pay them back. Please welcome Ryan Decker as well as his partner, Harlow, a woman who probably deserves co-billing with Decker.
  
  
• 02/02/2020 - For today's entrant into the compendium, I would recommend wearing latex gloves. He likely is because he kills people for a living and people are filled with germs. Zillions of them microscopic nasties all wanting a chance to infect him. George Dreme is, you probably guessed, an assassin and a hypochondriac. He usually works for the CIA but an odd job here or there is okay, too. So is his humor. These short adventures are hoots to read. Check him out!
  
  
• 02/01/2020 - Being a computer programmer by trade for 40+ years, I love adventures where the lead person is a programmer as well. I love the idea that someone doing my sedentary work could get into all sort of trouble - all knowing that it is fiction and I am safe at home. Adam Braxton is one such cyber-security expert who 'gets' computers and yet is not stuck at a keyboard. Four exciting adventures of his exist.
  
  
• 01/31/2020 - Today's entry into the compendium is CIA agent turned Siberian prisoner turned U.N. covert agent Sam Driver. The Sam is short for Samantha and she is a very dangerous person to annoy, as lots of people do. She also has several new colleagues (too soon to call them friends) who are also not to be trifled with. This two-book series (hopefully several more to come) is really an action-packed blast to read.
  
  
• 01/30/2020 - First Look: Two experienced agents of MI-6 are joined as a pair working for the newly established Department X, a combo of agents from the various British Intelligence agencies. Please welcome Rhodes & Jones to the compendium - that being Kane Rhodes and Brian Jones. Good guys to have on your side.
  
  
• 01/29/2020 - First Look: An experienced CIA agent with knowledge in antiquities and the like is today's entrant into the compendium. Samuel Tolen has the skills necessary to be the man to call when, in the first adventure, a cloth one supposedly laid upon the face of Christ goes missing.
  
  
• 01/28/2020 - From one of the masters in the crime genre comes a series that strays far enough into the intrigue category that I felt strongly it belonged in the compendium. Plus it is really a hoot of a series. Reeder & Rogers deals with an FBI agent named Patti Rogers who is made part of a task force and teamed with Joseph Reeder, former Secret Service legend and now running his own security firm. They are fun together and their cases are spot-on.
  
  
• 01/26/2020 - First Look: He wanted to be a concert violinist and was on his way to that when the trouble with his brother happened. Now he is running the small family farm because someone has to. That is, until MI-6 tells him his brother is in trouble again and could Conor McBride be so kind as to train for a bit as an operative and then go set things right. McBride didn't want to but ... And thus we meet the newest entrant into the compendium.
  
  
• 01/25/2020 - A good, solid, very enjoyable character with the good, solid name of Joe Brennan joins the compendium today. The fellow has a lot of Matt Helm (to me a great compliment) in him as he is patriotic and dedicated but does not work the politics well so he has issues with sycophants. There is a lot of action and excitement to be enjoyed in this series. One point to mention is that the first volume had been published as a trilogy a handful of years ago before being joined into one large adventure recently.
  
  
• 01/24/2020 - Two years and three weeks ago I added a really fun series to the compendium about Zeb Carter. There was a related series called Gemini which had 4 books in it but the characters in that one were also in the Carter one and vice versa. I meant to add it a couple days later but .... Well, I now add it. The feel for this other series is different, on purpose I am sure, but it is just as fun.
  
  
• 01/23/2020 - We are popping back 45 years to a series in the mid-70's written by a very prolific man named George Sava under the pseudonym of Alex Redwood. Michael Grant is an agent with MI-5 who in his several adventures gets around a lot and definitely gets into a good deal of trouble doing so. Very enjoyable series so far.
  
  
• 01/21/2020 - First Look: Today's entrant into the compendium is an owner of a vineyard, which I believe is a first. He is fairly happy working the property his grandmother had left him in her will. He has no desire to return to this SAS days and the violence of Kosovo that occupied the last days of his service. Too bad Jeff Bradley has no say in the matter. In the so-far 4 books in the series, he is not only fighting off an old enemy, he is making new ones when he is pushed into fighting terrorists around the world.
  
  
• 01/18/2020 - First Look: An acting teacher at a university on Long Island who has no experience in and no desire to be involved in the world of the covert operative finds that no one bothers to really ask her if she want to play the Great Game. To stay alive, though, Nora Baron is forced to play and though she has not much training, she is a pretty good actor and sometimes just looking and acting the part can get you by. Other times, as she learns the hard way, not so much.
  
  
• 01/17/2020 - When a terrific writer gives us a fantastic series, we should rejoice. When he gives us a second one, our celebration gets even stronger. That is what is happening here with David Downing taking us back to the early 1900s and the years before, during, and after the Great War as we follow British Secret Service agent Jack McColl and his adventures for the Crown and with (and against) the strong-willed and quite lovely Caitlin.
  
  
• 01/16/2020 - Coming Soon: An American working for his country teams up with an Israeli woman working for hers to stop Islamic terrorists, assuming she does not kill him first. Hanna & Ram is the name of the two-book series presented today.
  
  
• 01/14/2020 - First Look: A head of an engineering/small arms company, Peter Savage, joins the compendium today. This man of retirement age still gets around and manages to get himself into hot water from several different sources. He also gets himself out of these messes in very entertaining way.
  
  
• 01/13/2020 - First Look: Sickness and family have kept me from adding things for a couple of days. It also gave me a chance to read. Today I add a two-book series about a stock trader who has a very good skill at reading patterns. This helps him succeed but it will also get in hot water with people who would rather have their business go unnoticed. Please welcome Garrett Reilly.
  
  
• 01/10/2020 - An interesting combination of sci-fi, romance, mystery, and, of course, spy-fi comes in the form of the 4-book (so far with 2 more sked for this year) series about a woman who has many aliases but whose official name is F6. That term comes from her being the 6th female baby brought to "the agency" for training in their international intelligence activities. All set 70 years from now.
  
  
• 01/09/2020 - A contract agent for the CIA who has a bit of a falling out with his handler and ends up working, now and then, with the FBI joins the compendium today. Jon Reznick is a former Delta who becomes a government hitman and then a part-time FBI consultant in this 7-book (so far) series. I like the character a bunch and really like the FBI boss who "hires" him now and then. I really hope the adventures continue because they are well written and fun.
  
  
• 01/08/2020 - A book written nearly two decades ago. Two novella prequels released last year. That is what exists, as far as I can tell, on this short series that I would love to see more of. Ethan Decker is a very well-written thriller with a character I truly liked to read about and a plot that has been done before (most have) but this was done exceptionally well. Good job to the author.
  
  
• 01/07/2020 - Today's entry into the compendium is not a big man, standing only 5'5" tall but boy does this guy stand out. He is a dynamo. And he kills people. That is his main job. He fits this group because of who he goes after and who he sometimes works for and who wants to catch him. And he fits because he is fun to read. Please say hi to Alex Savage.
  
  
• 01/06/2020 - First Look: A maritime lawyer who gets involved in things far removed from the courtroom or the boardroom joins the compendium today. Jonathan Brooks is a sharp fellow who can also take care of himself when the need arises. There are three books in the series and considering there seems to be 6-7 years between each one, maybe the author gave each one a lot of thought.
  
  
• 01/05/2020 - A fun and action filled series, now at 17 adventures, joins the compendium today. Jake Harrigan is the gentleman for whom the series, nicknamed the Assassin series, is called but his partner, Sarah, deserved a mention as well. Harrigan was a contract agent for the CIA specializing in taking out high value targets until he had a falling out. Now he and Sarah run a security business and do the odd job for government officials including the President.
  
  
• 01/04/2020 - We have had a few attorneys join the compendium but this one is definitely in a category by himself. He is a district attorney. But his adventures, which are varied and very fun to follow, have nothing to do with his current vocation. Will Parker has a decidedly interesting past and his talents from the before-the-lawyer days pull him back to the cloak and dagger world.
  
  
• 01/03/2020 - We are crossing over the Pond to meet an anti-terrorism agent who, along with her teammates, takes the fight to the enemy and, boy, what a fighter she it. Samantha Whittaker is not someone you want to make angry with you because she can definitely let you know her displeasure.
  
  
• 01/02/2020 - A short (1 book and 1 novella) series about a not-so-young CIA agent joins the compendium this morning. John Pilgrim is his name and the stories are worth checking out.
  
  
• 01/01/2020 - Happy New Year! Last year sure gave me a ton of great books to read and lots of excitement and action. Looking at my teetering TBR pile, this year promises even more. I start the year off right with a 3-book, 1-novella series about a ski instructor named Ben Lewis. Yep, you read correctly. Of course this gentleman has an interesting background and some skills that come in mighty handy on the slopes Or when bad people come looking for trouble.
  
  
• 12/31/2019 - It is hardly a shocker that the older I get, the more I enjoy books about people who have gotten, well, older. A way of making me pretend the aches and pains don't really affect me or, if they do, I can still handle myself in a pinch. [BTW, never could so doubtful I'd start now - :-)] Anyways, today's entrant into the compendium is Thomas Sebastian Scott, formerly of the NSA and still getting in trouble.
  
  
• 12/30/2019 - An interesting new take on the thief-forced-to-spy concept joins the compendium today. Sergeant Talbot is such a man; a sergeant in the U.S. military who had some enterprising ways of earning extra income up until he is caught and sent away for 5 years. Then came the offer ... These are very enjoyable stories so far! Oh, I use his rank instead of his first name because look though I have ...
  
  
• 12/29/2019 - Today I present kind of a two-part series about an NSA-connected agent named Sam Wick who is an expert at extraction as well as elimination. The two-part comes from the fact that there are two lines of adventures about him, a Rapid Thriller one with him as the start and a Task Force-77 Thriller one which leans more towards dealing with the group to which Wick is assigned. Several of these novels were released with slightly different titles by the Akay Brothers and then reissued a years later as by Chase Austin.
  
  
• 12/28/2019 - First Look: I love books having a computer genius as the protagonist, largely because years ago I fancied myself as one before reality showed me otherwise (ah!). Today's 4-book series stars one, Chase Malone, who teams up with his love from several years before, Wen Sung, in the Chase Wen Thrillers. Wen is the one I particularly like, though, because she is sharp enough to hold her own with Chase AND she can kick your backside six ways from Sunday while doing it.
  
  
• 12/27/2019 - A former CIA agent who likes his Jameson Whiskey a bit too much joins the compendium this morning. It seems like the universe just will not let Trevor Stoner drink himself away, considering there are so far 10 adventures for the man. And they are fun ones to read, though not so fun for him, I would say. Check them out!
  
  
• 12/26/2019 - From five years ago comes today's two-book entry into the compendium. A fellow named Alex Rowland, sharp and dedicated GCHQ analyst lost his wife in a terrorist attack, lost all reason to live, and then was given a chance to go after the types of people who stole the love of his life. Rowland did and Luke Temple was born. Very solid adventurous pair of stories.
  
  
• 12/25/2019 - Well, the presents have all been unwrapped. I got a couple of coasters, a couple of mouse pads, three t-shirts, and a ball cap, all with my Spy Guys and Gals logo on it. THANK YOU, SANTA!!!
  
  And then I got a fantastic meal prepared by my lovely wife and my two grown daughters. And awesome desserts which my waistline did NOT need but my taste buds adored.
  
  And time with family.
  
  And a chance to celebrate for the reason for the season at a delightful church service the night before.
  
  What a great day!
  
  
• 12/25/2019 - First Look: A novel and eight very enjoyable short stories comprise the series we present this Christmas morning. I will soon join my wife in some delicious waffles and sausage but first, as we allow the sleep to fall from our eyes, I thought I would post this newest entrant to the compendium. Michael Quinn is a very competent agent and very enjoyable read and I hope the author graces us with more adventures in the future.
  
  
• 12/24/2019 - First Look: On this Christmas Eve Day (I have always loved that odd expression my wife taught me decades ago) I present a two-book series that is very enjoyable so far. It deals with Nick Winter, a contract 'finder' for MI-6.
  
  
• 12/23/2019 - Another ensemble joins the compendium this morning. I love the name of this one. Quarterback Operations Group, so named because the man leading the group, the President's Science Adviser, William 'Wild Bill' Hiccock, was a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback at Stanford back in the day. Very interesting and entertaining group so far. Please check them out.
  
  
• 12/22/2019 - This morning I present a very, very, very good series that I had the honor of reading an advanced copy of. The second book in the series comes out next week but I make this entry now in the hopes that the two or three people who visit this site will learn about Jack & Jill now and thus be readying the first book during that week. One word of advice, though - be prepared to be made extremely paranoid. The adult twins, Jack and Jill, were taught to be all their years growing up with their unusual mother, Clare, and reading about what they endured then and now will have you looking over your shoulder for who might be watching you! Nothing I say here can do justice to what the author put on the pages of the books.
  
  
• 12/21/2019 - First Look: A highly experienced member of Britain's Special Branch, tasked with bringing to justice spies and traitors operating against the Crown, joins the compendium today. Robert McGraw is a seasoned Detective Sergeant who got his considerable experience in CID before becoming a spy-hunter. He was very good as the former. He is very good as the latter.
  
  
• 12/20/2019 - Today's entrant is Angus McKinnon, a Scot who lives in Greece while he works for a British firm as a maritime investigator looking into all sorts of shady activities involving ships and cargo. He also works part-time for the IMTF, a British government that likes to keep up with anything and everything happening on the water that might affect Her Majesty's government.
  
  
• 12/19/2019 - First Look: Today we present for membership into the compendium a female agent with "the Agency". I have not figured out if that is the CIA or not (I think now at this time but I could be wrong) but whichever it is, Petra Shirazi goes up against a deadly Iranian assassin known as the Ahriman. I am part way through the first book and liking what I am reading.
  
  
• 12/18/2019 - First Look: A group of 6 ex-operatives from different alphabet agencies band together to do what needs to be done in the fight against terrorism in the series known by their group name of OUTCAST Ops. Each of these people were kicked out of their respective organizations for less than valid reasons but their patriotism still runs high.
  
  
• 12/17/2019 - From the very early 70s comes a 13-episode serial and two comicbook adventures about a 16-17 year old British male who is asked by a British Intelligence agent to spy on his teachers, up to no good with regards a nearby NATO air base. Martin Clifford was the young man's name but the name of the ATV television show was Tightrope.
  
  
• 12/16/2019 - Our newest entrant to the compendium, Paddy Regan, comes to us from 1950s England. He and a friend have recently left the British police force having been stationed in Palestine for several years and started their own private investigation firm. The three book series throws a newbie "special agent" up into the thick of some nasty international intrigue and up against spies and other shady characters.
  
  
• 12/15/2019 - A very fast read of two books about an old geezer who is just about my age, drinks way too much, and who was in him prime about the best there was in operatives, joins the compendium this evening. Andrew Lone is a hoot to read about but do NOT call him crazy. It will not end well for you.
  
  
• 12/15/2019 - First Look: This morning's entrant into the compendium is a British reporter who makes Beijing and the Far East his beat and would love to continue to do so but British Intelligence as well as the Chinese equivalent have other thoughts. Please welcome Philip Mangan to the group.
  
  
• 12/14/2019 - First Look: A highly experienced CIA agent, Sean Havens, has made some powerful enemies in his many years of service and some of them strike back at him and his family in this two-book series.
  
  
• 12/14/2019 - From a half decade ago comes a couple of adventures of Peter Marker, a member of the American military intelligence community, who functioned during and right after World War I, in war-torn Europe at first and then tracing German and Russian shenanigans back to the States.
  
  
• 12/13/2019 - First Look: A major in the DIA who has been transferred to the ODNI (love the alphabets!) joins the compendium this morning. Bridget Mason is an extremely sharp and intelligent operative who is more than willing (too willing in the minds of her bosses) to trust her instincts and act rather than call for permission. She gets the job done but more than a few toes get stepped on. I like her. A bunch.
  
  
• 12/12/2019 - First Look: A young female assassin for the CIA joins the compendium this morning. I especially am enjoying the first book right now because it lets me follow her from her first mission through a few more, watching her progression from newbie to seasoned. Please welcome Michelle Reagan to the group.
  
  
• 12/12/2019 - First Look: The main character in the series being added tonight to the compendium starts out as a chauffeur but when his ride, the American ambassador in Germany, gets attacked, Chris Morehouse show how his instincts, quick reactions, and survival skills come in handy. So good does he do that the CIA asks him to work for them.
  
  
• 12/11/2019 - First Look: Rich and powerful are two adjectives often used together to describe someone for good reason. Being rich often brings with it power. In the case of Marshall Hail, however, it is the other way around. He is a genius scientist and inventor who got rich because of it. Then, when his family was killed in a terrorist attack, he got mad. Really mad. And being rich and powerful, he does something about it. With friends.
  
  
• 12/10/2019 - A delightful British cozy mystery joins the compendium this morning as Hugo Hawksworth (I love the name), an operative with British Intelligence, recently removed from the field due to a debilitating bullet wound in the leg, heads to an Earldom in search for traitors like Burgess and MacLean. And of course finds a murder or three.
  
  
• 12/10/2019 - First Look: After going through a particularly rotten event, Rob Chandler comes out of it with a skill that will prove quite useful when offered a job as a spy - he can read minds. This two-book paranormal spy series is a lot of fun.
  
  
• 12/09/2019 - First Look: A woman who can take care of herself in all situations joins the compendium this evening. Except maybe when it comes to holding her tongue talking to her bosses. There she is not so good. Still, she is entertaining whether beating up the bad guys and tearing down the jerks who send her out to the slaughter and then complain about the mess. Please welcome Sam Jameson.
  
  
• 12/09/2019 - First Look: This morning we welcome Jake Keller to the compendium. We also welcome Zac Miller but since the two people are really one, I had to choose one name to give this two-book series and I went with who the man becomes, not who he started out at. Bit confusing but the books are really straight-forward and darn fun to read and has a twist that made me go back a few pages to make sure I was following correctly. I was and I loved it!
  
  
• 12/08/2019 - If you are in the mood for an action-packed series of government operatives mixed with a healthy dose of science fiction, the series for this evening is for you. Four books and one novella are available about Zane Watson in the series the author dubs the Delphi Group thrillers. Good name for it since that is the organization Watson works for. I have enjoyed what I've read and I think you will, too.
  
  
• 12/08/2019 - First Look: An assassin who sometimes works for the government and other times kind of against it joins the compendium with a good number of really good, exciting adventures. Nicknamed Adrian Hell, this character has been through that horrible place and now sends a good number of other people to it.
  
  
• 12/07/2019 - Imagine you take James Bond and put him in Charles Bronson's body and send him out on assignments. You would get Jack Killer, a character created back in 1974 by Chilean artist German Gabler and just recently brought to America in English versions by Pulp 2.0. I was intrigued so I bought the first of several planned volumes which had 2 stories in it. I read the first story and ordered the second volume - then started the second story. I did not want any delay in getting the second book. As of this writing, that is all there is but hopefully there will be more for my reading pleasure. For your pleasure, if you have not gotten your copy yet, do so now! The stories are really fun and worth the price and time.
  
  
• 12/06/2019 - This evening, I present a nine-book series about a young woman who is handed by her billionaire father a security company with hundreds of employees and a very good reputation. She is no slouch when it comes to fighting and winning but she is very much inexperienced in running a huge company and she is idealistic so she has a tendency to stick her nose into all sorts of trouble. Luckily she has a good number of highly skilled and trained operatives watching her back. One of them also talks regularly to the Roman god, Mercury. I really enjoyed this series about Pia Sabel.
  
  
• 12/06/2019 - First Look: A first for this compendium comes as I introduce the 1400th series, and that is the agent being added is a Special Agent of NCIS. Ruben Carver operates largely in the Far East and is mainly involved in counterintelligence with occasion anti-terrorism duties.
  
  
• 12/05/2019 - An agent for a highly secretive British outfit, Echo 17, joins the compendium this evening. Tom Blake is a former military psychologist who is now an operative. 'Bit of a cold fish' is one description and it kind of fits in that he likes to work alone but he can get a bit heated when needed.
  
  
• 12/05/2019 - This morning we present a series about a young college student brought in to work for a secret, probable government agency called the Coalition. Very interesting young man. I liked him. Please welcome Cyrus Cooper to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/04/2019 - First Look: This evening we visit another author's take on the private life of the James Bond creator in the two-book series Ian Fleming Files. I am not big in taking real-life people and making up stories about them BUT the writing on these seems pretty good so I will give them a try.
  
  
• 12/04/2019 - First Look: This morning we say hello to Max Doerr, a chap who was a CIA for many years, got very tired of it so quit and became a newspaper editor and then, when his son is murdered and the culprit not caught, decides returning to his previous career is in order. Very exciting adventures.
  
  
• 12/03/2019 - First Look: What I would consider a romantic trilogy though there is no specific mention of it being such joins the compendium tonight. Shirley Fitzgerald is married to Daniel who decides to defect to East Germany. Talk about a challenge to the marriage!
  
  
• 12/03/2019 - A four-book excursion back to World War II and a German signalman who would become involved closely with the Resistance and then become a British agent joins the compendium this morning. Kurt Muller is a man who could have risen far in Nazi controlled Germany thanks to his connections with a very influential man but chose to follow his conscience. Not only are the stories interesting, they are told in some very, very enjoyable prose that makes the tales flow smoothly.
  
  
• 12/02/2019 - First Look: This evening we add a so-far very enjoyable series about a young woman with a bit of an attitude whose reluctantly becomes part of a NATO spy organization called Task Force Ten. She has a reason for joining but does not really want to. Nobody in the organization really wants her, either. Makes for a strange but compelling situation. Please welcome Kiki Claymore to the compendium but be careful - she may not want to be a spy but she is darn good at karate.
  
  
• 12/02/2019 - A fascinating female operative whose exploits are detailed in really good writing joins the compendium this morning. Mai Fisher is an agent for the Directorate, a U.N. spy organization with an obvious global reach. Fisher's story takes her from a young agent up through time and the ranks until she runs the outfit. It is told in a series of well crafted short stories and a few full-length novels. Please check her out because she deserves notice.
  
  
• 12/01/2019 - The author of the series presented this morning, Steven Becker, has two series ongoing and the second one, about CIA agent (sorta) Mako Storm, joins the compendium this evening. He has an interesting line of work and business arrangement which you should read to enjoy. And a very strange relationship with his father. The same quality that I have enjoyed with the Mac Travis series I find in this one.
  
  
• 12/01/2019 - On this rainy (where I am) December 1st morning, I present an underwater diving expert makes his home in the Florida Keys and gets involved, unwillingly most times, in some very nasty business. One of the first adventures has him finding a nuclear weapon. That'll make wake you up! Please welcome to the compendium Mac Travis.
  
  
• 11/30/2019 - Tonight we welcome a private contractor who does a lot of work for the CIA to the compendium. Steve Black leads a small but highly effective team (4 people in all counting Black) in missions the Agency deems best not to be associated with.
  
  
• 11/30/2019 - I was doing research on a series that started on radio when I was reminded of one I thought of doing ages ago but turned it down because there was nothing in print with the character, one of my requirements for the longest time. Since I have shelved that demand, I decided to write up something today so please welcome young Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police radio program.
  
  
• 11/29/2019 - First Look: This evening we present a fun two-book series about a CIA agent who has had enough and has finally, after a couple of decades being on call and seemingly constantly on the go, decides to slow it down. Buys a house. Gets a desk job. Gives up the dangerous day-to-day. And the President calls. Check out Jack McCall.
  
  
• 11/29/2019 - This morning we have a fellow who has been a very busy boy in his life. Naval pilot, counter-terrorist expert with the FBI, CIA black-ops for a while, and now an investment banker (more money and less people shooting at you, I guess). He does take time off to help out the President. Please welcome Tom West to the compendium.
  
  
• 11/28/2019 - First Look: The very prolific author of very thick books, W.E.B. Griffin, had already given us several spy series when he decided to introduce James Cronley, aka the Clandestine Operations series. Cronley is an agent with the CIA before it became the CIA and this is an entertaining series showing how it all began.
  
  
• 11/28/2019 - First Look: This morning we introduce Tom Barrick, a cybersecurity expert who has, with his fun team, has a profitable side business recovering lost or stolen items, even if the people who took them are not so pleased with the idea.
  
  
• 11/28/2019 - Happy Thanksgiving to all who might read this. I am thankful for my family because they make my life worthwhile. I am especially thankful for my best friend and life companion, my wife, Bonnie, who is busy cooking a great meal (I do ALL the dishes) who is so tolerant of my devotion to this site. And I am thankful for all the amazing writers who are out there drafting such terrific stories for me to read, enjoy, and write about.
  
  
  
• 11/27/2019 - Tonight we go back, back, back in time. I mean, way back. More than a century. 1909, in fact, to a series of short stories depicting one Englishman's determination to prove that Germany was planning an invasion any day now. Ray Raymond was the gent's name and he had a handful of interconnected adventures. I have not yet posted the plots of them but that is coming, slowly. If anyone is interested in reading the stories themselves, the book is available online in several locations.
  
  
• 11/27/2019 - First Look: This morning we present a Scottish engineer working on a Russian trawler who is recruited by MI-6 to do some spying for them, which will lead to a change in profession. Jack Malaney is an amazingly easy and enjoyable read so far and I look forward to going through all three books in the series.
  
  
• 11/26/2019 - A member of the British Secret Service operating in 1952 joins the compendium this evening. John Sterling, aka Agent Keats, is a veteran of a good number of assignments for Her Majesty's government and more than a few in the years before in the Royal Navy Intelligence. His adventures are quite entertaining.
  
  
• 11/26/2019 - This series presented this morning is named for the group in which the characters belong. Originally I was going to name it after the lead female character since she plays the biggest role but changed my mind. Task Force 125 is a small group of operatives given the seemingly impossible missions but also given the most leeway to get them done. Sarah Stevens is that woman and she is fun to follow but the other characters are growing on me as well.
  
  
• 11/25/2019 - This evening we add the second part of the Tales of MI-7, this section being an impressive number of adventures by a young but very talented (and for a reader, quite fun) agent named John Mordred. I really recommend checking him out.
  
  
• 11/25/2019 - Five years ago, author James Ward started a series he dubbed the Tales of MI7, the concept being that some back before MI5 and MI6 were actually merged into one organization responsible for both foreign and domestic espionage and counter-espionage. The first three novels did not have a main protagonist though they did have a common spymaster calling the shots. Ruby Parker, aka the Red Maiden, was that leader and I decided to enter those books as a series under her name, especially when he came out with a prequel depicting her earlier days as a field agent.
  
  
• 11/24/2019 - From the days of World War II and afterwards comes a private investigator who closes his doors to join the Marines to see some action fighting the enemy overseas. Unfortunately for him, his skills at stopping spies and saboteurs is just too good to not use at home. Please welcome Hooks Devlin to the compendium.
  
  
• 11/24/2019 - A wild ride is in store for the reader's of this morning's entrant. Carl Johnson is also known by the FBI and the press as the American Terrorist, so named because he was mistaken and tortured by the authorities after the new President's teenage daughter is kidnapped by a major drug kingpin. Intense does not begin to cover this one that I really, really enjoyed.
  
  
• 11/23/2019 - What would you do is someone left a small nuclear weapon in your backyard garden and then wanted it back. That is kind of what faced Tessa Scott and how this good-looking stay-at-home mother of two children became what amounts to a part-time agent for a super-secret Intelligence department called Enigma.
  
  
• 11/23/2019 - This morning we are welcoming a Brit with Pakistani heritage who spent a little while trying to be an Islamic terrorist, got tossed into prison, and then saw how dumb that whole martyrdom thing was and got offered a chance out from behind bars. He just had to work for a secret government largely involved in stopping people like him. A very, very engaging series that I have enjoyed a ton. Please welcome Rizwan Sabir, Riz to his friends, and his amazing and fascinating girlfriend, Bang-Bang, truly an explosive young woman.
  
  
• 11/22/2019 - First Look: This evening we welcome Jack Stone, agent with NASRU. That is an agency so secret not even the President knows about it. How do I know about it then? I read about it somewhere.
  
  
• 11/22/2019 - This morning we induct into the compendium a young adult two-book series that really should have gone more because the character is such a hoot. Maggie Silver is a 16-year-old daughter of two spies for an international intelligence outfit called The Collective and she, at her young age, is about to join them.
  
  
• 11/21/2019 - As I saw one blurb (IPublisher) about this latest entrant into the compendium put it, the author Kenneth Eade "made the GMO issue into a spy thriller". Quite an accomplishment. To see for yourself, check out Seth Rogan.
  
  
• 11/21/2019 - First Look: A three-book series about five CIA agents, all friends for several years, who get in trouble and might have been fired or arrested. They were given a chance to work in the much hated counter-intelligence division, a career killer, so now they are called the Suicide Squad.
  
  
• 11/20/2019 - A man with the rather preppy sounding name, Biff Roberts, joins the compendium. Do not let that name fool you, though. This man is not a preppy. He certainly is not a preppy's age, having been in the CIA for many decades and having the battle scars to prove it.
  
  
• 11/20/2019 - A young adult series for girls joins the compendium this morning with three young ladies just out of high school invited to become agents for the Tower. The trio go by the codename of Spy Girls. Mostly silly fun. Very fast reads.
  
  
• 11/19/2019 - An interesting, and I really mean that, series about a guy who had wanted to be a spy most of his young life and who is offered such a position as he near college graduation joins the compendium tonight. Lee Thomas is an entertaining operative who gets into and out of a lot of fun scrapes.
  
  
• 11/19/2019 - We do not often get a Russian as the main character in a series but that is the case this morning. Eugene Sokolov is a rescue expert who gets pulled into some very interesting, and well written, adventures.
  
  
• 11/18/2019 - First Look: Tonight we add a CIA analyst who, because of his excellent skill with languages, is forced to operate in the field and prove he has more skills than even he thought he had. Please welcome Daniel Knox to the compendium.
  
  
• 11/18/2019 - This morning we add another fellow who had a mission of vengeance to accomplish, to find and eliminate the assassin who killed his wife. With that accomplished, he is out of the CIA and at loose ends and is offered the job of being the lone agent for a government fixer named Mr. Nine. Please welcome Richard Monroe to the group. Good series so far!
  
  
• 11/17/2019 - Tonight's entrant into the compendium is by the terrific action adventure writer Stephen Mertz. At first I thought these were a continuation of an older series but this a new guy with his own interesting backstory and lots of unique approaches to completing a mission. Jack Cody, aka Cody's War is another winner.
  
  
• 11/17/2019 - How about a nice two-book series that is a combination of spy-fi, sci-fi, paranormal, and who knows what else? Sound interesting? Sound more than a little strange? Yep to all of them but see for yourself with Sterling Striffe.
  
  
• 11/16/2019 - A companion series to the one offered this morning, J.T. Ryan, comes in the form of Rachel West, a CIA officer who had her first adventure before Ryan's first and then she went quiet for a bit before showing up as a co-star, albeit a very important one, in his missions.
  
  
• 11/16/2019 - A private investigator who works on a contract basis with the FBI fighting terrorists and who also gets mixed up in cases with a CIA agent, J.T. Ryan, joins the compendium today. He is useful to both departments because he can work in-country unlike the Agency and can do not-so-legal things that the Bureau cannot.
  
  
• 11/15/2019 - First Look: Tonight I present from 2013 a two-book series about a CIA agent, Tim Hall, who has to work with a female FBI agent. An interesting pair to follow.
  
  
• 11/15/2019 - A terrific soldier-turned-operative series joins the compendium today. Written by General A. J. Tata, this series is even better than his first one and I loved those books. I am having a blast reading this new one about Jake Mahegan and there are six so far so there is lots for you to enjoy as well.
  
  
• 11/14/2019 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a retired FBI agent who is asked to help out on a mission to Europe, asked by the CIA. This does NOT please the woman who would have to be his handler as he was not one of her team players. What I've read so far is darn good. Please welcome Hayden Stone.
  
  
• 11/14/2019 - First Look: An interesting concept for this entry into the compendium. Andrew Pitman is a CIA agent who is nearing the age of retirement and looking forward to it. So is his wife, Alexis, except she works for Russian Intelligence. Nice!
  
  
• 11/13/2019 - First Look: An F-16 pilot who gets grounded and has to look elsewhere for a living finds it, not necessarily willingly, in the cloak and dagger world in the Cal Martin series of 8 adventures.
  
  
• 11/13/2019 - An Edgar-award winning author, Michael Gilbert, who has already given us one terrific series, gives us another truly amazing series which joins the compendium today. It should be a must-read for any fan of awesome spy writing. Please welcome Luke Pagan to our group.
  
  
• 11/12/2019 - First Look: Martin Culver is a successful writer turned amateur archaeologist who finds time to get chased, shot at, beaten up, and exploded a time or two when his investigations get in the way of people wanting to rule the world, or a part of it, or wanting something they think he knows something about. Exciting stuff.
  
  
• 11/12/2019 - How about a series starring a sculptor? Sounds weird? You got that right! Gerry Ransom is a product of the same era that gave us the Man from O.R.G.Y. and the Lady from L.U.S.T. He comes up against all sorts of crazy would-be world conquerors and world-destroyers with strange weapons and gadgets. And lots of naked people doing what naked people often do when, well, naked. His difference is he is a "minimalist artist" while doing it. Strange series.
  
  
• 11/11/2019 - Another movie-only spy series joins the compendium today. Austin Powers was a terrific send-up of the 60's era spy movies and also gave us a fantastically entertaining bad guy in Dr. Evil.
  
  
• 11/11/2019 - In the past when I have presented a comic book spy series from around 1940, I have not given it much of a grade or very nice things said about it. I change that today with Fran Frazer, a female photographer who has a lot of excitement traveling to a whole lot of countries breaking up conspiracies, disclosing cover-ups, and documenting a wide variety of events of international intrigue and importance. I was darned impressed with how well these stories read with just 4 pages for each adventure.
  
  
• 11/10/2019 - First Look: A fighter pilot who gets involved with a mysterious organization called Project Archangel joins the compendium. Lots of aircraft stuff as is understandable but a good deal of spying and international intrigue in this 8-book series about Cal Martin.
  
  
• 11/10/2019 - Another movie-only series joins the compendium today. Rowan Atkinson, the immortal Mr. Bean, created a sweet, well-meaning secret agent who wants to be good but just doesn't have what it takes and shows that in three adventures. Please welcome Johnny English and then step back out of the line of fire. Well, considering his mishaps, maybe being IN the line of fire is the safest choice.
  
  
• 11/09/2019 - A three-book series about a emotionless female killer with the assigned name of Agent Peacock joins the compendium today. This is an odd series in that the first two books have one kind of feel and the third leaps ahead to two decades from now and gives more of a science-fiction feel. Check it out for yourself and let me know how you found it. I would love to know if I am wrong.
  
  
• 11/09/2019 - A two-book series which is really one long adventure joins the compendium today. Jackson Pike is a former SEAL, kicked out in disgrace for something he did not do, who happens upon a very nasty conspiracy and pays big time for it. At least his loved ones pay. That makes him angry and determined to take on the bad guys in government, one of whom is very, very powerful.
  
  
• 11/08/2019 - If you are wanting a series about a cold-blooded killer whose only purpose in life is hunting down terrorists and eliminating them, Paladine is one you should check out. Very interesting and odd backstory to the man but the action is heavy and solid and constant.
  
  
• 11/08/2019 - First Look: A trilogy recently written but taking place just after the end of the Great War joins the compendium this morning. It deals with a former Royal Flying Corps pilot whose diplomat father is murdered during the negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles and he must enter the world of espionage pretending to work for a German spymaster to learn what happened. Impressive writing here by an Edgar-award winner. Check out James Maxted when you can.
  
  
• 11/07/2019 - Since the other entry I did today was a unusual occupation for membership, I thought I would add another. Regan Hart is an economist. Definitely not a normal line of work for a spy series but again she fits because of the sorts of things she gets mixed up into.
  
  
• 11/07/2019 - This new member of the compendium, Brad Jacobs, is a bounty-hunter, not a normal line of work for an entry here. He fits, IMHO, because he also has a side-line of tracking down missing or kidnapped people in foreign lands and getting them back. Plus this is a very fun series to read.
  
  
• 11/06/2019 - First Look: An investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee who gets involved in lots of intrigue, even after the nation's capitol is nuked joins the compendium this morning. Please welcome Jackson Guild to the group.
  
  
• 11/06/2019 - It's not often we have an agent from the State Department but we have one today in Steve Walker. Well-written two-book series about a widower who still enjoys life while missing his deceased wife.
  
  
• 11/05/2019 - First Look: Matt Hawkins is a marine diver/engineer who was a Navy SEAL until a mission went bad and he was injured. That does not keep this man down forever and it does not stop him from getting into the action.
  
  
• 11/05/2019 - From the mid to late 80's comes an action-packed paramilitary series about John Cody, aka Cody's Army, a quartet of soldiers working for the CIA, written by Stephen Mertz who, as I say in My Comments, wrote the book on action-adventure series, literally and figuratively.
  
  
• 11/04/2019 - The other entrant today by Bernard Lee DeLeo is Nick McCarty from the Cold Blooded series. When they say cold blooded, they mean it because McCarty, an assassin who has worked for both the NSA and CIA, and anyone else who pays right, can be downright Dexter-ish in his attitude towards his targets and others who he decides needs killin'. He also uses the contracts he takes as plot devices, disguised of course, for his best-selling line of adventure novels about a cold-blooded assassin.
  
  
• 11/04/2019 - Two impressively long series join the compendium today, both by Bernard Lee DeLeo. The first is John Harding from the Hard Case series, a sometimes CIA hire known for taking the impossible missions and coming out alive. When he is not on a mission, he loves to enter fighting matches. Harding loves pain, giving and taking, and he is good at both.
  
  
• 11/03/2019 - A DIA agent with a personal connection to Israel joins the compendium today. He spends a lot of his time going after several offspring of Osama bin Laden who prove to be just a nasty as their father if not more so. Certainly more resilient. Please welcome Jake Crabtree to the fold.
  
  
• 11/03/2019 - How about a fixture of espionage with psychic abilities? It is hard to keep secrets when people can read minds or hear conversations miles away or see the future or the past. But when both sides can do it but not perfectly and the CIA creates its own division of such agents, you can have some interesting adventures. Kylie Cain of the PSI series is a lot of fun to read. There are four books in the series and who know, maybe more coming. I hope so.
  
  
• 11/02/2019 - First Look: This interesting four-book series being added today to the compendium deals with a genetically enhanced individual named Mark Midway who is 12 physical years old but looks and thinks twice that. He is being chased by a very nasty organization who want to learn all about him. Others get involved, too.
  
  
• 11/02/2019 - Let's jump back a half century to when the Cold War was very hot. The early 60's, to be exact. The two-book series about Joe Wilderness lets us do that as we watch this MI-6 agent deal with a lot of trouble and get very little appreciation for it. As I mention in my write-up, "Wilderness is not especially out to get rich. He would just like to stay alive."
  
  
• 11/01/2019 - Being a computer programmer, though never having had the inclination nor the skillset to be a hacker, I love any spy series in which computer geeks play a part. I especially love it when there is some semblance of reality involved . I get that reality and then some with this series about Lana Elkins.
  
  
• 11/01/2019 - Today we enter a fellow who is in his mid 40's having adventures in the early 50's. Nick Temple is one of the founding members of the CIA, has a wife and two children, and still hits the road on occasion for adventures in this four-book series.
  
  
• 10/31/2019 - A comicbook series about the 40's from the 40's is this entrant to the compendium. It is about two guys, one American and the other British who dress up in all black head-to-toe clothing to blend into the darkness and parachute behind enemy lines for some good old missions for the Allies. They are first called the Black Wings but then change to the Night Devils.
  
  
• 10/31/2019 - First Look: What is reported in the flyleaf of the books as a 4-book series joins the compendium today with 2 of those books, one of them being released in 4 parts. Scott Evers is an agent with the NSA whose father is a big shot on the NSC.
  
  
• 10/31/2019 - Added to this series: The third and latest in the Emma Streat series of mysteries and spy books hits the streets next Tuesday and I was lucky enough to be given an advance copy. I was so thrilled to see this woman back again and I hope you will check the new book out, and the previous ones, too, if you have not already. One extra fact that makes this such a hoot is the author, Eugenia Lovett West, is 96 years young. Way to go, Ms. West. And way to write!!
  
  
• 10/30/2019 - Economists do not number that many in this compendium. When I checked, Regan Hart was the only one. She becomes a member of this group because her crunching of numbers gets her noticed and gets her wanted by lots of people, some to use what she learns and some to keep her from learning any more.
  
  
• 10/30/2019 - A British comic book spy series written in the early 80's and taking place during WWII joins the compendium today. Stagg of the Secret Service has 10 adventures for us which are fast to read and not bad at all. We do not learn much about the gent because he is too busy fighting the enemy so if you are looking for action, this is for you.
  
  
• 10/29/2019 - First Look: It is not often we have a Chinese intelligence operative as the protagonist of a series but that is what we have with Biao (last name not known yet). This looks fun because he is an average fellow pushed into a not-so-average profession.
  
  
• 10/29/2019 - A two-book series about a Canadian operative who is made part of a US/Canada task force against terrorism joins the compendium today. Art Dodek is an interesting fellow with a ton of experience that he brings to his work. He also is Jewish with a personal interest in the Jew/Arab conflict.
  
  
• 10/28/2019 - First Look: The period is the Second World War and the main character of this series is a man whose last name I have not seen yet in my reading so I call him Captain Maddox. He is an experienced older agent when we get introduced to him and he certainly will have a hard time getting older with the kind of impossible missions he is given.
  
  
• 10/28/2019 - A freelance agent, or more accurately a mercenary, who gets involved in all sorts of international intrigue and trouble and barely makes it out alive each time, Jake Fonko also gives the reader a lot of fun while doing so. He joins the compendium this morning and about time, too. He's been waiting for a while.
  
  
• 10/27/2019 - First Look: A husband-and-wife team of former agents pulled back into service joins the compendium today. Since their teenage daughter is also forced to take part, it becomes a family affair in this two-book series so I have named it The Granger Family. My first impressions are quite favorable.
  
  
• 10/27/2019 - A not-very-good two-adventure comic book story from 1941 joins the compendium today. The lead character, Colt of the Military Intelligence, does not even tell us his first name, he comes and goes so fast. We know he is a Captain working artillery security in the first case and promoted to Major working air plane security in the second. That's about it. Luckily, the stories are short and there are just the two.
  
  
• 10/26/2019 - First Look: High finance mixes with espionage and international skulduggery in this two-book (so far) series about a brilliant investment banker named Louise Moscow who is pushed by the FBI and CIA into helping them.
  
  
• 10/26/2019 - Back in the late 80's I read a darn good spy novel taking place in 1939 by an author I had not heard of at the time. I enjoyed it a lot but moved on to other things because there was no sequel. A couple days ago, that long-desired sequel was released. It is as good as the first and well worth checking out. Please say hi to FBI agent turned OSS agent William Thomas Cochrane.
  
  
• 10/25/2019 - First Look: Human trafficking is a billion dollar industry in the world, something Erin Baker with the CIA is well aware of and is fighting hard to combat. Her two tales (so far) are quite impressive from what I have read to now. Please welcome her to the compendium
  
  
• 10/25/2019 - First Look: Alan Llewellyn is a teacher. According to the flyer I read of this interesting man regarding whether he was a "teacher, sleuth or spy? If you asked him, he'd probably tell you 'It depends.'". I love that answer.
  
  
• 10/24/2019 - Start off with a park ranger who is rather hermit-like, throw him into a mess of trouble, add a beautiful woman, stir, and maybe you get Harvey Bennett and a 9-book series that really sees the character evolve.
  
  
• 10/24/2019 - First Look: Today's entrant seems to have been an extra in a two-book series but then was interesting enough to the author to write two more books with her in the lead. Please welcome former Shin-Bet operative Daria Gibron to the compendium.
  
  
• 10/23/2019 - From a half decade ago comes this two-book series about a Korean-American woman who served in the USAF Special Operations during the early 80's and was assigned a couple of times to assist MI-6 on dangerous assignments. Very enjoyable books about the White Vixen, a nickname she really earns.
  
  
• 10/23/2019 - The year is 1972. The Munich Olympics was forever disrupted by the Black September massacre of Israeli athletes. The U.S. President wants a strike against terrorists. The CIA turns to Viper, an elite team of black-ops experts. One of those is John Levis, a young man, part Dakota Sioux warrior and ready to make a mark for himself. This entry today is a two-book series about this impressive individual.
  
  
• 10/22/2019 - First Look: A two-book series about a CIA agent who is an expert in martial arts and a diehard cyclist joins the compendium today as John Rexford is presented for your enjoyment.
  
  
• 10/22/2019 - I had no idea what to expect when I started the series named the Ali The Cat thrillers. At first I thought Ali was a good guy but that changed when I read the blurb. Then I thought I did not want to read a series where the main character was a terrorist so I would put it on my TBR stack. But I decided otherwise and was surprised to see how quickly I got into this series. It is a very fast and easy read and I got to like the protagonist, Scott Belgrade even more than I disliked the antagonist, which was quite a bit.
  
  
• 10/21/2019 - First Look: This four-book series is about a college student who is not looking for trouble but certainly finds it over and over. Ryan Lane is definitely worth a look and and read.
  
  
• 10/21/2019 - First Look: A very interesting series about a young teenage girl who is forced into the cloak and dagger world and then grows up in it joins the compendium today. Christy Hadden is a well-written 9-book young adult series I have enjoyed.
  
  
• 10/20/2019 - First Look: This five-book series about Dominic Grey straddles the line between detective, paranormal, and spy fiction and looks very, very interesting, not to mention just a wee bit creepy. Just my kind of books. Grey was, at the start of the series, an agent with the State Department's Diplomatic Security force but he goes into the private sector to become an investigator who has Interpol as a major client. What he and his friend Viktor look into, is like international spooky. Check him out.
  
  
• 10/20/2019 - The first Romanian agent we have had joins the compendium today. Alina Marinescu was a decent, caring woman until Alex, from the organization known as Elite by the very few who know it exists, took her under his wing and changed her into the deadly assassin she is now. This five-book series really delves into her thoughts and desires as she plies her trade. It also really makes you learn to hate Alex.
  
  
• 10/20/2019 - Added to these series: Scott Stiletto and Mitch Rapp.
  
  
• 10/19/2019 - First Look: The entrant into the compendium is there because the CIA is very, very interested in a rather unique talent that Tony James has. For that reason, they force him into working for them despite his lack of desire. This results in what looks to be a very interesting two-book series.
  
  
• 10/19/2019 - First Look: Continuing my very slow advance into Movies and TV only series, I present the man himself, Chuck Norris, who helped created a two-adventure made-for-television series about a Secret Service agent who is really the President's Man. Joshua McCord shows that even getting up there in age, the man can still kick up a storm.
  
  
• 10/18/2019 - First Look: As Colin O'Brien mentions early on in the first adventure of this man, "Being offered $1,000,000 to kill a man can really skew your prerogatives in life". That's never happened to me, yet anyways, so I will take his word for it. This two-book series is looking quite fun so I hope to finish reading it soon but until then, you can check him out with what I know so far.
  
  
• 10/18/2019 - With considerable unpleasantness, I present today's comicbook spy series from 1940-1941. Luckily each of the 16 adventures were short, usually 5 pages each, or else I might not have been able to finish them, they were so bad. Except for the last three which were actually not bad. As a result of that trio, a D- grade was moved to a D+. Still not good, of course. Saber, The Spy Fighter, is thus admitted to the compendium.
  
  
• 10/17/2019 - First Look: Imagine you are in Middle School and the CIA asks you to join them. Cool, huh? But what if that happens and then you find out they want you as bait? Bait typically gets eaten. Not so cool. The 7-book (so far) young adult series about Spy School and Ben Ripley joins the compendium today and is a very fast, fun read.
  
  
• 10/17/2019 - First Look: An chap from Irish Intelligence (we do not get that many characters from that organization - must keep a low profile) active during the beginning years of WWII joins the compendium. Written recently but filled with atmosphere from back them. This is a trilogy about Paul Duggan.
  
  
• 10/16/2019 - First Look: An ad man who is canned gets pulled into a completely different line of work when a CIA recruiter sees in him the makings of an assassin. Sean Garrison has an interesting life which gets stranger yet.
  
  
• 10/16/2019 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a group of black-ops agents who served the nation well for several years until it became politically expedient to disband them. Now their services are needed again so it is time to awaken the Sleeping Dogs. Unfortunately for them, a whole lot of people would like them permanently sleeping.
  
  
• 10/15/2019 - First Look: Some would call Julia Grant a radical. Others would describe her as an activist. No one would think of her as an operative with U.S. Intelligence. Certainly she would never. Until she found herself being just that. Even so, she remains an activist. And a radical. This is an interesting trilogy joining the compendium today.
  
  
• 10/15/2019 - An English adventurer out on his own mission of revenge gets recruited by MI-6 in the three-book series from the late 60's about Jeff Cass. These are good spy yarns with a healthy mixture of hard-boiled detective tossed in.
  
  
• 10/14/2019 - Another comic book series joins the compendium today and this one is interesting because not only is he a bit unique but also because he switches agencies without warning. Little Al of the Secret Service is Al Conway, a height-challenged spunky agent who is thrilled to head to the headquarters of the F.B.I. right out of college and becomes one of their best agents in no time. Then after six recorded adventures, he is, without an explanation at all, working just as diligently for the Secret Service. And his sidekick, Ox, heads over with him. Odd! Still, the stories are good and varied and filled with Commie fighting and other international intrigue so he fits in this compendium just fine.
  
  
• 10/14/2019 - First Look: As I start to read the Chase Trilogy by Patricia Goodsell, I am not certain whether I should keep the main character of the series as being Richard Chase, who is the CIA agent in the series, or his daughter Alexandria who seems to have a much bigger role. Whichever I finally decide, though, I am enjoying the series so far and wanted to add it to this compendium.
  
  
• 10/13/2019 - First Look: Two intrepid French Intelligence agents operating in Europe in the years preceding World War I join the compendium. In two very well written novels we get to follow LePage & Dupuy as they try very hard to monitor and at times stop Germany and Austrian aggression. The prose is really outstanding.
  
  
  
• 10/13/2019 - I recently added added The Invisible Man to the compendium. Actually, I added 3 of them from the 50s, 70s, and 00s. My friend, EdRoy, pointed out that right after David McCallum's series sent away, Gemini Man took its place. According to a source, it was far cheaper to produce since it used less special effects. It did not last very long although it proved to be more popular in the U.K. than in the U.S.
  
  
• 10/12/2019 - From the early 50s comes a very short comic book character who had an interesting description of what makes for a good spy (read the About the Series to see what I mean). He did not stay long, having but three adventures in a single issue before leaving but they definitely showed potential. Please welcome Al Kennedy to the compendium.
  
  
• 10/10/2019 - Been away for a while on family business. Now I am home, I can resume adding really fun series to the compendium. Tonight's entry is about an agent with the State Department's Diplomatic Security, an almost impossible task. Tom Dupree is the dedicated operative who has been doing it a long time and is about to do a whole lot more.
  
  
• 10/01/2019 - An American in Europe around the start of WWII gets involved in secret operations with and for British Intelligence in this three-book series about Ben Peters.
  
  
• 10/01/2019 - First Look: My fellow spy-fan and frequent contributor, EdRoy, pointed out that my inclusion of Daniel Westin as the Invisible Man was ignoring two other television series in which a man learns the secret of invisibility and then goes to work for the government. So, I have started initial write-ups on Peter Brady and Darien Fawkes.
  
  
• 09/30/2019 - Coming Soon: Jeff Curtiss is a British operative during World War II and while I have not been able to read yet any of the many tales which were written and drawn about this comic book character at the beginning of the 60s, the man got around.
  
  
• 09/30/2019 - Introducing today "an average guy having an average height on an average build. I'm an intelligence guy, not a security detail type." So says this interesting character in a 3-book series from a half-decade ago. Please welcome Ben Dawson to the compendium.
  
  
• 09/29/2019 - First Look: A magazine reporter with his own column entitled 'Man of the Spot' likes to head to troubled areas and get the inside information. This often puts him in the path of truncheons and bullets and make for exciting reading. Please welcome Geoff Fennell to the compendium.
  
  
• 09/29/2019 - Today's first entry into the compendium looks like it started out as a police drama and then morphed into a spy drama. The first of the two books about Robin Marlette deals with his leading an Arizona drug enforcement team which must turn vigilante when Marlette's daughter is kidnapped by a drug lord. Exciting but barely qualifying for this site. The second definitely does fit, though, as the group has changed careers and now work for Marlette's new security organization taking jobs from the CIA. Lots of solid action to be found in these pages.
  
  
• 09/28/2019 - As I mention in my write-up, if you are looking for an agent who is too good to be believed, I have one in Doc Strathmore. I wrote that other top-notch agents want to call him Sir. There are three adventures available for him to show just how good he is.
  
  
• 09/28/2019 - Added books in these series today: The Destroyer, Alina Maschik, and Spider Shepherd. Pleased to see more in each of those.
  
  
• 09/27/2019 - I love a story where a highly trained operative has to deal with life in the civilian world and that is a lot of what the series about Levon Cade is all about. Cade left his black ops world to take care of his daughter after the passing of his wife from cancer. Life keeps deciding to throw things at them, though, and Cade and his girl have to deal with them. I started reading this series to give it a Coming Soon treatment. Six books later. I truly devoured this series and eagerly look forward to more.
  
  
• 09/27/2019 - Another military-oriented series joins the compendium today. The highly skilled best-selling author Chris Ryan brings us another individual from the British SAS who works well with others or by himself and who is used by MI-6 a few times. Danny Black is the man's name which is appropriate considering the black ops he gets involved with. There are 7 books in the series so far for you to enjoy.
  
  
• 09/26/2019 - Take a world-class Special Operations soldier, a legend among the SAS, and have him leave the service for the good of his family but now having to deal with civilians in a job that does not make him happy. That gives you Danny Quigley and gives us readers an action-packed set of adventures.
  
  
• 09/26/2019 - First Look: Imagine you were a high-level person with the CIA who could not remember anything about yourself or your work and then people started to try to kill you for what you either did or once knew. That is the problem facing Magus Crayle. It should be interesting to learn more.
  
  
• 09/25/2019 - Coming Soon: An agent from the "shadowy world of a little unknown section of Interpol" joins the compendium today. This two-book series from a couple of years ago looks interesting and the shadowy part looks intriguing. Please welcome Graham Wenby to the fold.
  
  
• 09/25/2019 - First Look: A series of five short stories about a CIA agent who is one very hard man and who gets the very hard assignments as a result joins the compendium. Blake MacKay does not suffer fools well and lets them know it.
  
  
• 09/24/2019 - A support character in the John Rain series as well as in the series I just added, Livia Lone, gets his own mention by the fact that he plays a major role in two series as well as having his own standalone adventure. I kinda hope maybe I can spur the author into giving us a couple more stories with just him. Please welcome Dox, nickname for 'unorthodox', to the group.
  
  
• 09/24/2019 - A Seattle sex-crimes police detective joins the compendium today. Normally such a profession, needed and noble as it is, would not warrant membership in a collection of spies and operatives and such but Livia Lone takes her fight against child traffickers to many places both in the States and abroad and goes up against all sorts of government officials. Boy! Does she belong here.
  
  
• 09/23/2019 - A light comedy about agents who do wetwork joins the compendium today. It deals with two male agents who work for an unspecified government agency and a female DEA agent who get thrown together in some very entertaining situations. The title of the series is Boom!!...Killers which is, well, unusual but kind of indicative of the books.
  
  
• 09/22/2019 - A bit of a step out of the normal for me with this entry in that the character, Katla Sieltjes is the kind of character so many of those members here would be sent after. She is a professional freelance assassin who specializes in making her hits look like accidents or natural deaths. She is so good that even though she is not known to many, she is the target of quite a few Intelligence organizations around the world. Kind of an interesting mirror image. She is a hoot, though. And Dutch. Think that's a first for me.
  
  
• 09/22/2019 - First Look: Henry Bride is an agent with Homeland Security, a sniper trained by the Navy and now working for more than a decade at hunting down and stopping some very bad people.
  
  
• 09/21/2019 - First Look: Two series by the same impressive writer join the compendium today. One has been waiting for some time and the other is pretty new. The first is Luke Stone, a former Delta operative now leading a covert department in the FBI to handle acts of terror. This looks really exciting and I am anxious to read more. The other I have actually started and am enjoying it a lot. It is about a college professor who is actually a highly trained and experienced CIA agent - he just does not remember it. That gentleman is Kent Steele, designated Agent Zero. Please welcome them both.
  
  
• 09/20/2019 - The wonderful mother who taught her son the incredible joy of reading, whether it was mysteries or suspense or westerns or comedy or, yes, even romance, passed from my life last night. Though we lived far apart for decades, we talked constantly and the subjects usually wound their way back to what we had just read, were reading, or was going to read next. Even as she was nearing the end, up to a week before her departure, she was reading and talking about what she was reading and commenting on what the writer did well and not so well. We had such terrific discussions on what made a good story and I owe my love of books to her. I will miss you deeply, Mom.
  
  
• 09/20/2019 - Coming Soon: A charter boat captain who is quite content to stay one (who can blame him?) gets almost shanghaied into working for the CIA, all because of a beautiful woman. There are four adventures in this Caribbean-area spy series. Please welcome Jack Stevens to the compendium.
  
  
• 09/19/2019 - First Look: I would introduce you to Robert Lane, agent with Sector 3, a ultra-secret division of MI-6, except that Lane is not his real name, apparently. How's that for security? There are 5 adventures of this man to enjoy.
  
  
• 09/19/2019 - I have always been nervous around conspiracy theorists because, well, they make me nervous. This series that I add today to the compendium is not about one per se but about a man who gets wrapped up in situations which are conspiring around him. Not quite the same thing but close. Please welcome Frank Bowen.
  
  
• 09/18/2019 - Coming Soon: Jarvis Love is a young man freshly out of training working for the Global Intelligence Network (G.I.N.). This one has been waiting for me to get off my duff for some time and if I had realized as I should have that it was by the same man who has the terrific website Permission To Kill I would have done so long ago. I can be soooo slow.
  
  
• 09/18/2019 - The series I add to the compendium today has a former employee of the CIA, albeit not an agent per se, brought back into action when some very, very nasty people get up to some very naughty and deadly activities and the world is about to climb into the hand basket for a trip to an unpleasant place. Beck Casey is a very intelligent man who is asked to help out when nasty stuff has hit the fan and it is entertaining to watch how he and the world copes.
  
  
• 09/17/2019 - First Look: 55 years ago it was envisioned in a comicbook series that 75 years from then, we would have colonized other planets in our solar system and there would be intrigue and danger requiring a Secret Service organization with dedicated and capable agents doing all sorts of exciting thing. James Bond in space. Today we introduce that stalwart hero of the future, a man named Brent Cleever but going by the codename Secret Agent 21. Please welcome him and check back now and then for more of his many adventures.
  
  
• 09/17/2019 - First Look: Aidan Snow is a British expat teaching at an academy in Ukraine when his past life as a member of the SAS stationed in Poland comes back to haunt him and changes his career to that of an agent with MI-6. Please welcome him to the compendium today with his three books and three short stories.
  
  
• 09/16/2019 - Coming Soon: A CIA agent who gets involved in all manner of activities in the States is the newest member of this compendium. Jonathon Stone is a very curious man who finds all sort of things he cannot ignore and who then gets into all manner of dangerous situations.
  
  
• 09/16/2019 - Coming Soon: An expert in cryptology joins the compendium today. Alton Blackwell had a fine career in Intelligence gathering before a bomb destroyed his men, his plans, and his leg. Now he is back in the States and finding his life has taken a completely new but still very interesting path, this time going up against a wide assortment of very unpleasant people.
  
  
• 09/15/2019 - Having opened the compendium to any spy series regardless of there being printed adventures, I have to add this three-movie series mainly because it is made by the same man who brought the other one I just added. It is difficult to see the similarity, however, as the first was sort of silly at times while the second is loony from the get-go. Still, Charles Bind, British secret agent, now gets his own mention.
  
  
• 09/15/2019 - I have had for the life of this compendium a rule that there had to be some printed story to qualify for membership here. I have decided to remove that from now on. This is largely to be able to bring a series from the 60's that I have wanted to add for over a decade. Charles Vine is a hoot of a character, dead-pan most of the time but such a joy to watch (at least the first two adventures - I have not seen the third). So here for your reading enjoyment is information about the "Second Best Secret Agent In The Whole Wide World".
  
  
• 09/14/2019 - Coming Soon: A "non-official asset" of the CIA, Peyton Stone, makes his initial entry today with two adventures from '12-'14.
  
  
• 09/14/2019 - Even as I finish up introducing the previous entrant, I present his twin, Nick Douglas. I say that almost whimsically because, while I can find out next to nothing about this new operative other than he was an Agent during WWII, the publisher decided to use as the cover for the first issue the exact picture of an operative whuppin' a Nazi officer. Just different caption and title. Hence - twins!
  
  
• 09/14/2019 - A rather lengthy set of comic book adventures from '59-'63, picking up again in '66-'67, joins the compendium this morning. John Steel is the name of the operative but instead of being a Secret Agent, he was a Special Agent. He worked for British Military Intelligence but later it was mentioned he worked for MI-5, which in those days was pretty much synonymous. These are entertaining tales but hard to get hold of.
  
  
• 09/13/2019 - A terrific combination of police procedural and espionage joins the compendium today, written by the exceptional Michael Pearce. Sandor Seymour is a member of Special Branch who is sent for the first time to a foreign land to investigate a suspicious death on behalf of the Foreign Office. It will be the first of several adventures in Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Excellent writing and plotting and terrific characters.
  
  
• 09/12/2019 - BTW, I just got my copy of the latest John Milton book, Bright Lights. I have been a huge fan of the author, Mark Dawson, since his first Milton adventure and I cannot wait to read this latest entry.
  
  
• 09/12/2019 - Coming Soon: A 15-book (so far) mystery series taking place in Louisiana joins the compendium today. Now, as much as I love a good mystery, they do not normally belong in this compendium. This one gains entry though because the lead character is, when not getting involved in local shenanigans, is also a covert assassin for the CIA. Almost makes you feel sorry for the bad guys she meets down home. Please welcome Fortune Redding.
  
  
• 09/12/2019 - A two-book series about a covert operative who has to leave her line of work because her father is running for President joins the compendium today. I was not taken with this series but I was with the main character who can kick, punch, and shoot with the best of them. Please welcome Cassandra Crossing.
  
  
• 09/11/2019 - A British operative for an outfit known as the Section joins the compendium today with a three-book series filled with lots of actions and pretty interesting plot lines. Sean Quinlan is a loner who pays for his alone-ness but who gets the job done every time, doing things his way and damn the criticism.
  
  
• 09/11/2019 - Coming Soon: Talia Reynolds is a CIA agent. Stationed in Canada. Not the first place one would think to find a covert operative. This romantic spy series looks to be a lot of fun and I cannot wait to see what this lady gets up to.
  
  
• 09/11/2019 - Coming Soon: Science meets Spies in this 5-book series which looks very promising. The Breakthrough Series deals with a female marine biologist, Alison Shaw, who is part of a major breakthrough (hence the name, obviously) in communicating with dolphins. Things start to get even more interesting after that. John Clay is an officer with the Department of Naval Investigations, an expert with electronics and signaling who will get involved in the fun.
  
  
• 09/10/2019 - Coming Soon: A three-book historical spy series taking place in the latter days of WWII and a couple years later during the Berlin Airlift, this series about Cormack & Woodward deals with two Brits who find themselves up against the Gestapo, the Stasi, and the Soviet NKVD.
  
  
• 09/10/2019 - Coming Soon: Cyril Landry kills people on behalf of The Shop, a top secret organization that removes enemies of the country - or does it?
  
  
• 09/09/2019 - First Look: Being a negotiator for the United Nations does not by itself sound like the makings for an exciting series to read. Yael Azoulay and the kinds of troubles she has to "negotiate" tells a totally different story.
  
  
• 09/09/2019 - A six-book and one novella series joins the compendium today dealing with a woman who can kick your backside six ways from Sunday and will find a seventh way if you dare bring a knife to the fight. She hates knives. This series deals with Bridget Donavan, a woman who is first a sergeant with the DIA fighting terrorists and then becomes an archaeologist fighting, well, terrorists.
  
  
• 09/08/2019 - A trilogy written in the late 90's about events taking place in Vietnam and Laos joins the compendium today. These books are no longer in print (shame) and a bit difficult to get hold of (bigger shame) but perhaps mentioning them here might induce someone to do something to fix that. Clayton Gray, retired Lt. Colonel in U.S. Air Force Intelligence who has worked closely with the CIA, is a very enjoyable man to follow and I liked the books.
  
  
• 09/08/2019 - Coming Soon: Samantha Albright is a part-time student, part-time bookkeeper who has the unfortunate fate of knowing someone ever so slightly who is the interest of the CIA. She finds her life changed forever when they need someone on the inside and she is the best candidate, whether she wants to be or not.
  
  
• 09/07/2019 - The second is Alex King, an MI-6 agent (read black ops assassin) who angers the wrong people and is pretty much dumped, only to be snatched by MI-5 for a few missions, and then is kinda dumped. Good man at his job, just not at kissing behinds. The author for both is A. P. Bateman and I look forward to more of his work.
  
  
• 09/07/2019 - I have a two-fer today. Not a two-book series but rather two series by the same author. I have been meaning to add both of these for some time but then just don't and that is a shame because for those interested in action adventure spy series, both of these deserve attention. The first is Rob Stone, a three-book series about an American Secret Service agent who is in good enough with the President to be the guy he calls for difficult assignments.
  
  
• 09/06/2019 - A five-book series about a highly trained government assassin named Daniel Petrovich joins the compendium today. The series was named the Black Flagged series by the author because it is supposed to be about a DoD program and the people in it and those against it and lots of other things. I centered in on Petrovich as the main character largely because there were so many other people it got confusing. Besides, when you read these books, you might find as I did that Petrovich is the star. Well, him and his wife Jessica. That lady is even deadlier than her husband.
  
  
• 09/05/2019 - Added a book in the terrific James McGill series, The Big Fix, and one in the exciting Brady Hawk series, A Deadly Force.
  
  
• 09/05/2019 - First Look: A spymaster from MI-6's Covert Directorate joins the compendium today. This veteran of the cloak and dagger world has been around the block more than a few times and has the scars to show it. Now as head of his division, he finds he still has to leave the office and put his life on the line far more than he should Nick Torr probably would not have it any other way.
  
  
• 09/04/2019 - The organization is known as Black Vault and it is supposedly the most secretive of espionage organizations around. Except someone got through their security and learned the identity of the leader and killed him just after he passed control to Ted Brooks. Brooks is the main character in this two-book series which deals with his newly acquired group going up against a very nasty bunch of killers named Vexa. Lots to assimilate, I know. Imagine how the new guy, Brooks, feels. Before he watched his predecessor get shot, he had never heard of Vexa. Now he is their newest enemy.
  
  
• 09/04/2019 - First Look: A homicide detective working one side of a problem will eventually join up with a CIA contract operative working a different angle in this two-book series. The second book has them having slightly different jobs but still working their own turfs until again it is prudent to join forces. The author or publisher titled this entertaining series Beach & Riley and I see no reason to argue.
  
  
• 09/03/2019 - The concept behind this newest entrant into the compendium is that the American President has a highly trained and seasoned operative at his beck and call, working only for him and doing the impossible tasks that need doing but need being done quietly. While the rewards promised are impressive and the work challenging, the life expectancy for such an operative is extremely low and so the recorded adventures are all about different agents in different times from one working for Truman as WWII ends to a bit in the future. This one-man agency is known simply as The President's Agent.
  
  
• 09/03/2019 - First Look: An ex-agent of the CIA, trained in hostage rescue, is pulled back into the fold and stays around because he is good at his job and enjoys helping those unable to help themselves. Jake Noble is a very interesting character, solid and dependable and fun to follow. The adventures so far have been a hoot. I like him.
  
  
• 09/02/2019 - With a great deal of pleasure I add a one-book series to the compendium. Yes, I know one does not make a series. In this case, it kinda sorta does. John Kane is a former CIA assassin who does not remember he was a CIA assassin. He does a little bit know he used to kill people, or at least he realizes he is very good at it so he keeps it up with a contract every couple of months. Meanwhile, the CIA is keeping an eye on him and a couple of those people want him dead. A really, really good adventure. What makes this kinda a series is that the author, Ralph Dennis, wrote one book about this man which was published and then another one that did not see daylight. At least not until 40 years later when author and publisher Lee Goldberg got the rights, put the two books together into one, cleaned them both up, and now we have both as one. The combined book, A Taste For Killing is available as of today. Check it out!
  
  
• 09/02/2019 - First Look: A young man, 16 years old and a recruit to the British Royal Army, named Michael Prentiss, joins the compendium even as we watch him get pulled into a secret intelligence organization in 1980 to help combat the IRA during the Troubles. There are 7 books in the series so far and follow him and several other people in that turbulent time.
  
  
• 09/02/2019 - As I joked in the 'My Comments' section of this latest entry in the compendium, the author left me hanging more than once and this was a good thing. This two-book (so far) series Bradford Lehman deals with a young man just entering the U.S. Air Force whose life-long love and expertise in mountain climbing gets him drawn into some pretty high heights and pretty nasty skirmishes with the Soviets back in the late 60's and early 70's.
  
  
• 09/01/2019 - As in all genres there are many instances of a series crossing back and forth between categories and this series does that. Tom Locke is a mercenary and wouldn't have it any other way. He is not an operative, with or without a trenchcoat; he is a soldier. But the two tasks we have of his to read puts him firmly into my clutches as this man of action has to go it alone more in dark alleys than on a battlefield and the missions he does could easily have been handed to any CIA or MI-6 operative and no one would have blinked. Plus the writing is fun.
  
  
• 09/01/2019 - Well, this is a little embarrassing. Yesterday I added a comicbook series which I implied was a rip-off of Spy 13, a character from the late 50's, though ripped by the same company that did both which they are allowed to do. Anyways, my oops came from the fact that I had not yet publicly presented here Spy 13. Definitely cart before the horse. Oh well. Here is that gentleman and his exploits fighting Axis forces all over the world.
  
  
• 08/31/2019 - A two-adventure comicbook spy with the moniker "Mike Stone - Secret Agent" joins the compendium tonight, sort of. I say it like that because I was sent by my colleague EdRoy the covers and some info on this series from 1963-64 but neither he nor I can find anything more about the character. Nevertheless, I felt like dropping him in right away since, if I cannot get more data on him, why wait?
  
  
• 08/31/2019 - A formerly married couple, one a doctor of archaeology and the other a well known professional mountain climbing guide, are put into considerable danger with several intelligence agencies and more than one government wanting them to unlearn something they had accidentally discovered in this 2-book (so far) series called the Ice Trilogy. Please welcome Andrews & Hobson to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/31/2019 - As I say in my comments, today's entrant into the compendium is a fun, interesting series about a quite capable 35-years old former SAS operative turned turned corporate negotiator turned, well, several different things often involving MI-5 though not usually willingly on that part. Gabriel Wolfe gets around and gets a lot of different people quite upset with him but not those of us reading about him.
  
  
• 08/30/2019 - First Look: A sergeant in the U.S. Army recovering from war injuries and a DEA agent temporarily assigned to its office in Corpus Christi will meet and eventually become partners in this two-book series about Gray & Ray, that being Sebastian Gray and Sean Ray.
  
  
• 08/30/2019 - First Look: A 5-book, 1-novella series that's been around for a couple of years gets an initial glance and is slated to be my next-to-read. It is about a man that a lot of people love to hate because he does not take kindly to people who mess with his friends and family and is more than capable of letting them know it is not a good idea. Please welcome Xander King to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/29/2019 - I had to go back through my records to see if I had an entry where a main character was a Cuban and the answer is, no. Atcho is the first but what a first. This series is really, really good and the character is sharp, respectful, honorable, and courageous and he pays dearly for being so. He also can hold his own against all sorts of very unpleasant opponents and that makes for a bunch of un-put-down-able stories.
  
  
• 08/28/2019 - A series that has been waiting far too long for me to get off my duff and add it is finally being added. My apologies to the author, in the slim chance he ever hears of this site. I read a couple of these books when they first came out but since there were already several more to read, I kept putting off adding it until I had read more. Now I have and I hope to be able to read even more. The team of Warner & Lopez is a really good pair to follow because each partner would be worthy of his/her own series.
  
  
• 08/27/2019 - In the one hundred plus years that there has been spy series, there has never been a series like the one I present today. This 11-book body of work is a spy series most definitely. It is, though, not just a spy series. The life and times of Lanny Budd cover the history of the Europe, with side trips to America and the Far East, from just before WWI to the erecting of the Iron Curtain after WWII. It is around 7000 pages of history, drama, pathos, and some laughter that has stood the test of time with its elegant prose and even won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for one of its volumes. While it has more than a couple parts which are laborious to get through, there are far more sections that are difficult to put down. This series is truly epic.
  
  
• 08/26/2019 - Today we start off with an easy, fun, totally impossible but who cares series about the teenage daughter of a pair of spies who has to leap (literally) into trouble when they send the danger signal and then disappear. Kari Andrews does not want the danger and the excitement. Life does not care what Andrews wants.
  
  
• 08/25/2019 - One of the mainstays of 30's pulp fiction, though not quite on the level of The Shadow or Doc Savage but still doing impressive business was Operator 5, aka Jimmy Christopher. This intrepid agent of American Intelligence, not the Secret Service, fought Dictator after Dictator, won a lot, lost a few, and still had time to be modest. The tales are excessively over the top in death and destruction with thousands killed in just about every issue and some poor city was wiped out each mission, some more than once. Most definitely pulp!
  
  
• 08/24/2019 - An absolutely delightful comicbook series comes to the compendium from 1967-1970, drawn by the remarkable Mike Hubbard, and giving us the young adult adventures of Jane Bond - Secret Agent. Alas, I have only collected a couple of the many stories and some of the artwork. Enough to write about but not enough to make me happy.
  
  Also: Second Look at Peter Corris' Ray Crawley.
  
  
• 08/23/2019 - From the mid-60s comes a pretty fascinating series about a female agent who might or might not work for MI-5 (I say yes) and who can more than handle herself. She is sharp, attractive, personable, and deadly when angered. Maxine Dangerfield is a woman about whom we have 4 adventures and left me wishing for more.
  
  
• 08/22/2019 - Added: Finally put the latest James Bond book from last year on the site and then added several books in the Adam Drake series. Boy, when I fall behind!!!
  
  
• 08/22/2019 - If you are looking for a series with lots and lots of actions and a pretty interesting protagonist, I can recommend this latest entry in the compendium. Logan West certainly gets around and everywhere he goes, someone seems unhappy to see him. I am sure it is enough to give the man a complex but it was also enough to give me some very enjoyable hours reading.
  
  
• 08/21/2019 - Coming Soon: The renown author Max Brand, known best for his many Westerns as well as creating Dr. Kildaire, wrote under other pseudonyms as well besides his real name of Frederick Faust. One of those was very close to that real name, Frederick Frost, under which he wrote about secret agent Anthony Hamilton, for which he created 8 novelettes which were later combined into two fix-up novels. He also wrote one additional novel which had been originally serialized in a magazine.
  
  
• 08/21/2019 - Coming Soon: From the very talented pen of the man with the pseudonum of "Sea-Lion", who already graced us with one spy series mentioned here long ago, comes another about a Signal Corps officer who starts to help a British Naval Intelligence operative and soon becomes an agent on his own. There are 5 adventures from the latter half of the 1940s about John Prentice to be enjoyed.
  
  
• 08/21/2019 - One of the masters of spy fiction and thrillers in general is, with no doubt, Frederick Forsyth. One short series he created slipped by me for a long time but now with some much appreciated help from my frequent contributor, EdRoy, I present this 3-novella turned into 1 terrific book titled The Deceiver, based on 6 teleplays in a British production called Frederick Forsyth Presents. Lots of different people doing different things in different parts of the globe but all connected by one terrific spy, Sam McCready.
  
  
• 08/20/2019 - Coming Soon: A four-adventure series presented in the pages of The Saint Magazine in the mid-60's concerning David Seven, the Man From Intrex. The 'Intrex' in question is an American Intelligence agency which is about all I know so far.
  
  
• 08/20/2019 - First Look: The time machine is again in motion, taking us back 90 years to 1929 for a visit with a former military man turned covert operative turned champion for peace who is willing to fight for it. Duncan Grant is a most interesting individual from what I read of him so far. I would love to know the opinions of others out there.
  
  
• 08/19/2019 - In fiction, as in life, it is quite common for a young man to have issues with his father over a career, especially when Daddy is rich and powerful and used to calling the shots. Lacklan Walker, a 15-book (so far) series is one fine example of that though in this case, Daddy is a real S.O.B. The organization he was an intricate part of, and which Walker the younger has to fight, really needs being put down but being so powerful, it won't die easily. Luckily Lacklan is a trained professional with one heck of an incentive. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/18/2019 - Again we head back in time, this journey taking us to the period from 1937 to 1945, to visit a senior agent of the British Secret Service as he goes about his duties in Europe and then later in his old stomping grounds of South-East Asia. 11 adventures make up the recorded tales of Oliver Keene and each one I have perused has been very enjoyable to read.
  
  
• 08/17/2019 - First Look: Today we are going way, way, way back in time to a very odd and oddly entertaining series by a master storyteller names Edgar Wallace. Wallace gave the world a lot of fun books and tons of stories and a couple of series. This one would not rank as one of his better works but it is fascinating. The main character is Heine, a German agent spying on the British and he is both very good and very bad at his job. I have read several of the stories so far (have not yet entered their plots, though) and I marvel at what I perceive to be Wallace's backwards insult of German Intelligence. Of course, I could be reading them all wrong but I don't think so. What better way to show the ineptitude of someone than showing them repeatedly almost succeeding. You can see for yourself because the book is readily available in ebook format these days despite being from one hundred years ago.
  
  
• 08/16/2019 - Some years ago I was asked why I did not have The Enforcer on my site and I came up with a lame excuse or two and slinked away. Then I read terrific articles from the Paperback Warrior and Glorious Trash about the series and knew I really should put it on. And promptly forgot. Years later, ta da! Now Glorious Trash really seemed to like them but then considering the site's name, that fits! Paperback Warrior, not so much and am in that camp. Still, check out what I wrote and then for better information, check out both those sites to really have fun learning more.
  
  
• 08/15/2019 - A series from the late 60s which I have only seen a couple of but which I have now gotten the entire season and am enjoying immensely joins the compendium today. Department S is a sub-bureau of Interpol tasked with handling the "unsolvable". It is really a fun series and takes me back 50 years.
  
  
• 08/14/2019 - From the mid to late 60s comes a comicbook spy series with a ton of action and some humor and pretty darn good plots. The adventures include a couple of memorable enemies, an organization named WAM (Warfare Against Mankind) and a particularly nasty and powerful individual called King Kobra. Barracuda is the codename, and the only name we know of him, of the main character though he has a best friend and partner named Frollo who could have warranted his name on the marquee.
  
  
• 08/13/2019 - First Look: We've popped back in time now and then recently so I thought we would leap a whole lot of centuries into the future with a first look at Gardner F. Fox's take on a futuristic James Bond. Commander Craig is the love-'em and leave-'em hero of this two-book series that obviously did well enough to not warrant a third.
  
  
• 08/12/2019 - First Look: A trip to the past today, though written just a couple years ago. The time of the adventures is the close of the 1700s and the hero of the three-book historical spy series is James Burke, former Lieutenant in the British Army before being seconded to British Intelligence. It is a time of British expansion and war with Napoleon and this new-to-the-spy-game agent will be quite busy.
  
  
• 08/11/2019 - In keeping with my adding several British spy series (or pseudo-spy), I present another one from the early 70s. This one starred Gene Barry, an actor I loved a lot as Bat Masterson and Amos Burke but not so much as Gene Bradley, aka The Adventurer. The couple dozen episodes and one novelization were mildly interesting but more in the realm of a donut rather than a meal - tasty at the time but fleeting and usually not memorable.
  
  
• 08/10/2019 - Since we were back in the late 30's for yesterday's entry, let's stay in that decade, albeit 5 years earlier, for today's new member to the compendium. This gentleman, real name Ford Duane, goes by the rather odd moniker of Red Finger, taken because he wears skin-tight black gloves, the trigger finger of which is in a bright crimson color. He fights any and all spies and saboteurs and infiltrators he finds in New York City and he is not very friendly with them.
  
  
• 08/09/2019 - We are heading back to 1939 and the period just a bit before America entered WWII. In America, the fear of saboteurs and foreign spies, at least in the minds of writers, was high but there to fight the evil-doers was Jeff Shannon, aka The Eagle, ace agent for G-2, Military Intelligence. Altus Press and Tom Johnson have put together a terrific omnibus of the handful of Eagle stories as well as a couple that likely would have been about the Eagle but then were not.
  
  
• 08/08/2019 - First Look: A female college professor who, while investigating the death of her husband, ends up deeply involved in all sort of cloak and dagger actions joins the compendium today. Please welcome Kate Adams to the group.
  
  
• 08/07/2019 - First Look: Back in my RPG days when I was a game-master, I loved the occasional griffin showing up because they were ferocious, dangerous, and, in my worlds, a tad on the irritable side. I was, therefore, intrigued when I found the series I add to the compendium today. Alexandria Kingston is a CIA operative with the Code Name: Griffin. She kinda lives up to the moniker.
  
  
• 08/06/2019 - First Look: Chance Hughes is a U.S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant which an impressive record as a sniper who, along with his brother, James, is hired by the CIA to work their magic for the Agency.
  
  
• 08/05/2019 - From the late 60s comes a television spy series, with a couple of episodes dutifully novelized and more than a couple dozen new adventures given in comicbook format. Three very interesting members of the UN intelligence organization known as Nemesis use their innate abilities as well as some enhanced gifts to pull off some entertaining missions. These are The Champions and I have been a fan for many, many, many years. It's about time I added them to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/04/2019 - First Look: From Down-Under comes an 8-book and 3-TV episode series about an agent named Ray Crawley. When it comes to sass-talking and hard-drinking, Crawley could be mistaken for a hard-boiled detective except he carries a badge and works for the government and deals with spies and saboteurs and other enemies of the State.
  
  
• 08/03/2019 - A really fun series, and super fast-read, comes to the compendium today. My fellow spy-fi fan, Johny Malone, who often sends him suggestions to add, told me about this one and the moment I looked it up, I knew I had to buy it and read it and a couple of days later, I am done with both and writing about it. I very much enjoyed this series about Perry & Gobi and if you at all like light spy-fiction, teenage angst-ish stories, you will too.
  
  
• 08/01/2019 - No new series today but thrills galore, at least for me, when two awesome writers, Lee Goldberg and Paul Bishop, came to town for a conference. They were kind enough to invite my wife and I to a delightful dinner which ended far too soon. Thanks, guys, I had a blast!
  
  
• 08/01/2019 - New month - new look to the site. My very good friend, professional artist Michael Haire, created a killer logo for me and gave me a few color schemes from which to choose. I have picked this one for now to see how I like it. Whichever scheme I end up with, though, I LOVE the new logo. Thanks, Mike. You did great as always.
  
  
• 07/31/2019 - From 1922 comes a strange mixture of spy-fi with a touch of sci-fi in that one of the three agents working for French Intelligence has created a flying car which comes in handy getting over roadblocks and ambushes. Other than that the series is not that interesting or maybe I was not in the mood. On the other hand, as a historical piece, it is worth a story or two. Please welcome The Gay Triangle, where the Gay is old-fashioned for fun-loving and Triangle just means a team of three. Whole different meaning today, about 100 years later.
  
  
• 07/29/2019 - From the mid-70s comes a very well written and well drawn comic book series published in Great Britain. The hero is a pilot made scapegoat by the aerospace industry for an accident he did not cause. He is then used badly - and I mean very badly - by a government spy agency called Department Q. Not once. Not thrice. Over and over again. Please welcome the very put-upon John Havoc to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/28/2019 - Traveling back in time to the 1930s, I present one of my favorite series of late, an absolutely delightful two-book collection of short stories by noted spy fiction author E. Phillips Oppenheim about a wealthy retired American general and former spook, a man who has now a beautiful chateau in Monaco and hobnobs with the rich and famous just before the start of WWII. General Besserley has a "puzzle box" as it is referred to, an interesting way of stating that he is there for young and old, rich or poor, when trouble of all sorts crop up. Some of them are romantic, some are of global significance. All are quite enchanting and captivating. And all are available in ebook format today. I really, really recommend them for just an enjoyable set of reads.
  
  
• 07/27/2019 - For several years too long a fun series has been waiting its turn to be added to the compendium but today it has to wait no longer. [Having said that, I am sure the author has never heard of my compendium.] This series about an agent with the World Espionage Bureau, Bryce Attewelle, is a really fun combination of a pulp hero, modern spy, and, most of all, a hard-boiled detective. I enjoyed the daylights out of them. And the covers are terrific, too.
  
  
• 07/26/2019 - I have been a David McCallum fan for decades. I liked him in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (who didn't) but I really, really loved him in the British sci-fi series Sapphire and Steel. If you haven't watched it, do so. It is strange and eerie and totally addictive. And I have adored him as Ducky in over a decade of NCIS. But between MFU and S&S, he had a short series as scientist Daniel Westin in which was meshed sci-fi and spy-fi in a different take on The Invisible Man.
  
  
• 07/25/2019 - First Look: Back to the present, or near enough, with this two-book series about a data analyst in a corporate security firm which specializes in tracking down industrial spies. The latest client has major contracts with the military and apparently a bad leak in their midst. Dani Britton is part of the team tasked with finding who is stealing secrets. Someone does not want the team to succeed and is willing to kill everyone to prove it. This series attracted me because of its similarities, on the surface, to Six Days of the Condor so I put it on my list. I am glad I did because I am enjoying the character a lot. Totally different from the Condor, she is still a whole lot of fun to read about.
  
  
• 07/24/2019 - It is back into the time machine for a trip almost a century ago to visit another of William Le Queux's stalwart champions of British Intelligence. This one is named Claud Heathwaite and 8 different adventures of his were collected into one volume. These are made interesting by the fact that the Great War had ended three years before and now the worry for the author was largely the new and scary-looking Soviet Union. The first tale is particularly eye-opening when considering that the new regime was all of two years old and yet already up to no good. The tale is brief and to the point but still rather powerful.
  
  
• 07/23/2019 - There are days when I am super excited to present a new member to the compendium and then there are days like today when I just shrug and say, well, here someone else. Gina Brasin fits into the latter group. Here she is. Take her or leave her. They are billed as "erotic" adventures. They were not so much in my opinion but tastes vary so read for yourself if you are at all interested. How lackadaisical can you get?
  
  
• 07/22/2019 - Special Thanks and Happy 57th Birthday Wishes! go out to EdRoy, a man who has given me a great deal of help over the last few years, both with terrific info and with catching a lot of my oops's. I do appreciate your help, good sir and friend. Today's entry into the compendium is thanks to you. From 1961 and the pages of The Victor, a British magazine aimed largely for male teens, comes Spywatcher. These are text short stories about a "Man of a Thousand Faces" who is an expert in counter-espionage.
  
  
• 07/21/2019 - We will go back to the early 80s for this 5-book series taking place in the mid 40s. It was part of Warner Publishing's "Men of Action Books" line of adventures and deals with a 4-man team of American OSS operatives performing all sorts of mayhem behind enemy lines. I did not think much of it but tastes vary. Please welcome the men of Boxer Unit OSS.
  
  
• 07/20/2019 - Three days ago I added a lovely young woman with the last name of Fleming to the compendium. I do the same today with the very lovely and very deadly Isadora Fleming. This is a fascinating series for its reach in that the author wrote a zombie apocalypse adventure with one of the main characters being Ms. Fleming, an assassin with a branch of MI-6. According to him, he was so interested in the character that afterwards he wrote several novellas detailing different eras in her life, both before the zombies destroyed civilization and after. I loved it!
  
  
• 07/19/2019 - Following on the heels of a fantastic Francis Beeding series comes a companion series, one which bridges the two already mentioned on this site. Ronald Briercliffe is an interesting man who, having nothing really better to do, decides spying for England was a good occupation and so kept at it. These are good reads and very entertaining and well worth the time spent with them.
  
  
• 07/18/2019 - In the sweltering heat of this very warm summer, I bring a series I have been working on for some time which, back in the days it came out, sold like hotcakes. I can never do justice to this series but I try. From the incredible talented pens of two men who made up Francis Beeding comes one of my very favorite series. Please welcome the incomparable Alistair Granby.
  
  
• 07/17/2019 - From the back pages of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Magazine comes a too-short three-novelette series about a young female agent of an intelligence organization called the Bureau. Please welcome Desiree Fleming to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/15/2019 - First Look - An attractive red-hair statistician named Jeannine Ryan joins the compendium today. This young lady, initially working on her PhD, gets repeatedly involved in scary real-world problems when doing her job analyzing data. Getting numbers to make sense is tricky when people start shooting at you. Please welcome this woman to the group.
  
  
• 07/14/2019 - This new entry into the compendium is really a call for help from anyone who knows anything, other than the tiny bit I disclose here, about the character. The books are quite pricey so I have not gotten them yet (one on order) but the character looks interesting and a tad important. Having the name Christopher Bond, it is neat to have a spy with the last name of Bond who came before the more famous James.
  
  
• 07/13/2019 - From the mid-80s to the early 90s, Mark Stone, the M.I.A. Hunter, first scoured the jungles of SouthEast Asia looking for those left behind during the Vietnam War and then expanded his rescuing of prisoners to other regions of the globe. 16 adventures were penned of his during that period and a new one has joined the group recently.
  
  
• 07/12/2019 - Today's entrant is an American female reporter making her home in Rome and getting into all sorts of hair-raising situations all over the globe. If that was not enough excitement, she will early on meet a undercover Mossad agent with whom she will fall in love and with whom she will have even more dangerous escapades against terrorists, rebels, and despots. Please welcome Nicolina Fabiani to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/11/2019 - Today we meet The Protectors, the second of the groups given this name. This time the group, for which only two adventures were written, is comprised of five teenagers, each very good at a specialty, brought together by the government agency CENTRAL to go into places where adults would not fit in. The stories, penned by the awesome author of young adult stories, R. L. Stine under a pseudonym, were quite fast, enjoyable reads, the type I would have loved to get my hands on as a young reader. As an old reader, still liked them!
  
  
• 07/10/2019 - We are going back in time again although nowhere nearly as far. This entry we will only go as far as 1972 where the very talented and fun-to-watch Robert Vaughn from America teamed with the very talented and fun-to-watch Nyree Dawn Porter from Britain to give us a 30-minute adventure show about a group of private investigators and troubleshooters who fight crime and espionage all over Europe. They called themselves The Protectors) and they had two seasons on television, one novelization, a fix-up movie, and at least 8 comicbook stories told of them. The parenthetical 1 exists because coming very soon is another series with the same name.
  
  
• 07/07/2019 - Today we go back in time. A long way. A very long way. As in 1903. My math puts that at 116 years. Older than I am, that's for sure. Today's entrant is one of the first spy series I have discovered and a very interesting one at that. He does have, however, a really bizarre name, Duckworth Drew, but though, as I mention in my comments, it makes me think of a fowl with a cloak and dagger, it is not a cartoon or a comedy but a legitimate series of 14 interesting stories from a time I'd wager NONE of us lived in.
  
  
• 07/06/2019 - The previous entrant into the compendium was a mysterious no-name spy created and written by Joe Gill back in the 50s. Today's new member is from the same prolific author during the same time period. Tim Bennett is a reporter, though, not a spy. That does not mean he does not get mixed up with them. He does. Please welcome him and make sure he spells your name right.
  
  
• 07/05/2019 - As we move past the festivities of the 4th (I had a great steak thanks to my wife) I present a very short series from the mid 50s. Short in the fact that they are short stories as well as the fact that there are only three of them. How my friend EdRoy found them I have no idea since one was in a comic that I own but two were in comics I had never heard of. They were by the very prolific comic writer Joe Gill and were text stories inside comic books. Please welcome Agent V to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/03/2019 - The writer of a terrific 3-book series over a decade ago has returned to the spy-fi fold with a 2-book (so far) series that is every bit as good (well, the first book is. The second is not out in the U.S. yet) as his earlier one was. The character is fascinating. The plot terrific. The writing just incredible. Please welcome Paul Samson to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/02/2019 - First Look - A thirty-year veteran of the CIA joins the compendium. Still having what it takes to survive in the field, Ethan Clark is painfully aware that each year he loses a bit more of his ability to bounce back from the rigor, aware that his body is not what it used to be and neither is his motivation. Still, he does what he does and we get to follow along in this two-book series.
  
  
• 07/01/2019 - First Look - A new month, a new series to entice you with. This one concerns a former MI-6 agent named Alex Dorring who was part of a botched assassination attempt a decade before and has been paying for it ever since. Not he gets busted out and put through even greater trouble. Please greet him nicely.
  
  
• 06/30/2019 - As we end a very hot month of June, I present a really well written 13 issue comicbook spy series from our British cousins. The publishing giant, Fleetway Publishing, had an imprint called the Fleetway SUPER Library in which they presented additional tales of characters they had elsewhere, like The Spider and The Steel Claw, as well as new ones. This is one of the new ones. Johnny Nero is a former agent of MI-5 who is called upon frequently to handle a special job. His adventures are well crafted, finally drawn, and quite entertaining.
  
  
• 06/28/2019 - Get ready for a fun character who is a blast to read about but has a very bad pun for a name (and this is from a man who is a pun-meister from way back). The beautiful, sassy Australian living and working in England eventually for MI-6 is Eva Destruction. Yeah, I don't believe it either but just go with it. The books are playful and the cracks that come out of her mouth are very amusing and I enjoyed my time with her. You might, too.
  
  
• 06/27/2019 - Must be now on a television spy kick. Today's entry is the ever cool and sophisticated Gene Barry playing a majorly cool and sophisticated Amos Burke is the 60s crime drama Burke's Law. Why, you ask, does a homicide detective get a spot in a spy series compendium, even one as awesome as this Rolls Royce riding multi-millionaire? It's because after years of being a cop, he decides to become a world-spanning secret agent. For a while. Then he goes home and gets his old job back, with a promotion.
  
  
• 06/26/2019 - A fellow spy-fi fan asked me some time ago about the duo known on television as The Persuaders. I said I had considered them but not decided but his email pushed me into the Yes column. Then I got sidetracked as I often (usually) do. Luckily some time later he kindly reminded me. So today I present Brett Sinclair, played on TV by Roger Moore (just after the Saint and just before James Bond), and Danny Wilde, played by the ever-fun Tony Curtis. I am still adding comicbook stories for these two, in case someone notices the absence.
  
  
• 06/23/2019 - First Look: An adventurer and world famous mountain-climber is asked to help "look into things", pastimes that get him involved with spies and would-be world conquerors. This two-book series from 1959-1960 looks to be especially interesting if you are an outdoors-man because it was written by one for one. Please welcome John Taunt to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/22/2019 - Oh, my! How do I put this latest entry into the compendium? I know. I will just give the name of the series. Hugh Pecker. 'Nuff said! But, of course, I then say more. This incredibly sleazy but well crafted two book series comes from the pen and mind of Stephen Frances, a man who has a majorly interesting history (check out Wikipedia and other places for better descriptions than I give). He could really write. He also had one very strange and varied imagination. And apparently at some point in the early 70s, must have needed a few extra bob to create these adventures. Please welcome this agent of the Peckerton Unit. I would not shake hands with him, though.
  
  
• 06/20/2019 - Several days have passed since I last added a series to this compendium but I have found a very good one to break the fast, so to speak. Harry Connolly is a CIA agent who finds out just how dangerous it is to go up against Mother Russia, especially when the ones he confronts are former KGB experts who want very much a return to the old ways. This entry is a First Look but what I am seeing is good.
  
  
• 06/14/2019 - From 1960-61 is a three-book series about a "special agent with Interpol" who gets involved in some pretty fun adventures, starting with an East European group (read Warsaw Pact) who want to nuke several North African cities to stir up unrest to help bring down the West. These looked to be young adult novels but after reading them, I feel they either were meant for adults or for older teenagers. Anyways, they are a fun and very fast read. Please welcome Red Radford to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/11/2019 - A kind-of spy series joins the compendium today largely because I so very much enjoyed it. It truly only nudges the edges of a spy series being more of a police procedural with human interests thrown in a bunch, but it does get enough checkmarks to make me happy to add it. And, as I said, I really enjoyed the books. There are four of them and I hope there will be more. Please welcome the folks from The Bridge Club.
  
  
• 06/09/2019 - I've been slowing working on today's entry into the compendium for some time, helped by my frequent collaborator, EdRoy (thanks, my friend). From the early 60s comes a comic book spy series that starts as a sci-fi crime story about a bent lab assistant who turns really bad when a science experiment goes majorly wrong. He is hunted by two countries for a while, wreaking havoc along the way. Then, to paraphrase Monty Python, "he got better". Then he is a valuable member of the British secret intelligence service called the Shadow Squad, using his unique abilities to fight all sorts of enemies from aliens to mad scientists to would-be global crime lords. Please welcome Louis Crandell, aka The Steel Claw, a man with a metal prosthetic right hand who has the ability to, by coming into contact with electricity, turn invisible, except for the now floating metal appendage. Interesting dude.
  
  
• 06/08/2019 - Several times over the past decade I responded to emails asking about the Richard Blade series with a negative. It was not a spy series so I was ignoring it. Now, just for fun, I have reversed myself and present the latest member of the compendium. Blade is a secret agent chosen by Britain to get involved in one crazy scientific experiment that turns out to be something totally different. Heroic Fantasy meets Spy-Fi.
  
  
• 06/07/2019 - A 6-book series about a British spymaster, Charles Thoroughgood, joins the compendium today. It is one of the rare ones among my group in that I have not read but one of the tales and since the others are not in ebook format that I can find and I am out of space, I hope others will help flesh out this interesting character. Certainly the author is a darned good one.
  
  
• 06/02/2019 - First Look: A fast-paced, exciting action adventure series about a highly trained, very experienced CIA operative joins the compendium today. I am more than halfway through the first book and it is really good. Smooth writing style and lots of action and some very enjoyable characters. It all makes for a bunch of fun but I had already come to expect that from the author, Brian Drake, with his other series. So, please welcome Scott Stiletto to the mix.
  
  
• 06/01/2019 - It is my anniversary. Been married to my lovely bride for a whole lotta years now and hoping there be a bunch more to come. Another thing I hope will keep on coming is this series being entered today into the compendium. This is really a First Look because I have only read 50 pages but am totally hooked. Kate Moore is an American home-maker living with her family in Europe. She is also a lot more but exactly what is slowly being revealed. I am pushing this two-book series because the first book was an Edgar-award winner a few years ago and the second book just came out. I am stoked!
  
  
• 05/31/2019 - Ending the month by going back in time to the early 70s and a three-book series about a British spymaster, though he still can do field work when needed, who is assigned to NATO Intelligence. These are some pretty interesting adventures that deserve to be remembered. Please welcome Colonel Mostyn to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/26/2019 - A truly addictive and highly fun series joins the compendium today. Written by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg, the Fox & O'Hare series is a modern take on the Mission: Impossible concept of a group of skilled professionals, led by a gifted and inventive con man, taking down some pretty bad people. I loved it!
  
  
• 05/23/2019 - A very enjoyable seven-book series joins the compendium today. It should have joined quite some time ago but I kept letting others get ahead on the TBR stack, not knowing how much fun I was missing. Not missing the fun now and looking forward to more from this author. Please welcome Andrew Towning's Jake Dillon.
  
  
• 05/15/2019 - Well, back to spy-comic land with this entry - a sort of $6-man meets the Steel Claw (he is coming soon). Lots of action with some serious, albeit improbable, sci-fi gadgetry. Please welcome what I have (brought to me by a very frequent contributor) of Iron Hand.
  
  
• 05/14/2019 - Happy Birthday to my brother. He never checks my website but I give myself brownie points for mentioning him anyways. Today I present a series about an organization which looked good but isn't, an operative of it who looks bad but isn't, and a young woman who comes across as a damsel-in-distress but definitely isn't. The series is The IMA. Check it out for yourself.
  
  
• 05/10/2019 - I am likely to be drummed out of the various spy-fi appreciation groups I belong to with this next entry into the compendium but, intrepid chronicler of all spy-fi series I find, so be it! Besides, being 66-going-on-13, I loved it. Please welcome Spying With Lana.
  
  
• 05/07/2019 - The Hydra Trilogy, as I saw it billed, joins the compendium today. It stars Mike Roberts, a Major with the elite Special Forces Unit, attached to the British Foreign Office. He is the man that the government calls when things get really messy and needs cleaning.
  
  
• 05/06/2019 - I have been reading a lot during and after my vacation (and mowing a rain forest it feels like) but not much posting. Today, though, I have the pleasure of adding a really terrific two-book series (and I wish it were more) about one very exciting agent writing by a very, very entertaining author. Please welcome to the compendium Michael Herne by David Vinjamuri.
  
  
• 04/26/2019 - On vacation - lots of sightseeing and visiting kin and goofing off. Some reading. Not a lot of posting. Finally I add today a two-book series about an operative who, when not fighting terrorists for a secret organization, found time to create an awesome computer program that made him a billionaire. Something to fall back on! Please welcome Edwin Hoff to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/16/2019 - On the heels of savoring the Lee Carruthers books which I mentioned a few days ago, I have found a very enjoyable, quick reading series about a photographer for the CIA who gets involved in a whole lot more than he expected to just taking pictures. Good way into the first book and liking it a lot. Please welcome Matt Danner to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/14/2019 - While investigating Tower Comics, the people who brought the UNDERSEA Agent series, I came across another secret agent in a sister publication. There are just three stories about this earnest but unremarkable operative but I present him, and them, today. Please welcome Mike Manly to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/13/2019 - There are times I cannot wait to add a series to the compendium. And then there are times like today where I sigh and say, 'oh well' and push forward. U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent is a comicbook product of the mid 60s U.N.C.L.E. craze that never rises to that level and only lasted 6 issues. There are several stories in each issue so there are a decent number of missions to read. None of them really noteworthy. Still, here is it.
  
  
• 04/11/2019 - A fellow spy fan let me in on this series which came out a couple years ago but only is just getting released in ebook format. He sounded quite impressed with it so I have started it and found his suggestion was spot-on. Marc Dane is an MI-6 computer specialist sent in with field operatives; to paraphrase the author, a 'bloke in the van' walking alongside the 'blokes with the guns'. The writing is incredible but then the author, James Swallow, is nowhere near being a newbie having tons of experience in Warhammer 40K and Star Trek universes, to name a couple.
  
  
• 04/09/2019 - While I remain largely bedridden due to a nasty cold/allergies, I can at least still read (when I can keep my eyes open) and I have been reading an awesome series. As I mention in My Comments, I will have lots of good to say when I have finished this terrific series which won't be long now because I cannot put these books down! Lee Carruthers is a CIA analyst who goes way beyond her job description and does it wonderfully. You can probably guess, I like her!
  
  
• 04/05/2019 - An FBI agent turned a private intelligence officer is today's entry into the compendium. Action-filled kick-butt-not-prisoners is the order of the day with Levi Hart, highly respected and capable member of Dragon Team.
  
  
• 04/04/2019 - It is well past April Fools Day (thank goodness because I am way too gullible) so you can believe this next entry. Simple Spyman joins the compendium. When you check him out, you are sure to think it is a gag - or that I've lost what little mind I still had. But no! It is not a gag. (Yes, my mind is gone). A frequent and valued contributor pointed him out and we both agreed some silliness was in order. There are 80+ quick 'adventures' which we will add over time. We start out with a half dozen.
  
  
• 04/03/2019 - Fresh off reading a very enjoyable series mentioned yesterday, I am lucky enough to find another compelling, action-filled 4-book series about a former SEAL who, though owning his own consulting company now, spends most of his time going up against very nasty folks in far off places like Iran and China. Please welcome Logan Alexander to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/02/2019 - Happy Birthday, son! Happy 37th! Wanted to get that shout-out before I present this newest entry to the compendium. It is a (so-far) 3-book series about a CIA operative (for a while) who has some very exciting and varied adventures. Please welcome Pete Maddox to the group.
  
  
• 03/29/2019 - An archaeologist joins the compendium today. He does not seek to get involved in espionage or in international intrigue. He likes to dig up ancient stuff and learn what happened way back when. It is just that the past also seems often to interest very nasty and powerful people who think very little of someone like him interfering with their great plans. Please welcome Dan Kotler to the group.
  
  
• 03/28/2019 - A pleasant enough three book series about a pair of 'normal' people who happen to be inquisitive and intelligent and who get themselves involved in a whole lot of trouble as a result. That is the way to describe the Kiko and Maggie series I add to the compendium today. Please be sure to read My Comments on this one.
  
  
• 03/27/2019 - A interesting and often quite fun series that is really two parts of a whole (you'll have to read my write-up to understand) joins the compendium today. Sean A. P. Ryan is a security consultant who sometimes works science fiction conventions and sometimes works for the Pope.
  
  
• 03/25/2019 - A very interesting series joins the compendium today. It concerns a corporal in the British Army who, doing what he has to to stay alive during the BEF rush to the coast, manages a couple of interesting encounters and ends up coming to the notice of Churchill who is looking for a go-to guy for, well, whatever needs gotten-to in the PM's opinion. Taking place, of course, during WWII, these are quite well-written adventures of an operative who has no real training in his new-found job and no great love of the role but who is solid, dependable, and endurable. These were not at all what I expected when I started and I am very much enjoying them. Please welcome Ted Dexter.
  
  
• 03/23/2019 - An action-packed (and I really mean that) series joins the compendium today. The fellow in question, Dan Roy, has a lot of stories available about him because the man definitely gets around and where he goes, trouble is either there waiting for him or shows up soon to mess with him. Bad mistake for trouble. Roy fights mean.
  
  
• 03/22/2019 - A five-book series about a former marine and now member of an organization called Shadow Ops. Priscilla Roletti is a kick-butt, do-not-mess-with-me operative who also has two young children at home that give her a reason for coming home alive. Watching the two sides of her in play knowing the other side exists is a lot of fun.
  
  
• 03/20/2019 - I have been under the weather and sleeping a lot to recover. Luckily I had a fun, silly, quick-to-read series to entertain me without taxing me. It is about a young girl who might or might not be the reincarnation of a Persian goddess and who definitely is not an official spy but when her actions and her possible heritage get merged, we have Spy Goddess.
  
  
• 03/17/2019 - For several years now I have been "a-gonna" add a video game series turned book series turned movie series. Kept planning to. Never did. Until today. It is a very interesting game series that I cannot play because I am so lousy at this sort of action gaming. It is a fun, albeit rather mindless couple of movies that I really enjoyed. It is a couple of books that were alright, especially the Raymond Benson one. Please welcome the Hitman known as Agent 47 to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/16/2019 - A young-adult series about a very interesting young woman whose Dad runs a Spy Games company putting on like-action "pretend you are a spy" sessions in Paris while Mom, who vanished a few years ago, is suddenly back and is a real-life spy. Savvy Bent, part of the Circle of Spies series, makes for an interesting, light, fun, and fast read.
  
  
• 03/15/2019 - The Shadow Warriors are a team of highly trained paramilitary operatives for the American government who go where the action is but in a way that would that would leave the powers-that-be with plausible deniability. Harry Nichols is a leader of the group, up until things go wrong and then he isn't. That does not stop him from getting involved. This is an exciting series.
  
  
• 03/14/2019 - Get your strange on for this two-book series from a handful of years ago. Morgan Hewitt is the main character but the Hermetic Division is the star attraction. This is an unknown branch of MI-6 devoted to using the supernatural to defend the nation and its weaponry is strange to say the least. Like Tomas, a man who died twenty years ago and is back to help out. That sort of delightfully bizarre. As I mention in My Comments, spooky meets spooks.
  
  
• 03/12/2019 - When I start a series written by a highly experienced intelligence operative, I get both excited and worried. Excited because it is very likely the author will know what he is talking about. Worried because I have no idea how good or bad the writing will be. In this case, the writing is darned good. I am well into the series and plan to finish the three books so I am pleased. Please welcome Steve Church to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/09/2019 - Set your literary time machine way way back to 1904 and one of the very first spy series. Allen Upward published a collection of 12 short adventures into a single volume and then followed it up immediately with a full-length novel published in installments in Pearson Magazine. This largely unknown series is surprisingly good and I enjoyed it a lot. The character, Andrea V, the "V" being an abbreviated name used in disguise, is an American who made his fortune working as a freelance operative in turn-of-the-century Europe. He worked at various times for the Tsar of Russia, Kaiser of Germany, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Kings of England and Italy, Empress of China, and the Pope. He is in some cases too perfect to tolerate but just as I was ready to give up on him, he would freely admit to having guessed wrong on something and be forced to improvise.
  
  A couple of points that make this series, now available in ebook formats from various places with varying degrees of quality reproductions, so interesting. First, the short stories are decent sized so they have enough to be satisfying without too much to become boring (the second book suffers from that). Second, the tales are, as I say in My Opinion, "ripped from the headlines" in that he wrote about things that literally just happened, injecting his character into the middle of things in surprising realistic and entertaining ways. Third, the author inundates the reader with a large number of interesting quotables, many of which I made special note on. One of my favorites is "Russia has discovered that her conquests advance better under the cloak of peace".
  
  
• 03/08/2019 - It is not often that I present a series in which I only know about the first book. That is the case today, though. I know what the other books in the series are and I have found cover art for the other four but their sysnopsis are sadly not available via my Internet searching. If anyone has more information, please let me know. As I get the other books, I will add the info but for now, I have just the one. The series in question is one from the 60s but deals with a spy from the 50s. 1650s. This historical spy series deals with the adventures of Nicholas Pym agent to the British Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. His cloak is often a dashing cape and his dagger is a very long one, worn in a scabbard on the side. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/06/2019 - The series I present today has, as of this entry, three books and two novellas. The reading order is a tad odd with the first book happening "now" and the first novella taking place 12 years before and the second book taking place 12 years before and the third book taking place "now". Order is important. Still, the books are worth it because the character is interesting and the adventures timely (then and now). So please welcome Mac Ambrose to the compendium and know that this woman take really take care of herself.
  
  
• 03/05/2019 - There are many authors who have sadly and completely unfairly fallen out of print. Robert Charles Smith, writing as Robert Charles and Charles Leader, is right up there at the top of this list. He has written several terrific spy series and a large number of stand-alones, each of which deserve to still be read. Today I bring into the compendium a two-book series of his written in 1999 but taking place a decade or so before. It is filled with terrific prose and dynamite action and is as intelligent as it is exciting. Please welcome Mark Falcon to the group.
  
  
• 03/04/2019 - What a treat I have today. It is a (so far) three-book set of terrific spy-detective-mystery tales that absolutely grabbed me and kept me and had me looking for any more. The period of time for the activities in these books is 1964-1974 and the descriptions and atmosphere contained in them take me back to then. The lead character, Alex Swan, is a charming, polite, unassuming but highly capable investigator and once he gets on a case, he is not letting go and as a reader, I was with him all the way. Please welcome this charming man to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/03/2019 - 'They Can't Stop Bullet!'. That is the declaration in this latest entry into the compendium. It is a British comicbook series from the mid-70s taking place during WWII about a soldier turned spy who uses a motorcycle to get all over behind enemy lines working for British Intelligence. Fast paced short story action to delight the young male reading audience which also entertained this not-so-young reader. Please welcome Nick Carter to the collection.
  
  
• 03/02/2019 - A two-book series joins the compendium today. Or maybe a four-book one. The jury is still out on that and hopefully one of you reading this will help me learn the truth. Two books are definitely available. The other two might not have been published. Anyways, there are a couple and they deal with a Special Forces officer who became a pilot who then becomes a CIA contract operative. His name is Brett Collins.
  
  
• 03/01/2019 - Welcome to March! Today I present a two-book series about a reporter who gets himself into a lot of trouble following leads that lead him into very bad places. A lot of unsavory types, some of whom wear cloaks and carry daggers, all find his snooping unwanted. Please check out Beck Rikki for a fun read.
  
  
• 02/27/2019 - A fellow spy-fan, Graham, told me about this latest entry. I had already had collected the books and put them on my teetering TBR pile but his email nudged me to push them to the head of the line and I am glad he did. These are some exciting and very interesting tales. Please welcome Thomas Caine to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/21/2019 - First Look at a two-book series about an agent for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence who could work behind a desk but chooses to get out in the field, especially after he meets the beautiful Indian intelligence officer he would have to spend time with. Please welcome Adam Chin to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/19/2019 - I am going back to the 40-70s for this next addition to the compendium though the books written for this series during that timeframe go back even further in time - back to the days before, during, and after the French Revolution. The series is that of Roger Brook by Dennis Wheatley and deal with a young man who becomes involved in all sorts of adventures and intrigue throughout Europe while reporting everything back to the British Prime Minister William Pitt.
  
  
• 02/17/2019 - I got us a really good entry for the compendium today. I have had this series on my to-be-read list for quite a while now but a welcome and friendly reminder pushed me into reading it and, boy, am I glad I did. Solid characters, great action, terrific writing, and very exciting plots. There are two books in the series so far and I really truly hope there will be more. Please welcome Dick Thornby to the group.
  
  
• 02/12/2019 - What an absolute delight to mention a fun, fun, fun series I have just finished by a two-time Edgar nominee. I became a fan of the author, Lee Goldberg, with the FBI-con man team up series he co-wrote. When he came out with the first in this series last year, I loved it and eagerly awaited a second so I could add it to my site. Here it is. Please welcome the very clever and entertaining Ian Ludlow to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/09/2019 - A double-feature today. Or a BOGO as my wife and I are always looking for when grocery shopping. Tony Wei, aka the horribly nicknamed Perv Boy works with the FBI to fight terrorists and catch spies. He has a great friend named Dale Maurer who helps out all the time. Maurer on the other hand has a security consultancy business that gets him involved in fights with international bad guys and he invariably gets Wei to help out. The writing style needs some work but, boy! Did I get hooked.
  
  
• 02/05/2019 - First Look at an exciting action-filled three-book series about a CIA paramilitary operative named Avery. He is a member of the elite group called the Scorpions and his codename is Carnivore. Please welcome him, friendly like, to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/03/2019 - The last two entries were from the past. This one today is a fairly recent one, starting a decade ago with the second, and last, coming four years later. It deals with a man in his late 40s or early 50s put on the shelves by a changing CIA but whose experience is needed again. The writing is solid and the plot timely and I enjoyed the two adventures. I think you will, too, so welcome Jack McDuff to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/02/2019 - Happy Groundhog Day. Haven't heard yet whether the rodent from Pennsylvania has seen his shadow or not but I figure he has. The rat usually does and, wham!, more winter!! Oh well, I am in no hurry for the heat, to be honest. Anyways, today I bring a three-story series from the mid 60s about a super agent named Peter Baron. Too good to be believed, naturally, but hey!
  
  
• 02/01/2019 - Let us travel back to the 1970s for a comic book series (comic strip in the U.K.) about the 1940s. Mike Nelson is a British undercover agent, codename Eagle, working behind enemy lines on numerous missions, the first and most fascinating being an attempt to assassinate Hitler. Very Geoffrey Household but done under orders rather than personal whim. The artwork is darn good and the plotting is intense.
  
  
• 01/30/2019 - Today's new entry into the compendium is not a very friendly sort. He is a private eye who makes his living usually, such as it is, following wandering spouses and taking snapshots of them doing naughty things with people not their own. He is not a very friendly sort and lets people know that often enough but he is interesting and his actions draw the attention of those in the cloak-and-dagger world. Please welcome Mike Eastern.
  
  
• 01/28/2019 - Oh, what a fun series I introduce to the compendium today. I had such a great time with these two books (hopefully more soon) that they went by way too fast. J. R. Finn is an assassin for an unnamed group associated with the D.O.D. who loves to sail and spends all his free time onboard his boat. He's been doing so for quite a few years and has no desire to change but when he meets Mary Elizabeth he starts to think about his solo life maybe changing, even as the bodies start piling up around them both. I truly enjoyed these tales and think you will, too.
  
  
• 01/25/2019 - Let us travel back in time to the late 30s and early 40s. The lovely diminutive Annie Davvie McLean nee Davenport is a nurse who gets involved with murder, spies, treason, and treachery and who shows again and again she is one small, albeit small, cookie. Please welcome her to the compendium.
  
  
• 01/22/2019 - It's been a while since my last addition. I have been having a great time with this newest one, albeit going WAY back in time to do so. Back to 1912 for the first of the "spy" novels and back to the late 60s for when I first became totally hooked on Fu Manchu. Now, he is not the spy, obviously, although some might consider him 'eligible'. No, the gent who is the spy, or at least he will be officially connected with British Intelligence by the 4th book, is Sir Denis Nayland Smith.
  
  It was suggested to me some time ago that I add this series. I demurred. It was suggested again and I said I would 'eventually'. Now I've actually done it. Still lots more to add about the series, like my comments and the movies and TV show and the radio broadcasts but they will come. Eventually.
  
  
• 01/11/2019 - How about a nice government assassin on this chilly North Carolina day? Let's make this one be British but love American jazz. J. J. Stoner is the name of this former British Army sergeant who, when going a bit far in Iraq is offered a way out of his trouble - kill for us and all will be fine. Check out this fellow when you have a chance.
  
  
• 01/08/2019 - If you are looking for a light spy series with interesting characters and a fun set of problems, I have a good series for you today. I am not yet done with the books but I have read enough to want to talk about an actor during the late 30s-40s who is an action hero on the screen but not so much in real life who gets involved in spy work. Please welcome Jack Hunter to the compendium.
  
  
• 01/05/2019 - The recent addition, Jason King, has a spin-off series about a fellow agent-gone-rogue, Will Slater, who has decided roaming about the globe on his own is fun and who also seems to love the trouble he constantly gets into. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 01/04/2019 - Having recovered from my New Year's Eve celebrations (okay, since I only drank one non-alcoholic beer, it wasn't that much of a party) I am back at "work" reading and writing about more spy series. Today's entry into the compendium is from earlier in this decade and deals with an officer with the British Special Branch who goes up against Al Qaeda and an IRA splinter group. Please welcome David Hurst.
  
  
• 01/02/2019 - Lee Goldberg, writer and publisher extraordinaire, told me recently that the second in the Katy Touchfeather series was coming out soon. I just saw it bundled with the first book on Amazon. Great deal for a great series. I really recommend it for a hoot of a read.
  
  
• 12/30/2018 - Nearing the end of this year, one which brought me another ton of terrific books to enjoy, so much so that I now seem to have four or five "to-be-read" stacks, not to mention the backlog of ebooks. Such wonderful problems to have!!! Today I present a black-ops expert who, deciding he had had enough, quit. Trouble did not quit looking for him, though. Please welcome Jason King to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/28/2018 - As the year nears its end and I will soon have to get used to writing 2019 (usually becomes a habit around March), I bring you ... well, the author brings it to us ... a very well written and highly enjoyable set of stories about a German reporter helping British Intelligence in the early through mid years of the Nazi era. Please welcome Hannah Vogel to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/26/2018 - Happy Boxing Day! I present as a present another pretty darn good spy series from a man who over an extremely impressive writing career was able to give us several others as well as a whole lot of other books in other series in other fields of fiction. Christopher Nicole used a good number of aliases but this one was published under his own name. Please welcome Berkeley Townsend, agent with the British War Office's intelligence branch just before and after WWI.
  
  
• 12/24/2018 - Merry Christmas Eve Day - odd expression that has become part of our lexicon (mine at least). Today a two-adventure set of romantic novellas are presented. Thea & Max consists of Thea, a computer programmer, and Max, an agent. These are quick reads and pretty fun and I hope there will be more coming our way.
  
  
• 12/23/2018 - A really terrific comicbook spy series from the mid-to-late 70s Britain joins the compendium today. I have really enjoyed the terse, dramatic short stories told in graphic form and hope you will as well. Please welcome Dredger to the group but no hugs or handshakes, please. That is not quite his style.
  
  
• 12/22/2018 - We go again back in time to the early 50s and the early days of the Cold War with an American Intelligence agent fighting Commies in all parts of the globe before trading cloak and dagger for an infantry helmet during the Korean War. Say hello to Doug Grant.
  
  
• 12/17/2018 - A two-book young adult spy series joins the compendium today. It concerns a very capable teenager who finds himself, through no fault of his own, going up against all sorts of cloak and dagger bad guys. Please welcome Simon Eady.
  
  
• 12/14/2018 - This latest entry into the compendium is an odd short series about a young girl kidnapped at an early age from her ultra-bad terrorist mother by the U.S. government. Now evil mommy wants her back but the girl is not too thrilled with it. Told you it was odd. Please say hi to Abby Banks.
  
  
• 12/13/2018 - First Look at an exciting two-book (so far) series about an American operative named Eva Driscoll. This extremely capable and deadly assassin for the CIA is a part of the Tom Grey universe and she will interact with members of that series and with that of Andrew Harvey but this series is definitely her own. Check her out.
  
  
• 12/12/2018 - Today's entry into the compendium is a Canadian citizen of Asian descent who, having served in the most elite special forces that country produced is courted by a small group called Fidelistas to take the war on evil private. Please welcome Rayna Tan.
  
  
• 12/11/2018 - A 3-book series subtitled the Vendetta Trilogy joins the compendium today. This one deals with CIA operative turned private security consultant Josh Fallon and it has a lot of action and is quite fun to read. Check it out.
  
  
• 12/01/2018 - First Look at the Max Austin, aka the Russian Assassin, a former KGB hitman now trying to make a legal living in the West but up for an occasional job in his former profession when the cause is right.
  
  
• 11/24/2018 - We are moving WAY back in time today with the series about Stella Steele, a British stage star who goes up repeatedly against her father, Theordore Drost, a sleeper German saboteur. The series of short stories was published in 1917 but deals with events going on just before the Great War started.
  
  
• 11/23/2018 - Recovering from a WHOLE lot of great food made by my terrific cook of a wife and my two adult daughters. Lots of leftovers, too. My job had been to enjoy. And then do the dishes. A LOT of dishes. Now it is to add this 3-book series that started out seeming like a spy series and then didn't and then did again. I wavered a couple of times whether to add this and obviously ended on the 'yes' side. Here is the B-Squad, a team put together to combat terrorism and finding a whole different enemy to go after.
  
  
• 11/19/2018 - First Look at James Robb, an FBI agent who gets pulled by circumstances from his normal pursuit of bad men to the hunt for al-Qaeda. Check out this 3-book series.
  
  
• 11/18/2018 - From the past we pull a darned impressive two-book series about a British spy who travels the Nazi-controlled Europe as a famous clown in a popular circus. These books have definitely fallen into obscurity, IMHO, and they definitely do not deserve it. I read a lukewarm review of them describing them as melodrama and they do not really deserve that, either. The writing is very impressive and you really get to know the character and time passes quickly and enjoyable when you are in the world of Saxon Ashe, a name for both the character and the author.
  
  
• 11/17/2018 - Some time back I added a series that I really liked, and hoped for more, by Rachel Amphlett. It turns out that even before I was writing words of praise for that excellent series, she had put out another one also worthy of acclaim, this one being a trilogy. The main character is Eva Delacourt, a British agent trying to protect a young boy and determined to learn who killed her fiancée and is now after them. She is darn good and so is this series.
  
  
• 11/16/2018 - The early 50s in the comic book industry was a time of great change with many superheroes having already gone away and war stories as well as comedy filling the void. In the realm of spy stories, the Reds were the arch-enemy trying to destroy democracy. One stalwart bastion of defense with some amazingly good stories was Clark Mason. Read about him and check out his adventures here.
  
  
• 11/15/2018 - The Ides of November - no special significance in that but thought I would mention it. Today we travel back to 1968 and a television series which spawned a couple of books and a handful of comic books. The Freewheelers were three teenagers (two male and 1 female) who are co-opted by a MI-5 agent to help out on a case which then became several cases. This sounds suspiciously like a Mod Squad rip-off (two males and 1 female pushed into service for the police) but the British spy series came out in April of 1968 while the American crime drama was September of that year. Now, did one influence the other? The guru of television spy shows, Wesley Britton, does not mention it in his awesome Encyclopedia of TV Spies so perhaps not. Anyways, here are facts on the series to revisit.
  
  
• 11/14/2018 - A companion series to the Tom Gray series joins the compendium today. Andrew Harvey is an MI-5 agent who we first meet and get to like in the Gray books but who now has the opportunity to step out on his own. Please welcome him.
  
  
• 11/13/2018 - In 1972, Mattel wanted to introduce its Big Jim action figure in the UK but licensing issues caused it to rename the character. To help promote Mark Strong, they had published in Look-In Magazine a series of comic strip/book adventures, having the stories play out one two pages at a time over many weeks. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 11/12/2018 - Today's entrant into the compendium is a colleague, rival, arch-enemy, friend, and sometimes lover to Matt Drake, a fellow who joined here some time ago. Alicia Myles is in every one of Drake's adventures in one capacity or another but since she has been given her own set of books, she warrants her own mention. Please say howdy.
  
  
• 11/11/2018 - Today's entrant into the compendium comes from the days immediately after the end of World War II and shows the hope and concept of the brand new United Nations with a troubleshooter working under its authority. Please welcome UNO.
  
  
• 11/11/2018 - ?Happy? Veterans Day! Never quite sure on that one. For those of lucky enough to survive, happy, sure! For those we lost, not so much. How about "Proud Veterans Day"? Nah, not the right ring to it. Anyways, to my brothers and sisters with whom I had the honor of standing, thanks for having my back.
  
  
• 11/10/2018 - A fun series about a guy who was with the CIA in the beginning and then over time switches to Interpol but who stays enjoyable and interesting and a good way to escape for a couple hours each day joins the compendium today. Please welcome Johnny Walker, CIA agent turned Interpol operative.
  
  
  
• 11/09/2018 - It has been too long since I last posted a new series. I have been reading a ton but not writing anything. That stops tonight. Tonight I bring you a 4-book series about a kick-butt CIA assassin who is a blast to read about and to follow and I hope there are more books to come because I am a definitely fan. Please welcome Viper, aka Alina Maschik, to the compendium.
  
  
• 10/20/2018 - An interesting and rather unusual entrant today. Derry Greene is most definitely not a spy. He is a travel company's trouble-shooter. That's what his job description says but the kind of trouble he has to shoot more than qualifies him for membership.
  
  
• 10/18/2018 - I have held off a long time before bringing to the compendium this series because I know there will be more than one spy fiction lover who will chastise me for my relatively poor grade for an incredibly well written series by a master storyteller. However, since I want to eventually write about every spy series I know of, and this is one, I here and now bring you Victor Canning's Birdcage series. I hope you will be gentle with me.
  
  
• 10/17/2018 - After several suggestions and a fair amount of stubbornness on my part, I have changed my mind and added this latest entry. I had felt the series was a military one but it was pointed out quite well that when soldiers change into civvies to go on a mission, they are considered spies by the enemy. So, they fit. I have given this series the name most associated with it so please welcome the three men, Mallory, Stavros, and Miller, from The Navarone Series and the 4 books in it.
  
  
• 10/16/2018 - A fantastic four-book series joins the compendium today. We are back in modern times now with two analysts who work in the field as well and whose adventures were so captivating I read all four books straight through. I greatly enjoyed this series and hope for a lot more from the author. I think you will like him as well. Please welcome Mark Henshaw's Red Cell series starring Burke & Stryker.
  
  
• 10/15/2018 - Must be on a comic book kick this week. Third such entry in a row. Today we head back to the mid-60s and a very poorly named Tiffany Sinn. Poorly because the character got her start in a romance comic book, not an underground comic like you might expect from that name. The stories were actually quite good and I wished there had been more than the 3 we have.
  
  
• 10/13/2018 - A not very good short comic book series from the early 40s joins the compendium today. I chanced upon it while looking for something else so I took the time to read it and knew that I had to add it since it fit all the requirements. Unfortunately, the quality of the series really lacked so reading the stories was harder than I would have liked. Still, I present it to you for your consideration. Please welcome (nicely!) Madame Strange.
  
  
• 10/12/2018 - A couple days ago, I received an email from a gentleman who is translating "rare, foreign language Bond comics into English". I applaud his endeavors and happily share his website url with you. Please check it out and enjoy! It is www.comicsroyale.com and it is worth the visit.
  
  
• 10/11/2018 - Bit of a lull in my adding to the site though I have working (okay, wrong word) at learning a bunch more series so hopefully that will change. I say that again but it never does! Well, today I add from Canada a series about a secret agent working there during the middle to end of WWII. The series is a comicbook one which is not very good, IMHO, but any series from Canada is rare enough to be welcome just on that alone. Please welcome Guy Powers to the compendium.
  
  
• 10/04/2018 - We return to the 1940s in this newest entrant into the compendium. This series of historical spy mysteries is written today but takes place then and the author really has gone to great lengths to bring the realism to the pages and to not give the characters any benefit of the writer's hindsight. I am always impressed when the really good authors can pull this off and I would put Sarah Shaber in that category. Since she lives in the same city I do, I hope some day to meet her and thank her for the enjoyment I've gotten from these stories. Please welcome Louise Pearlie.
  
  
• 09/27/2018 - A pretty impressive historical spy novel concerning a young woman brave enough to go alone into Nazi-controlled Europe to spy on the enemy joins the compendium. It is written by a very talented and industrious Alexander Fullerton and concerns the intrepid Rosie Ewing. Please say hi!
  
  
• 09/23/2018 - The name of this new addition is Echelon 6 which is the name of the organization that the two main characters, John Clark and Mike Charles, work for. It is an 8-book series of wild rides and strange twists. Please welcome it (or them) to the compendium.
  
  
• 09/20/2018 - A series a couple of years old but new to me joins the compendium today. The storyline takes us back to the years leading up to and into the Second World War as we follow the Anglo-German actress Clara Vine as she operates as an agent in Berlin.
  
  
• 09/19/2018 - Wanted to mention to those who might not have noticed it that two very entertaining spy series from the past have recently been re-released in ebook format. Both are by the highly prolific author Philip McCutchan who was most famous for his historical adventure series (Cameron, Ogilvie, and Halfhyde to name three). He penned the Commander Esmonde Shaw spy series from 1960 to 1995 and the Simon Shard spy series from 1974 to 1992. Both of these are again available. He also did another series, James Packard, under a pseudonym but I have not seen those brought back yet.
  
  The Shaw series is very much in the James Bond style of action (more so at the beginning) while the Shard books are counter-intelligence in almost a police procedural mode.
  
  Back when I first added them to my site mucho years ago, I gave Shaw an A- and Shard a B+ even while stating I enjoyed the Shard books the best, proving that back then as now I was an odd duck. I am glad the series have not vanished into obscurity.
  
  
• 09/15/2018 - I haven't done a comic book spy series in a little while so I thought I would catch up. This one is from the early 40s and presents a Spy Smasher wannabee because he starts out as an eager army officer and then in the second issue he dons a skin-tight costume and go undercover as G-2 of the Army Intelligence. Good artwork. Decent stories. Goofy concept.
  
  
• 09/14/2018 - Still surviving Hurricane Florence which turned west and just pelted Raleigh with wind and rain. Neighbors on the coast and to the south of us are not so lucky and my prayers go out to them.
  
  Sitting at home with nothing to do but watch and wait and read (what a chore), I add a 2-book series (well, 4 actually) about operatives who have been excommunicated from service for one reason or another. They are given a chance at redemption by a man called the Administrator. They are The Excoms. Please say hi.
  
  
• 09/13/2018 - Getting ready for a visit from Hurricane Florence. Already annoyed my back and shoulder 'cause I be old and fat and not used to this. Oh well!
  First Look:Today I bring you a 6-book series about a "liar, a chameleon, a different person to everyone who meets him". Please welcome Lance Priest, aka Preacher.
  
  
• 09/08/2018 - A two-book series about a highly experience non-official cover operative for the CIA joins the compendium today. I had a lot of trouble with the first book but really liked the second so I have a good deal of hope for the series moving forward. Please welcome Michael Brennan.
  
  
• 09/07/2018 - A very easy and fun to read four-book series about a man I label as an Intelligence Consultant joins the compendium today. Jim Stillwater is an interesting man whose work takes him to different place around the world where he seems to find ways to get into the midst of trouble but is sharp enough, and has good friends to help, to get out of it in the end.
  
  
• 09/06/2018 - A frequent partner of Steve Berry's terrific Cotton Malone, today's entrant into the compendium gets her own mention because of having two adventures on her own, both well worth the read. Please welcome the highly resourceful and delightful Cassiopeia Vitt, a mouthful of a first name but one impressive lady to have at your side or covering your back.
  
  
• 09/05/2018 - A very enterprising woman who loves adventure and is present in a good number of the mission of Cotton Malone, {{Cassiopeia Vitt}, gets her own page due to having a couple solo tales of her own. I liked this character from the first time she saved Malone's behind and she has just gotten better over time. Please say hi!
  
  
• 09/02/2018 - A trilogy of short, very rapid-fire spy adventures written a few years ago but taking place in the turbulent Vietnam era joins the compendium today. Please welcome Jeff Fortner to the group.
  
  
• 09/01/2018 - A fun, over-the-top spy adventure series comes to the compendium today as we start a new month. There are six books in this series about two friends, one a CIA agent and the other a retired SpecOps who gets pulled back into duty. Please welcome Vlad & Jim to the fold.
  
  
• 08/23/2018 - Work has been very busy lately so it has been a while since I added something to the site. My addition today is a good one, though, and one that I am excited to pass along. Bianca St. Ives is a high-class thief who runs a security business in her non-stealing times. She never steals from her clients but tends to go after really big and really bad fish. She becomes a member of this compendium because her mysterious father, the man who trained her to be a world-class thief, is a former CIA assassin who was thought dead years ago. And she, well, she is very much wanted by the Agency as well, dead or alive. This is a highly enjoyable two-book series that has been waiting excitedly for the third. Check it out!
  
  
• 08/07/2018 - Many of the spy novels written during the 20s and 30s were a combination of espionage and murder mysteries. That is definitely the case for this early-runner in the genre. The two books written about Eileen 'Bundle' Brent are really the first two books in a larger series about Superintendent Battles but the two Brent books were spy-related and the rest not so much. Also, Brent is such a delightful and interesting character, she deserves her own place in spy-fi history.
  
  
• 08/04/2018 - The same man who gave us the series mentioned just before gives us this additional series about a music teacher who gets involuntarily involved with MI-6 and the Russians and the Mob and the Yanks and lots of things far worse than kids with no musical ability. Please say hi to the three-book series about John Ranger.
  
  
• 08/03/2018 - A five-book series about a former SBS operative and a woman running a security consultancy joins the compendium today. I really enjoyed the stories about Tregay & Lefévre and I think you will, too, if you like action and adventure and two people who do not want trouble but can handle it.
  
  
• 07/27/2018 - This past week, I have been reading and watching television. I have been reading, and really enjoying, a 4-novella series about two women, Eve Polastri and Villanelle. I have been watching a fantastic 8-episode Season 1 of Killing Eve which deals with two women, Eve Polastri and Villanelle. The novellas are the basis of the TV shows but they are different. And they are both well worth the time. I have named the series Eve Polastri but that is just me. The novellas are clearly aiming towards Villanelle as the main character while the television drama kinda, well, does and does not. Either way, the whole shebang is worth the time. I loved both!
  
  
• 07/21/2018 - A pugilist from the early 40s joins the compendium. Don Glory is a heavy-weight boxing champion who hangs up his gloves (usually) to please his fiancée and takes out his frustrations on Nazi Fifth Columnists in this 19-adventure comic book series.
  
  
• 07/20/2018 - An FBI agent who has a sideline as a terrorist assassin under the direction of the President joins the compendium today. There are, so far, three books in the series which take him from being a highly successful "ghost" thwarting an impressive number of plots about the US to being a hunted man accused of terrorism himself. Please welcome Rowan Milani.
  
  
• 07/19/2018 - From the pages of the British action comic Top Secret Picture Library over four decades ago comes a 4-adventure series about a swinging man-about-town who is hired by the ultra-secret Department Q. Please welcome Jayson Wilde to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/17/2018 - Five days of 90 degree heat and no a/c at home. Lots of trips to stores buying little but enjoying their cool. Finally repairman came to our rescue! So today I give a First Look at a pair of agents for a hush-hush organization called Cerberus. Please welcome Falk and Koski.
  
  
• 07/15/2018 - Hello, Ides of July! It is hot here in NC and my AC is busted. Fans are going like crazy and when my wife asks if I want to go shopping with her, I think of the air conditioned stores and say, "why not!" In the meantime, I present to you a so-far 4-book adventure series about a pilot contracted by a couple of CIA agents to do pilot stuff for them. That stuff invariably means almost getting killed. Please welcome a very entertaining Colin Pearce to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/14/2018 - First Look at Cal Jardine, a British soldier-of-fortune who gets pulled into the shadowy world of espionage, not liking it so much but going there nonetheless.
  
  
• 07/13/2018 - A few days ago I added to this compendium the two-book series about Rick Kasten. Today I introduce that author's four-book (so far) series about a different individual who is brought into the cloak-and-dagger world in pre-WWII Europe. It is pretty darned interesting so far. Please welcome Harry Braham and do check him out.
  
  
• 07/08/2018 - On my last day before officially turning a year older, I bring a series written a half decade ago about a man operating some eight decades ago. The time is 1939 and the place is Europe. The man is a ship owner named Rick Kasten who gets involved in a fair amount of cloak and dagger work in addition to running a business.
  
  
• 07/05/2018 - Today's entrant is an ongoing series about a group of highly intelligent people solidly established in their own careers but pulled in on an ad hoc basis by the CIA. Interesting characters presented in a way that lets you get to know the people and how and why they interact as they do with each other. I named the series after the one I consider to be the main character, Martina Jung, but there are several in the group worthy of attention.
  
  
• 07/04/2018 - Happy Birthday, America!!! 242, if my math is correct. Hopefully many, many, many more to come.
  Today's entry into the compendium comes from Britain, however. It marks a significant change for me as well because the spy in this 2-book series from the mid-70s is an industrial spy. Being very good at his job means not being a very good guy because you flat out cannot trust him, ever. And yet you can trust the terrific author who got his training crafting these tales - Ken Follett. Please welcome the ruthless but entertaining Piers Roper.
  
  
• 07/02/2018 - Welcome to July. Hot and humid here in NC. Normal summer weather. Still like living here, though. Beats the winter blizzards in SD. Well, today's entry into the compendium is a very interesting and downright enjoyable series about a former Special Forces soldier turned soldier of fortune who ends up working for some very powerful people doing some very dangerous stuff. High octane and loads of fun. Please welcome the oddly named but quite deadly Stetson Culp.
  
  
• 06/30/2018 - As we say goodbye to June, let us move back in time. Quite a ways back, actually. More than a century. The year is 1911 and the world is just a couple of years and a couple of assassin bullets from the First World War. One agent is hard at work to keep France and England ready for what he is certain is about to happen, though he hopes he is wrong. Now, there are a fair number of series written for this time period but this one was written then so it is not a historical spy series. It is modern (for its time). Please welcome Hugh Morrice to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/29/2018 - An enjoyable two-book series from nearly a decade ago joins the compendium. It involves an interesting British gent of Indian Muslim descent who is a member of Group 8. I am enjoying them and you might check them out as well. Please welcome Ashraf Khan.
  
  
• 06/28/2018 - First Look at a five-book series about a tech analyst who gets involved in a whole lot more action than she would ever have thought learning her craft. What I have read so far makes me want to read more. Please welcome Alex Hoffman to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/27/2018 - I take no pleasure in this next entry. That is two unsavory entries this month. Not a great month in that regard. Today's reluctant and unpleasant addition to the compendium comes from 1992 and is a 3-issue pornographic comicbook series about Jane Bondage. The name says enough, don't you think? I apologize ahead of time.
  
  
• 06/24/2018 - A 9-book (and 1 short story) [so far] series about a former CIA operative who lots of people want dead and who in turns makes a whole lot of people no longer breathing comes to the compendium. Please welcome Chuck Brandt.
  
  
• 06/23/2018 - First Look at a reporter who does a whole lot more than just write about injustice. Dylan Hunter has some unique skills that let him do some interesting things and an internal drive that won't let him not do them. And then there is his love, Annie, who really works for the CIA and is involved in hunting down the mysterious vigilante making the news. When the series starts, he does not know the truth about her and she most definitely does not know the truth about him.
  
  
• 06/21/2018 - Happy Summer Solstice! 98° and 80% humidity where I be today. My choice to live in North Carolina, of course. I bring to the compendium today a series that takes place largely in Saudi Arabia so my mentioning the heat seems appropriate. The entry I present is from 2011-2013 and consists of 3 full-length adventures and 1 novella, all telling the life story of a pretty fascinating woman named Sasha Del Mira.
  
  
• 06/19/2018 - Way way back in time we travel today to find a series that, luckily for us, is available yet again in ebook format. Being well into the public domain, there are several versions of it available and most are inexpensive. His is not the earliest spy series but it comes pretty close and is important for that. Please welcome Gerry Sant, more commonly known as Sant of the Secret Service.
  
  
• 06/18/2018 - As I mention in my write-up for the series being entered today, it is not unusual in spy fiction for a spy to go undercover as a journalist. This series has a protagonist who really is a journalist - until he becomes a spy. Please welcome the four-book series about Michael Vaux.
  
  
• 06/16/2018 - A young-adult series from the 1960s joins the compendium today. These books were very popular back in the day but now are quite expensive. Luckily the first three have been recently reprinted by a UK company (Girls Gone By Publishing). As yet I have found no evidence of ebook versions though I hope they will be available because my bookshelves are crammed full. Anyways, this series deals with a author who is really a spy and his college-age nephew who travels with him on "vacations". Please welcome this 7-book series about Marston Baines.
  
  
• 06/15/2018 - Welcome to the Ides of June. Not quite as foreboding as those in March. I bring you a two-book series from a half-decade ago by a man who knows a thing or three about espionage thrillers. Howard Gordon was the long-time executive producer of 24 and the co-creator of the incredible Homeland. He wrote the series mentioned here about an American international negotiator who gets involved in some pretty nasty business. Please welcome Gideon Davis to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/10/2018 - I bring you a trilogy today. Three books that make up the adventures of fix-it man turned part-time agent for an international crime-fighting organization. Meet Roman Solaire.
  
  
• 06/09/2018 - I present today a series that, as I mention in my write-up, breaks my own rule: I have not read it. The books are far beyond my budget ($50 - $150). But I have a fair amount of information from other sources to let me know that I really do not want to know much more. I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I decided for the heck of it and for the sake of being a complete a compendium of spy series as I can, to include it so please say hello to the highly sexed entertainer Amanda Curzon. And let me know if you know more about her.
  
  
• 06/08/2018 - First Look at British ex-pat doctor Peter Senden who finds himself working part-time for MI-5.
  
  
• 06/07/2018 - A 2-book series about "The Squad" joins the compendium. The term 'squad' could mean lots of different things, many of them military in nature but in this case it refers to (wait for it!) cheerleaders. Ah, yep! Perky peppy pom-pom pushers are to be lusted after by young boys, cheered with from the bleachers, and totally discounted as anything of a threat. Which is why in this series, they make some darn good secret agents.
  
  This short, entertaining young-adult series is fun and does not take itself too seriously. It does let you into the life of computer hacker forced into being a cheerleader, Toby Klein, and the reader gets to watch her turn slowly into one very good covert operative. And cheerleader.
  
  
• 06/02/2018 - So often I can hardly wait to introduce a series because I enjoyed it so much. This is NOT one of those cases. I enter it into the compendium because that is what I do. I tell you up front it is a blessedly short comicbook series from decades ago. Say hello to Secret Agent 2B-3. But do not plan on spending much time with him.
  
  
• 06/01/2018 - Happy Anniversary to my delightful and much understanding bride of far more years than we can believe. I love you, my dear. Thanks for tolerating me for so long.
  Now, on to today's entry. I bring you a wonderfully entertaining series that keeps me grinning with each new adventure. And there have been 17 so far. I started reading these at #2. Why I took so long (couple of years) to write about them, who knows! At long last, I give you The Housewife Assassin and her many guides to all sorts of things you things you never knew you needed to know.
  
  
• 05/31/2018 - First Look at Nick West. This 3-book series from 2010-2012 revolves around a quite capable young agent with the DHS.
  
  
• 05/30/2018 - FIRST LOOK: A new feature to cover-up the fact that I am falling so far behind in my entries. I will give the details of the books as I know them and a brief explanation of the series as I take this "first look" at them. No My Comments or Grade until I know more.
  
  
• 05/29/2018 - Today I bring you two Scoops of spy adventures, both from the start of the 1940s. Two different comic book publishers included in their anthologies reporters who were bringing America the news from war zones just before the U.S. entered the action. Neither series lasted very long but both had some good points to them, enough to take the time to read the few tales available. Please welcome Scoop Mason and Scoop Daley to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/27/2018 - Back from a mini-vacation trip with my wife - she to meet with her iris-growing friends and I to sit and read (tough life). One of the series I enjoyed was the two-book series about CIA agent turned Texas Ranger turned CIA agent again, Ike Blass. Good solid tales. You should check him out.
  
  
• 05/20/2018 - Quite some time ago, a fellow spy-fan, Matthew, asked me about Poul Anderson's futuristic spy series. At the time I was only dealing with WWII-to-present so I declined. When I recently expanded my reach, he again asked and now, thanks to him and to the fantastic writing of a true sci-fi giant, I present to you a sci-spy-fi treat, if you did not already know about him. Please welcome to the compendium the terrific Dominic Flandry, a man-about-town debonair and resourceful agent who first came out two years before James Bond.
  
  
• 05/18/2018 - An interesting, fast 3-book series about a female agent working for Control (no, not the same as Maxwell Smart) against a group with the clever name of Cabal joins the compendium today. Please welcome Betty Thursten, aka the Betty Chronicles.
  
  
• 05/18/2018 - Fellow spy-fan and contributor, Robert, has been kind enough to update me on one of my favorite series, that of William Holmes, a recipient of a grade of "A" by me. A couple weeks ago he let me know of a 7th book in the series, "The Second Red Dragon", which is now available in ebook format. Today he told me of the 8th book, "Contact!", which is still only available in used paperback. Bit red-faced here. To miss one is a shame. To miss two is ... well ... Thanks, Robert!
  
  
• 05/16/2018 - A fascinating entry to the compendium is presented here today. This character is a lot of fun to watch but even more interesting perhaps are the people he will run up against. I am very impressed with how well the author brought out these other characters and made them important to the story and interesting to boot. Even the not-so-nice people. Good writing. Please then welcome Steve Baldwin.
  
  
• 05/14/2018 - After what I considered a very interesting series from before WWII, one that I liked, I present another one from near that time but one that was not as enjoyable. It was not bad. It just was not good. Nevertheless, please welcome this 5-issue comic book series about Steve Battle.
  
  
• 05/12/2018 - Every now and then I come across a gem that I relish telling people about. Of course, I know that often this shining jewel is known to lots of other people but I still delight in yelling about it. In today's case, I do not know how many people remember the author, Patricia Wentworth, because she left us more than a half-century ago. I knew of her from years ago reading several of her Miss Silver books but until recently with the release in ebook format of her novels, I did not know at all about Benbow Smith. Both, what a pleasant surprise it was to hear of then then enjoy the daylights out of these books. Please welcome this fascinating spy-master to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/09/2018 - This newest entrant into the compendium comes with very little fanfare because it deserves none. Not a good series at all. At least it is blessedly short. Take a quick ganger as the comic book series Spade of the Secret Service. That is as long as it deserves.
  
  
• 05/07/2018 - A few years ago I was asked by a fellow spy-fan if I was planning to add this next series to the compendium. I said no. Well, I changed my mind. Coming to us from the past (60's) is a series about a futuristic secret agent who comes and goes all the time. Literally. Please welcome Hannibal Fortune, Agent Of T.E.R.R.A.. And his sidekick Webley.
  
  
• 05/04/2018 - Happy Star Wars Day! My entry for today has nothing to do with Luke or Han or Leia (although I am a bit psyched about the upcoming movie Solo). Today we welcome a 5-book series about a law professor who most definitely was not always a professor. He likes being a professor, though, and would not mind too much if the world would let him just be that. The world will not and so Creed Emerson gets involved in several exciting adventures. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/03/2018 - Sometimes I can be so slow. I have had this series on the digital shelf for far too long, always planning to get to it 'soon'. Well, if I had known how well written and enjoyable it was, I would have made soon actually be soon. Please welcome this 3-book series about a US Army officer turned CIA agent Matt Gannon to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/02/2018 - Moving on after my celebration yesterday. Today I present a two-book series about an agent for the CIA and two major parts of his career/life. The first is in Laos at the beginning of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. The second is in El Salvador over a decade later as the Soviet Union and Cuba help bring in a communist government to Nicaragua and are looking earnestly at its neighbors. Very well-written series I am enjoying a lot. Please welcome Peter Ivorson to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/01/2018 - 1000 !! Wow! When I first started this compendium, I knew there were at least a couple hundred series out there, many in obscurity perhaps. I was stunned and amazed and thrilled when I reached the 500 mark. I actually scoffed when a fellow fan, Johny, mentioned I would be hitting 700 soon ("I doubt it very much", I told him). Now here we are. 1000! When a while back I saw I was easily going to hit this millennial moment, I knew I wanted to make that entry a special one and I believe I have done that. The 1000th series concerns the actions of what is, as of this writing, the very earliest true spy series I have found; i.e., a man whose job is actually to be an espionage agent. I may find others that came before but in this moment, it is the first that I know about. Please then celebrate this moment with me and welcome Newton Moore, agent with the British Secret Service Fund who had 6 entertaining adventures told in magazine format at the turn of the century, 1900.
  
  
• 04/30/2018 - As we near a milestone for my site, I present the 999th series to this compendium. I chose for this almost prestigious position a less than prestigious series that I really enjoyed because I am very much, well, "me". Please welcome Carter Brown's 4-book adventure with Paul Donavan international adventurer. He is a hoot.
  
  
• 04/29/2018 - As I head off to watch the new Avengers movie, I offer this comic book spy from the other side of the aisle (DC versus Marvel, in case you wondered). From 1950 to today, King Faraday has been an agent who makes women swoon and men growl. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/25/2018 - Back into the past and into the comicbook realm again for today's entry. The year is 1940 and the U.S. has not been drawn into the fight yet but it is coming. German U-boats are harassing shipping and the Japanese are out to grab all of the Far East Pacific region. Helping protect our allies is Spike Mason, a Naval Intelligence agent undercover as the First Mate of a cargo vessel. Standard fare but not bad and worth the few minutes to read each of 8 adventures. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/24/2018 - What a delightful series I bring to the compendium today. I have had such a terrific time over the past couple of weeks listening to the adventures of Aussie agent Alby Murdoch driving to and from work that it made the traffic totally bearable. Of course, people in cars next to me might have wondered a time or two why that old fella was laughing but hey! It was a fun, exciting, interesting, and worthwhile three books. Please welcome this DED-head (read or listen to the books, or read my write-up).
  
  
• 04/23/2018 - After yesterday's strange entry (good writing, excellent characterization, too weird for my tastes), I move to something far tamer and palatable. This new entry is a Secret Service agent who, though he does not really do a whole lot of spy work, does call himself a "Secret Agent". Please welcome the comicbook series Johnny Dale.
  
  
• 04/22/2018 - My fellow spy fan, Johny Malone from Argentina, sent me an email suggesting the inclusion of the Commander Amanda series of spy novels set in WWII. I owned the first two of these but really had not wanted to revisit them. But, as much as I disliked them back when I bought them two decades ago, I decided to get it over with and add the series. Warning! I hated the series and gave it one of my lowest grades not for the writing, which is really really good but for the content which was beyond my ability to take.
  
  
• 04/21/2018 - A double-header today because both of these series are related. There is actually a third series in the group but I have not yet read the third and got impatient to add these two. So, please welcome The Disavowed, a series about three CIA agents who were forced out of the Agency and then just cannot keep from getting into trouble. And say hello to Matt Drake, a former SAS chap who becomes a major part of a secret agency called SPEAR.
  
  
• 04/20/2018 - I received this exciting news from my friend, Mike Ripley, at Ostara Publishing:
  First published in 1970, Kenneth Royce’s thriller The XYY Man introduced a new anti-hero into the world of spy and crime fiction and despite the rather questionable premise behind the main character, Spider Scott, the book launched a popular television series which spawned not one but two distinct spin-offs.
  
  The unique aspect of XYY Man Spider Scott – said to be based on a professional criminal Kenneth Royce met whilst a prison visitor – is that he is blessed, or cursed, with an extra male ‘Y’ chromosome in his genetic make-up. This predisposes him to a life of crime, which was in fact a common theory in the late 1960s, though there was little – if any – scientific evidence for this.
  
  Whatever his genetics, Scott is a ‘creeper’ or cat burglar and a very good one, so good that his talents come to the notice of British Intelligence when a dangerous piece of house breaking is called for – the ‘house’ in question being the Chinese Legation in London. Unfortunately, Spider is also firmly on the radar of Detective Sergeant Bulman and it was this antagonistic relationship which was not only the mainstay of the 1976 television series The XYY Man but allowed the Bulman character to develop in the spin-off police series Strangers in 1978 and then to star in his own series as a private eye, in Bulman in 1985.
  
  Kenneth Royce (1920-1997) wrote seven Spider Scott novels and, later, three novels featuring Alf Bulman. Top Notch Thrillers is proud to be able to reissue the first two novels, The XYY Man (which has been out-of-print for more than 20 years) and the immediate sequel, The Concrete Boot from 1971.
  
  
• 04/13/2018 - Happy Friday the 13th! Okay, no one ever really says that so let's pretend I didn't just type it. I come today with a series that I say in my write-up may not even be a real series and if it is, it hardly deserves that much attention. Still, it is my goal to bring forward any and all spy series I find in print. In keeping with that self-imposed obligation, I give you Super Spy 5Y-8R. Yeah, I had never heard of him before either.
  
  
• 04/11/2018 - Happy Birthday to my beautiful bride. Though we are both now old enough for Social Security (that can NOT be right!) she still gladdens my heart and is, as always, my best friend.
  
  Okay! Enough mushy stuff! Today I present a 10-issue comic book intelligence agent from 1939. I describe him as plain vanilla, which he is, but sometimes I like vanilla. Please welcome Skip Schuyler to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/07/2018 - Today I present a two-book series that is not a series. As I write in My Comments, it is not a series in the traditional sense but it does come close enough to qualify for me adding it. Carruthers is the name of the main character and thus the name of the series but he is largely absent in the second adventure. It would not have taken place, however, without his influence.
  
  Then you throw in the fact that the first adventure, The Riddle of the Sands was written in 1903 and the follow-up, The Shadow in the Sands came out almost one hundred years later. It kinds throws a wrench into the cogs of a normal series.
  
  But it does give me a chance to add one of the greatest spy thrillers, and certainly one of the first, into my compendium so I happily present it here.
  
  
• 04/06/2018 - Yesterday I added the ten-book series (more if you count the side novels) about Bob Lee Swagger. Today I add the (so-far) two books about another sniper who turns out to be related to Swagger, Ray Cruz. I enjoyed the Cruz novels as much as I did the Swagger ones and I think you will, too. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/05/2018 - A fellow spy fan sent me a quick question from his I-Phone wondering why I did not have Bob Lee Swagger as one of the people in the compendium. I started to come up with a reason or two and then realized he was right. Swagger deals with numerous problems that should qualify him and besides, I have enjoyed several Bob Lee adventures over the year. I even enjoyed the Mark Wahlberg movie about the character. So! Here he is in the group. If you have not already, please check him out.
  
  
• 04/02/2018 - Today I bring to the compendium a light romance spy series which I dub Adam & Anna as does Amazon but which the author has called the "A Spy Is ..." series. A single word description for the series is "rabbits". Read my comments and you will see why.
  
  
• 03/31/2018 - As this strange March comes to an end, I bring a strange tale of a Bedouin girl turned Israeli attorney turned Mossad agent. As my write-up will indicate, I didn't always understand what was happening or why but I couldn't put the book down which says something for it. Please welcome Abigail to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/25/2018 - Okay! Very interesting series for admittance to the compendium today. It is from 1969 and has two books in it about a black agent for an American intelligence outfit called SINTRAC. What makes it interesting, and I mostly use the term tongue-in-cheek, is that it was published by a soft-core publisher and is likely to have been considered a "dirty book" but it kinda also isn't. I had not heard of it until my pal from Argentina, Johny Malone, clued me into it. Please welcome Jeff Lawton.
  
  
• 03/24/2018 - On the heels of the previous entry, I bring a follow-up series by the same author, this one involving a co-star in that character's adventure but now off on his own and deserving his own entry. Please say hi to former Delta and now CIA agent Gregg Kaplan.
  
  
• 03/23/2018 - A four-book series about a former Naval Intelligence officer turned NTSB investigator turned CIA operative (man likes career moves, apparently) joins the compendium. The first book is interesting but a tad uneven but worth the time. Then the series gets better so hang in there. Do give it a try, though, and say hello to Jake Pendleton.
  
  
• 03/18/2018 - Accomplished spy author Gayle Lynds, who gave us a 2-book series about Liz Sansborough at the turn of this century and then contributed 3 books early on in the Covert-One series life, has given us another 2-book (so far) series about a very capable operative named Judd Ryder. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/16/2018 - As I celebrate my youngest's 26th birthday (how can someone as young as I have a daughter over a quarter-century old?), I bring mention to you of one fantastic series of short stories that I just finished and want so much to tell you about.
  
  
  Charlie Dark is a wonderfully unique character created back in 1978. [Odd coincidence, I had just turned 26 that year - spooky!] He was created by the very good and highly productive author Brian Garfield who had created a terrific Edgar-winning novel Hopscotch a couple years before and wanted to continue in the same "world" of that books's characters. The main character in the book does not appear in the Dark stories but that is quite alright. Charlie Dark is such a unique and entertaining guy on his own. Trust me when I say that Charlie is worth his own weight in gold and when you read the stories (or my write-up) you will see that weight is substantial.
  
  
  Please welcome this highly-recommended fellow to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/10/2018 - My good friend and fellow spy-fan, Johny Malone tipped me to an interesting fact, himself having heard of it from a friend of his named Steve. My thanks to both. The fact is that in 1959, there was a single spy book put out under the penname of Duncan Tyler involving a businessman named Phil Sherman who gets involved in all sorts of things behind the Iron Curtain. The same Phil Sherman who almost 10 years later would become the star of a long-running spy series called Secret Mission. For fun, check out my revised comments in that page's Books section.
  
  
• 03/09/2018 - I was a huge, huge fan of Robert Wagner's It Takes A Thief tv show back in the late 60's. The idea of a thief working for the government was so cool, as was Al Mundy. Apparently J. A. Devereaux thought the same way because she took the concept and made it her own. Please welcome Gregg Hadyn, infamous jewel thief and now unwilling thief-for-the-government, in a so-far 7 book series.
  
  
• 03/04/2018 - Just saw Red Sparrow. I had seen three lackluster reviews of it but since I love the book series so much, I could not not go see it. Plus it had the terrific Jennifer Lawrence in it. I enjoyed the movie. A lot. I would not recommend it to non-spy fans because it was in its own way as dark and somber as the books but I would not have expected, or liked, it any other way.
  
  
• 03/03/2018 - Heading into the past again with another comicbook spy, this time another agent with Military Intelligence. These were fairly normal fare for the 30's but they have some interesting stories. I invite you to check out the tales as well as my write-up of Wings Wendall.
  
  
• 02/22/2018 - Even as I start the third book in the terrific Egorova & Nash series, I just finished the seventh book in the Stephen Grant saga. I mention this because I have revised my comments on that latter storyline and upped my grade. I planned on stopping after the second book but then moved to the third and then the fourth and so on until I had read everything. This series about a practicing Lutheran pastor who used to be a CIA operative and still gets drawn into the action is ... unique. Obviously I loved it. Cannot say whether you will but I hope you give it a try.
  
  
• 02/17/2018 - What a fascinating series I add to the compendium today. Reaching back to 1925 (my math says that is 93 years ago) we find the extremely talented Francis Beeding give us his (really their) first book, The Seven Sleepers, in the Réhmy & de Blanchegarde series. I have such high regard for this pair of authors who are much too unknown today. This is the first of three spy series they gave us in their 20 years of writing.
  
  
• 02/12/2018 - Just wanted to leave a note to say that with the latest incredible book in the Orphan X series, I have raised my grade to A+. It just keeps getting better. I am so impressed with it. I would love to hear your opinions.
  
  
• 02/11/2018 - A fellow spy-fan, William, sent me a terrific email about spy series and included a simple query as to why John Clark did not have his own mention in this compendium. After a "hmmm" moment, I decided he should have one so jumped on it while watching Olympic curling. It was then I was surprised how many books he was actually in. Not only were there two books about him but he was in several books in the Jack Ryan series and in several of the Jack Ryan, jr series. Impressive. And lots of work. Luckily there are a lot of curling to watch.
  
  
• 02/10/2018 - FIRST LOOK: A new feature to show a series that I have not yet read but want to point out. Today it is H. B. Moore's Omar Zagouri, an Israeli agent who seems to specialize in artifact crime but gets into all sorts of trouble.
  
  
• 02/09/2018 - An interesting three-book series about a female British agent joins the compendium today. Please say hello to Agent Ginger, aka Amanda Charlton.
  
  
• 02/05/2018 - For your cloak and dagger dancing pleasure, I give you Victoria Schmitt, aka Dancer. She can charm you up close and blow you away from a distance. Interesting gal. Please welcome her to the compendium
  
  
• 01/27/2018 - I do not give many "A" grades. A good number of "A-", I'll admit, but not too many "A" considering how many series I have read and how long I have been doing this. And hardly any "A+". Roughly 3% have earned that grade. The series I present today got that A+. It almost made the vaunted "A++" and may well get it if the third book is anywhere as good as the first two. I cannot say enough good about the Egorova & Nash series.
  
  Now, that is my name for the series. Dominika Egorova is the main star but without the terrific Nathaniel Nash it would be missing and believe me, this book misses nothing. If you have not yet found how terrific this series is, do so as soon as you can. It is that awesome!
  
  
• 01/23/2018 - A series that I was not certain when I started truly belonged in this compendium is today's entrant. Even after I had read as much as I did, I am still not sure. Nevertheless, I present it, albeit reluctantly. Say hello to Lexa Lash, a kill people. Read the write-up and you might understand. Probably won't, though, because I don't.
  
  
• 01/12/2018 - A member of the U.S. Secret Service who gets involved in all sorts of intrigue far outside the normal line of work for his profession is today's entrant into the compendium. I do not rank this series very high for a couple of reasons but I strongly recommend you try it out to see for yourself. Please welcome Wayne Mitchell.
  
  
• 01/08/2018 - I bring to the compendium a 5-book series from the 80s-90s. This one deals with a mercenary who gets involved in all sorts of international intrigue and the like, taking on some pretty heavy hitters. From the first book, Man on Fire, has come three good movies but the book was, as usual, even better and the rest of the series is just as terrific. Please welcome Creasy.
  
  
• 01/05/2018 - We head back in time to the beginnings of the 50s and return to comicbook spies for this quite interesting and very well traveled Treasury agent. As I say in my write-up about this T-Man joins the compendium because of his many escapades fighting Communists around the world. Please say hello to Pete Trask.
  
  
• 01/03/2018 - My Wednesday offering is a action-spy movie series with book novelizations. I freely admit to a lot of enjoyment of these testosterone-laden flics. All the things I could never have done. Please welcome the unique (and unreal but still fun) Xander Cage, aka xXx.
  
  
• 01/01/2018 - Happy New Year!!! I start this new one with a resolution (something I gave up ages ago) to be faster at adding series than I have been. I doubt if I will keep it for long but who knows!
  
  Anyways, to start the year off right, here is a terrifically fun adventure spy series that I have enjoyed the daylights out of. Please welcome the highly resourceful Zeb Carter and his cadre of interesting friends.
  
  
• 12/12/2017 - In 1988 in India, a famed comic book line which had been in existence for two decades was coming to an end. It had published new and old stories of adventure with no one character dominating the series. One of the last characters to have his story told was the dashing and resourceful agent of Indian Intelligence, a man known as Dara. Please welcome him to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/08/2017 - A really good and enjoyable series from Rachel Amplett joins the compendium today. I have had fun with three of the four books available so far and am starting the last one today but wanted to let you know how much I liked Dan Taylor. Please welcome him.
  
  
• 12/05/2017 - An interesting series joins the compendium today. It is about a man named Carl Logan. He is also known as James Ryker. Both are the same man but the first three books are about him when he was known as Logan and the second three concern him after he becomes Ryker. Whatever he calls himself, though, he makes for a fun adventure.
  
  
• 11/30/2017 - Fellow spy fan David H. emailed to let me know that ebook versions of Cherry Delight (the Sexecutioner) and the Lady From L.U.S.T. (Eve Drum) have started to be made available. Much of the work of the author, Gardner F. Fox, are hitting the e-shelves including his excellent sword and sorcery series. I am so psyched! Thanks, David, for the tip.
  
  
• 11/28/2017 - Just learned today (I be slow these days!) that the terrific Johnny Fedora series is being re-issued. The fourth in the series, Intrigue (previously published in America as Trieste) is just out. Already out are Secret Ministry (apa The Nazi Assassins), This Traitor, Death (apa The Gestapo File), and Dead Man Falling (apa The Hitler Diamonds).
  
  I have been a Johnny Fedora fan since I first read him in the early 70s and he is still exciting today. Check him out!
  
  
• 11/25/2017 - Happy Thanksgiving Weekend! Today's entrant is another comic book series from the past, or so I thought when I first looked at it. It was also a very small one, being but 4 issues. THEN I started researching and was quite surprised. There was a young adult novel. There was a movie. There were several dozen radio programs. Color me awed. Here for your enjoyment is Secret Agent K-7 and his companions.
  
  
• 11/16/2017 - Tim Stevens, the terrific writer who has given us the compelling John Purkiss series, has yet another hero in the Intelligence business worth following. Please welcome Martin Calvary to the compendium as he joins with a 3-book set of really well-crafted adventures.
  
  
• 11/15/2017 - For those of you who have not yet found the extremely interesting and enjoyable spy fiction site, Spybrary.com, do yourself a huge favor and check it out. If you like spy fiction, you are certain to like the interviews Shane has. Lots of variety giving lots of good suggestions.
  
  
• 11/13/2017 - Fixed a bad entry on a darn good series, James Flynn. Name misspelled and pictures missing. Tad embarrassing. My apologies to the author.
  
  
• 11/13/2017 - A very pleasant and enjoyable series about a young man who wanted to be a Marine and ended up an agent joins the compendium today. There are three books in the group so far and I enjoyed each of them. Please welcome Jack Knight to the collection.
  
  
• 11/11/2017 - A Veterans Day greeting to you all. Today we welcome a humorous 5-book series into the compendium. Please say hello to Paul Blaine, agent of COVERT.
  
  
• 10/30/2017 - A kick-butt young woman is the latest entrant into the compendium. Holly Lin has a tendency to go off on her own mission tangents which seldom go as desired but which are darned interesting to follow. Please politely say hello to her.
  
  
• 10/29/2017 - I have made a preliminary entry for the comicbook/popular movie the Kingsman. It is not quite done as I iron out how to write up the differences between the two mediums but what I got is now on the site.
  
  
• 10/14/2017 - A fellow spy-fi fan, Erin Carere, sent me a kind note telling me how she likes this site (thank you, my dear!) and letting me know about a project she has underway. The very talented Ms. Carere is an actress/comedian/writer who is working on a "spy parody/screwball comedy about two rival international spies. Think Moonlighting meets Austin Powers!" It is called Spy v SpiaYou can view it at here on YouTube. If you like it, she has a Kickstarter in place. Check it out and other things she has been involved in and be as impressed and entertained as I was.
  
  
• 10/12/2017 - An interesting and very enjoyable 3-book series about a tech CEO who gets involved in all sorts of international trouble is the latest member of the compendium. Please welcome Clint Masters, head of CATSAT. And welcome an author who wrote a series interesting enough to hold me for all three stories.
  
  
• 10/09/2017 - A very interesting and so-far enjoyable 4-book series about a crisis manager for the State Department, married to an experienced CIA operative, joins the compendium today. Please welcome Judd Ryker.
  
  
• 10/08/2017 - From the mid-60s on the heels of a very successful Man From U.N.C.L.E. comes a short series for young adults. Please welcome Rod Renton to the compendium. He is aided by his partner Mat Malloy but Renton is the star.
  
  
• 10/05/2017 - A visitor to the site, John Davis, has kindly informed me of a non-fiction book about his "reflections on 'secret wars, espionage, and terrorism' during the Cold War and its bloody aftermath". He thought other visitors to this site might be interested and I agree. You can find his book on Amazon at Rainy Street Stories.
  
  
• 09/30/2017 - The lovely Jet Dream and her stunt-lady counter-spies is the newest entrant in the compendium and she is a lot of fun to follow. Please welcome her and enjoy the adventures.
  
  
• 09/26/2017 - A very enjoyable seven-book series is the latest entry to the compendium. The Old Spy series is the name the publisher gives it and the name fits as the main character is by no mean young. But he is darn smart and he gets a cadre of very smart people to work with him. Please welcome MacKenzie Roberts and do take a chance on this series. It is worth it.
  
  
• 09/18/2017 - The same author who has given us the quite enjoyable Brady Hawk series mentioned just a couple of days ago also gives us a reporter/former CIA agent named James Flynn. These books are also a lot of fun and you should check them out.
  
  
• 09/16/2017 - Sitting for far too long on my virtual stack of unread series is this really, really fun action-packed series from an author who knows how to put together a good yarn. Brady Hawk is the man in this as-yet 9-book series which you should check out.
  
  
• 09/13/2017 - Another two-book series from the master of thrillers, Frederick Forsyth, joins the compendium today. It was with a great deal of reading pleasure that I entered the world of SAS officer Mike Martin and you should as well.
  
  
• 09/12/2017 - A very enjoyable and well-written series about an unlikely member of this compendium is introduced here. Stephen Grant is a remote parish pastor and loves it. He is also a former SEAL and CIA agent. Please check him out in this seven-books series.
  
  
• 09/03/2017 - Today's entry into the compendium is a terrific set of reads from an ex-pat American living for many years in England. His fascinating character, Catesby, is wonderfully presented and the writing is top quality.
  
  
• 09/01/2017 - Received an email from Brash Books with the welcome news that they are re-issuing the really enjoyable first book in Jimmy Sangster's truly fun Katy Touchfeather series. I so very much recommend you checking it out. It is well worth it.
  
  
• 08/30/2017 - I have been distracted the past three weeks with building an interesting website for my wife dealing with her love of irises. A lot of fun and still in progress but I did finally take time to present to you an interesting series about mind-reading and mind-controlling agents. Please welcome Ward Lowe and his wife Jan to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/11/2017 - An impressive number of titles comprise this latest entry into the compendium. Alec Fincham is a member of the British SBS who gets seconded to MI6 a lot. Please say hello.
  
  
• 08/06/2017 - The first North Korean spy series I have encountered becomes the latest entry into the compendium. Young Agent Ko is yanked from the safety of her family and thrown into training to be a heartless killer. Unfortunately, she has a heart. Please welcome Agent Ko.
  
  
• 08/05/2017 - A really good, action-packed series about a British cop, member of an elite Armed Response Unit who eventually moves to New York to become part of its Counter-Terrorism team joins the compendium today. Please say howdy to Sam Archer.
  
  
• 07/28/2017 - It has been a few days since the last newcomer to the site and this latest entry in the compendium is, unfortunately, nothing to write home about. From 1940 comes a very short comic book series about Secret Agent Z-2 of the Secret Service.
  
  
• 07/21/2017 - Last week I added Nick Wood to the compendium. Today I would like you to welcome Nick Woods, a former Marine who did not want the life that fell on him but when it came, he met it.
  
  
• 07/16/2017 - More preliminary comments being entered today on a thus-far three book series about a museum curator turned part-time government agent. Please welcome Calla Cress, aka the Decrypter.
  
  
• 07/15/2017 - A Navy SEAL who has an unfortunate knack for finding conspiracies inside the U.S. government is today's entry into the compendium. Please say hi to Nick Wood.
  
  
• 07/14/2017 - Preliminary comments about an interesting series today. Please welcome Fritz Wright, aka The Vengeance Man.
  
  
• 07/11/2017 - I love spy series. Obviously. I also have freely admitted I love vampire series. It was fun a couple of years ago to add a series that mixed the two. Now I get to do it again and I am hooked. Please welcome Jaz Parks, CIA agent and partner to a vampire named Vayl.
  
  
• 07/09/2017 - Happy Birthday to me! I have been goofing off today (well, except for mowing the front lawn) and my son-in-law and I went to see Spiderman: Homecoming today. We both really enjoyed it.
  Today I also add another series, this one a comic-book series from the early 50s. It has some good stories so hopefully you will have fun reading them. Please welcome Kent Blake to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/04/2017 - Happy Birthday, America. I spent the day doing a ton of yard work and then a great dinner with my wife and going out for frozen custard with her and my daughter after watching some fireworks. Great day.
  Along with that, I read a bunch of this latest addition to the compendium. Today it is a 16-year-old girl who would not have dreamed of dealing with assassins and terrorists and things like that until she started having these dreams. Please welcome Lorna Walker.
  
  
• 06/24/2017 - A member of the FBI who gets involved in all sorts of Homeland Security affairs is the newest member of the compendium. Please welcome this six-book series about Jack Randall.
  
  
• 06/23/2017 - A two-book young adult series about two very rich and very well trained young people who get involved in international problems joins the compendium. They are Tom and Lela Kennedy and the books are part of The Billionaire Series (the author's title, not mine).
  
  
• 06/20/2017 - For several years, the character Carrie O'Connor has been a partner to her senior agent, Justin Hall. Now I have read the couple of solo adventures about her, I have decided to give her her own membership in the compendium. Please welcome her - politely.
  
  
• 06/11/2017 - A recent addition to the comic book spy scene is the very lovely and quite dangerous Scarlett Couture, head of security for a fashion company and undercover agent. Please welcome this kick-butt operative to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/08/2017 - Tracie Tanner is the latest member of this compendium. I am part-way through the 5-book series but I thought I would mention her now. She is a CIA agent fighting the Soviets in the late 80s. Please say hi to her.
  
  
• 06/03/2017 - Back to the present for this 4-book series about an FBI - turned CIA - agent named Alexis Toles and her mission to take down a nasty secret organization out to rule the country, and her growing relationship with Cassidy O'Brien, divorced mother of a young boy. Please welcome Alex & Cassidy to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/02/2017 - Back again we go to 1940 for this latest series, a comic book spy who starts out as Spy-Master and then changes his name to Spy-Chief before later donning a cowl and cape and calling himself The Cloak. All the while he is known to most everyone as FBI agent Jeff Cardiff. Some of these stories are not bad.
  
  
• 05/28/2017 - Last night I finished reading Mike Ripley's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang which I mentioned a few days ago. I am so jazzed about this book (not the least because he was kind enough to mention me a couple of times in it). It is so VERY well written and so enjoyable. I highly recommend it.
  
  
• 05/27/2017 - The man who help bring the terrific series Sherlock to the television screen, Mark Gatiss, created a few years ago a very unique 3-book series about the turn of the 20th century agent named Lucifer Box. I am confident when I say you have not likely met anyone like him.
  
  
• 05/26/2017 - A terrific writer whose books I have adored since I first learned of him in 1971 wrote a 4-book series about two spies in the nascent British Secret Service before and during WWI. His writing was great when he started and just got better. Please welcome Ranklin & O'Gilroy to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/25/2017 - Back to 1940 and the comic book spy fiction world I go today with this latest entrant into the compendium. Rex Keene, aka F-4 of the Air Intelligence, is a so-so secret agent who everyone knows. He flies anything there is and likes to get hit on the head. Check him out!
  
  
• 05/24/2017 - I mourn the passing and celebrate the life of Roger Moore. To most of the movie world he was the James Bond with the most missions but to me he will always be the quintessential Simon Templar, the Saint. I enjoyed him as Bond. I loved him as Templar. Rest well, Sir Roger.
  
  
• 05/23/2017 - A good friend, Mike Ripley, writer and editor and columnist extraordinaire, has just released a terrific book I am enjoying immensely. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: The Boom in British Thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed is available in print and ebook. If you love a good thriller, and what spy-fi fan doesn't, this incredible history of British thrillers from the 50s and 60s is a great read as well as an awesome guide to authors you might not know. Check it out!!!
  
  
• 05/19/2017 - The terrific author Ward Larsen has given us another great series that has me as hooked as his first one did. This one concerns a kidon or Israeli assassin named David Slaton. Please welcome him to the compendium but - no sudden moves while doing so.
  
  
• 05/18/2017 - Back from a long trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota for Mother's Day with my mom and then a great side trip with my wife up north to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota - their version of the Badlands. Awesome scenery including a bison traffic jam!
  
  
• 05/08/2017 - From 1939 comes an interesting comic book series about agent K-51, a man who needs no introduction because a) he has no name that I can find and b) everyone already knows him and calls him by his codename. Fun stories. Welcome him, please, and check him out, along with his colleague and fiancée, Z-19.
  
  
• 05/07/2017 - My friend and fellow spy-fi fan, Johny Malone, Una Plaga de Espias, sent me word of two books from the late 80s continuing the saga of Kim. They are pastiches but I thought you should know.
  
  
• 05/06/2017 - A single book does not qualify as a series and this site is devoted to series. Nevertheless, just as I made a justifiable exception with the book Ashendon, I make one with a classic which was also told initially in serial format. Please welcome Rudyard Kipling's understandably classic Kim. For those of you who have not read the book or feel a bit daunted at doing so, Classics Illustrated put out a version which I have added in the Comics section.
  
  
• 05/05/2017 - Happy Cinqo De Mayo! No new series today but an announcement that will be obvious to anyone reading this - I have added some advertising on the site. The number of books and the cost thereto have been adding up so ...
  
  
• 05/04/2017 - May the Fourth Be With You! The new entrant to the compendium today has nothing to do with Star Wars but the main character is a missile defense specialist which the Death Star could have used. Please welcome the two-book series about Cameron Talbot.
  
  
• 04/29/2017 - A very quick series is added today. By quick I mean it is a comic book character with just two adventures and both of them are but 4 pages in length. Secret Agent X-101 had a long codename but someone not in business too long. Please welcome him nevertheless.
  
  
• 04/28/2017 - I welcome Slough House to the site and then mess up and credit the wrong author. That has now been fixed thanks to the eagle-eye of one of my best contributors. My apologies to Mick Herron. Guess that makes me eligible to be a 'slow horse'.
  
  
• 04/26/2017 - It is not often that I get almost giddy with excitement about a new member to the compendium but I am shaking with glee to introduce Slough House to the few that have not already heard of it. Based on the recommendations I have gotten, many have. Now I have and I have given it an A+ because it is really that good.
  
  
• 04/23/2017 - Another look back in history with a 12-issue comic book counterespionage agent named Jonathan Kent. No, it is not Superman's human father...or is it?
  
  
• 04/22/2017 - From the mid 30s comes a two-book series written for the young adult market about a young man who becomes involved with fighting spies and international crooks due to his uncle with the FBI. Please welcome Agent Nine, aka Bob Houston, to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/21/2017 - An interesting series is added today in that it is the second series about a man calling himself Spy Smasher. It is also interesting in that though these stories appear in comic books, none are graphic tales but are one-page prose short stories. There are 30 of them of which I have found 15 and have provided the screenshot of the page for reading. If anyone has any that I lack, let me know. Please welcome Sam Spolo.
  
  
• 04/16/2017 - Happy Easter to you all. I enjoyed a delightful day with my family including an awesome meal prepared by my wife and eldest daughter. I am trying to be a good boy when it comes to eating but today I granted myself naughty privileges and it was worth it! Now, for your reading pleasure, a series I started reading over a year ago and cannot remember what stopped me because it is really good. Please welcome Alexis Stanton, a hoot of an agent written by a lady in my old stomping grounds of the Black Hills.
  
  
• 04/15/2017 - Happy Tax Day! Okay, not so happy. Well, here is a large series that might make things so better. A Navy SEAL turned agent for the President, please welcome Grant Stevens to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/14/2017 - From the mid 50s we get today's new member of the compendium. Atlas (soon to be Marvel) Comics gave us a few exciting adventures of a globe-trotting Secret Service agent named Rick Davis. Please say hello. And if you know anything more about the missing stories, let me know.
  
  
• 04/12/2017 - A series taking place in the 1870s joins the compendium today. The writing is excellent, the plots interesting, and the main character is terrific. Please welcome India Black.
  
  
• 04/09/2017 - A frequent contributor sent me information on a one-issue comic book from 1966 which had 4 adventures of the same character and though I have scant info on it, I add it to the site now in the hopes others will fill in blanks. Please welcome Charles Rand, the Man From S.U.N.D.A.Y.
  
  
• 04/02/2017 - One of my favorite authors, Mike Lawson, has come up with a new character that is really interesting. I would not say I liked her personally but I loved the books about her and I am sure you will as well. Please welcome Kay Hamilton to the compendium - but do not expect any pleasantries from her 'cause you ain't gettin' 'em.
  
  
• 04/02/2017 - Happy Birthday to my son - now old enough to run for President!
  
  
• 04/01/2017 - April Fools! The newest addition to the compendium is such a light-weight entrant that just so barely qualifies for membership that it seems appropriate to have him join on this day. From 1936 please welcome Terry Taylor to the mix, all two short 'illustoried' tales of him.
  
  
• 03/30/2017 - Back to the present and a 2½ book series (so far) about an enterprising young man who was a CIA agent then wasn't and now works off the books for the President. Please say hi to Kyle Achilles as he joins the compendium.
  
  
• 03/29/2017 - Back in time we go again, landing in 1942, where we meet the beautiful actress Rita Farrar who gives up her movie career to become a secret agent using the covername of Señorita Rio. Please welcome this lovely and very entertaining woman to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/19/2017 - A former FBI agent who angered J. Edgar returns years later to help an old CIA friend and finds a new career and a new life. Please welcome a very enjoyable Burke Hill to the compendium.
  
  
• 03/17/2017 - We welcome two different agents of the American government to the compendium today, both of them found in the pages of Danger Comics in 1954. The first is the impressive Duke Douglas who has 13 different tales (9 graphic and 4 text). The other is Virgil Stagg who graces us with just 3 comicbook stories. Please welcome them and enjoy reading their adventures.
  
  
• 03/16/2017 - Happy Birthday to my youngest daughter - now she is old enough to run for Congress.
  
  
• 03/10/2017 - A very ho-hum comic series from 1940 is the latest entrant into the compendium. He did have his own codename so that is something in his favor but there is not much else to say about Secret Agent M-11. Please welcome him nevertheless.
  
  
• 03/07/2017 - The latest entrant into the compendium is Richard Paladin, an assassin who works for ... ah, where's the fun in just telling you. Besides, you wouldn't believe me anyways. Check it out for yourself!
  
  
• 03/04/2017 - Happy 900th Series!!!! Wee! I predicted back when I just went over 600 that I would likely never get to 700. When that milestone went by, I was certain that 800 would be reached. Now that 900 is a fact and my list of 'coming' series is over 300, well, there will be more milestones. I pondered only briefly which series to make my 900th one because the choice was easy. I wanted a series that I really enjoyed by an author I really like. I chose Mark Dawson's Isabella Rose as the one. I think you will like her as much as I did.
  
  
• 03/03/2017 - If we went back to 1939 we could enjoy (I use the term very loosely) the exploits of Yank Wilson, agent Q-4, aka 'Super Spy'. Or you can read those adventures here if you want.
  
  
• 03/02/2017 - A really enjoyable 3-book series about an archivist and a secret organization and a not-so-respectable President joins the compendium. I enjoyed and think you will, too, learning of Beecher White and his fascinating world.
  
  
• 02/24/2017 - Let us go back a half century to 1966 and a very short-lived spy comic book series with a cool gimmick - cybernetics. Now, they called it a 'electro-robot' but that does not matter because Spyman was not around long enough to care. Still, nowadays, it is kinda fun to look back.
  
  
• 02/22/2017 - A companion series to Corps Justice which joined a couple days ago is that of Daniel Briggs, a pony-tailed former Marine sniper with his own story. Please welcome this quiet but highly efficient gentleman to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/19/2017 - It is good to have a little magic in your life. It certainly is the case for John Force, aka Magic Agent, an operative working in the comic book realm during the early to mid 60s. Please welcome this medallion-holding fellow to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/17/2017 - A group of kick-butt do-not-tread-on-me guys who often do small (and not so small) covert jobs for the President joins the compendium. Please welcome the folks from Corps Justice.
  
  
• 02/14/2017 - Today we head back in time again for a two-issue, four-adventure romp with John Steele, aka Freedom Agent. The time is 1963-1964 and the adversaries are the usual suspects but the stories are solid and the artwork just darned good. Please welcome Freedom Agent to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/12/2017 - A very fun, fast reading series about a gift-shop manager turned FBI agent turned cloak and dagger avoider is the offering today. I very much recommend this two-book series from the early 70s written by a science fiction master. Please welcome Tony Hawkin to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/11/2017 - Let us go again back 70+ years to before WWII and witness the service of Don Davis, Espionage Ace. This man is interesting to me because he kept changing bosses. Army Intel, Navy Intel, War Department Intel, British Intel, F.B.I., Secret Service, State Department, and finally a totally new one. Please welcome this gadfly to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/09/2017 - The latest entrant into this compendium is a former Special Forces soldier whose dad was just murdered and who wants to know who and why. He also just inherited a multi-billion dollar company. Please welcome Thomas Gunn.
  
  
• 02/06/2017 - Preliminary report on two folks, a man and a woman, who work for the CIA. They each has unique talents that make them very interesting to follow. Please welcome Fox & Parris to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/05/2017 - On this Super Bowl Sunday, I take great pleasure in not watching the pre-game festivities and adding to the compendium a delightful cozy-mystery series that strays into the spy-fiction realm enough to qualify for my flexible requirements. Lady Georgiana, 35th in line for the crown, is a wonderful excursion into the early 30s British upper crust and sometimes cloak and dagger-ing.
  
  
• 02/04/2017 - Another excursion into the past brings us the latest new entry in the compendium. From just before WWII comes Captain Bruce Blackburn and his plastic-surgery-enabled twin, Lt. Jackson. Blackburn is definitely the star of the series but poor never-reveal-a-first-name Jackson deserves a shout-out as well.
  
  
• 01/29/2017 - A writer who already had one impressive series in this compendium created another chap who more than deserves reading. David Shirazi is a CIA agent of Iranian descent who must deal with that nation's nuclear weapons aspirations. Please give him a welcome and a look-see.
  
  
• 01/23/2017 - First, a Happy Birthday to my sister, Karen. It's amazing now how many years we've known each other. Now, on to business. This newest entry into the compendium goes by the series name of Codename Files because you never learn the hero's name. Odd, that, but the series is fun.
  
  
• 01/21/2017 - Most good government assassins must be cold-blooded, able to keep their emotions in check as they take another human being's life. In the case of Noah Wolf, that is not a hard task because he is incapable of feeling anything. Please welcome this cold, deadly, but entertaining fellow and his teammates to the compendium.
  
  
• 01/20/2017 - From 76 years ago comes a 4-issue comic series about British Agent 99. No, this is not a U.K. version of Barbara Feldon's wonderful character from Get Smart. This is Alan Douglas, a swashbuckling actor turned wartime secret agent.
  
  
• 01/07/2017 - I was just starting a new series when I decided to take a side trip and grab another comic book series to chat about. This new entrant to the compendium is an odd one because despite the title of Spy Hunters, there is not much spy business going on. I am not sure what the intent of the series was but it surely got changed along the way.
  
  
• 01/05/2017 - Another reach of more than 70 years takes place as I present to you for your reading enjoyment a companion series to the just entered X-5. This is another agent with a similar name and similar style. Please welcome G-5.
  
  
• 01/02/2017 - I reach back into the past and grab a very short-run comic spy/agent for this next entrant into the compendium. Please say hello to X-5.
  
  
• 01/01/2017 - Happy New Year! Let's welcome in this new set of days and adventures with a new member to the compendium - actually a pair of intrepid souls who work for The Project, Nick Carter and Selena Connor.
  
  
• 12/31/2016 - As the final entry for this less than stellar year, I give you a 3-book series that was recommended to me some time ago and which I finally got down from the digital shelf. Please welcome the two brothers most involved with Red Cell Seven and then step back. People near either of them tend to get shot.
  
  
• 12/29/2016 - For your reading pleasure I present another comic spy from the early years - this time 1939-1941. Please welcome resourceful and adventurous Richard Anthony, aka secret agent D-13 to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/28/2016 - Since my area of interest in spy fiction has been in print format, one of my favorite television series has not fit. Recently I discovered that a short comic book series was made, putting it now inside my grasp! Please welcome the inimitable and highly entertaining MacGyver.
  
  
• 12/27/2016 - A five-book series about a veteran CIA agent and his family joins the compendium. I have had some of these books for some time and they have longed deserved reading. This Christmas break, they got it. Please welcome Bob Danforth.
  
  
• 12/18/2016 - A very bland spy-hunter is the latest entrant into this compendium. Red-headed agent for the F.B.I. specializing in chasing down enemy saboteurs and operatives, he graced the pages of the new Flash comic back in 1940. Please welcome Cliff Cornwall.
  
  
• 12/16/2016 - I noticed that my site was no longer accepting your grades and comments due to a bug I introduced in August. It has been fixed. I apologize for the oops.
  
  
• 12/16/2016 - My friend and frequent contributor, Johny Malone, pointed out that I had not made an announcement some time back when I added Augustus Mandrell to the site. My bad! This is a terrific series about a character who is so deserving of reading that the good folks at Ostara Publishing have been nice enough to re-release. Please check these books out as you welcome this masterful assassin to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/11/2016 - What an incredible series I present to you today. Comprised of two books, the first a full-length novel and the second a collection of stories and novellas, this is a dynamite character and one that I took far too long to get to know. Please welcome Michael Gallatin, an agent with British Intelligence during WWII who happens to also be a werewolf. My goodness, what a great series.
  
  
• 12/10/2016 - A fan of Wayne Stinnett's books, I am pleased to add another of his series. Charity Styles is a character first introduced in the Jesse McDermitt series but now she is on her own and I like 'em. Please welcome her to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/06/2016 - My friend, E. Baron, a very frequent contributor of loads of cool info on the spy series herein, has pointed out I had not yet mentioned the new Odds&Ends section on some of the series, like James Bond. This is meant to hold interesting items that do not fit the other categories. If you know of such things about any of the series, please let me know so they can be added.
  
  
• 12/05/2016 - We head back in time with this latest entry into the compendium. Sydney Horler was a dynamo with it came to writing thrillers in the 30s and 40s and he would give us several spy series to consume (I am still consuming some of them) but none lasted as long as Tiger Standish. Please welcome this renowned soccer player and part-time operative.
  
  
• 12/02/2016 - With some amusement and not a little bit of embarrassment, I present a new member to the compendium. Boomerang is the name this costumed Intelligence agent from 1944 assumes. Why is never explained.
  
  
• 11/25/2016 - Recovering from some incredible cooking by my wife and our two grown daughters, I bring to you an unlikely but still fun series about an agent who can kick the stuffing (notice the segue) out of anything. Please welcome to this compendium the six-book series about Sarah Hill, aka Agent Hill.
  
  
• 11/19/2016 - From very old to quite new, although the character in question has been around a very long time. Dick Grayson, aka Robin, aka Nightwing, spent a couple of years recently as a secret agent for the intelligence organization known as Spyral. As a result, he earned membership into the compendium.
  
  
• 11/18/2016 - My goodness! Have we gone back in time for this next inductee into the compendium. In fact, it is the earliest series I have yet found having been started in 1905. That is 111 years ago. Please welcome 'diplomatic agent' Yorke Norroy (no, that is no typo).
  
  
• 11/13/2016 - Have I got a series for you!!! Now, this one is just barely a series right now (one book and one short story) but another book is on the way early next year. And the one book we have is so darn good, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Please welcome Orphan X, akd Evan Smoak, aka the Nowhere Man. He is good enough to deserve three monikers.
  
  
• 11/11/2016 - Greetings to you on this Veteran's Day. A huge thanks to those men and women who served and to those serving today. I had fun reconnecting with a few old Navy buddies. My Lord, have we not aged? How the heck did that happen? But also a solemn and sincere thanks to those whose service took them from us. Their sacrifice is not forgotten.
  
  
• 11/05/2016 - Trevor Scott, the author who gives us Jake Adams adventures, also gave us this three-book series about a gun designer who gets asked to help out and ends up in lots of danger. Please welcome Chad Hunter to the compendium.
  
  
• 11/01/2016 - We reach into the past for this latest member of the compendium. 1939, to be exact. The adventures are brought to us by the gifted hands of prolific author John Creasey. The six-book series concerns Bruce Murdoch. Please say hello.
  
  
• 10/24/2016 - From the comic book spy world comes another entry, this time a group of female agents (and a token male) called Danger Girl. A couple of the stories are quite good and if you are at all as immature as I am, most of the artwork is, ah, eye-catching.
  
  
• 10/22/2016 - After too long of a break (sickness and death in the family, a wedding, a hurricane - interesting end to summer) I bring you a terrific series that I loved a lot and think you will. Please welcome Tucker Wayne and his friend, Cain. Do not pet Cain without permission.
  
  
• 10/11/2016 - Some series I add with pride. Some I add to make my site as complete as I can. James Bond Jr. falls into the latter class. I did not care for this series meant for juveniles because it was not very good but it exists and so here it is.
  
  
• 09/18/2016 - With considerable pleasure I present to you the latest member of the compendium, a private investigator who is also married to the Chief Executive. Please welcome the President's Henchman, James McGill.
  
  
• 09/13/2016 - On the 13th of this month (albeit a Tuesday), I present to you the latest member of this compendium, Lady Satan. I hope you enjoy the write-up as much as I had writing it.
  
  
• 09/05/2016 - It is Labor Day and I have been laboring on bringing you another series. Okay, not that much of a labor. And it is the same series, sort of, that I presented yesterday. Katarina Armstrong is the name of a comicbook character that is likely a descendant of yesterday's entrant and uses his covername. Please welcome Spy Smasher II - note the "II" is my appendage, not hers. She would say she is second to no one.
  
  
• 09/04/2016 - As I prepare to enjoy Labor Day by just doing not much of anything, I bring to you a series that goes back quite a way - to 1940! It is another comicbook spy series and since it is from way back, it is in the public domain which means you can read it yourself if you wish. Please welcome Alan Armstrong, better known as Spy Smasher.
  
  
• 08/28/2016 - Reaching back to the period of my adolescence, I bring you an enjoyable juvenile-intended series about a young agent named Christopher Cool who works for a CIA division called TEEN. They are fun!
  
  
• 08/24/2016 - I have a very enjoyable series to present to you fellow spy-fi fans. Maggie Hope is a five-book series that enchants and captivates and brings you back for more with ease. This is not a thrill-a-minute series but it has many darn good plot lines and a lot of very interesting characters and the writing is top notch. Please welcome Ms. Hope to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/20/2016 - I have been reading a fair amount the last couple of weeks, spreading my time between several series to be added. One of them is today's new member of the compendium. Please welcome a young lady from the early 70s, the delectable Cherry Delight.
  
  
• 08/08/2016 - Sometimes I like to blare out the arrival of an especially good series. Other times, like now, I just kinda say, "here is so-and-so." So, here is Lt. Drake of the Naval Intelligence. Not sure why the article "the" was in the title but it was so it is. This comic from '39-'41 is in the public domain so you can read the stories yourself if you wish.
  
  
• 08/01/2016 - A frequent contributor and terrific fact-finder for this site reminded me that I had not mentioned we had added a couple of new sections to each character page. Just for fun, we now list, as we learn of them, Games and Collectibles. Check out these items on those pages for which we have items, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E., John Drake aka Danger Man, and of course James Bond.
  
  
• 07/31/2016 - As July 2016 comes to a close, I present to the compendium the interesting case of Jack Higgins' Simon Vaughan. What makes him interesting? Check him/them out to see.
  
  
• 07/28/2016 - With a fair amount of grimacing, I introduce the latest member of the compendium. It is a comic from the early 40s, now in the public domain which means you can have the misfortune of reading them here, You are not likely to believe Don Q. I didn't.
  
  
• 07/23/2016 - I have a very long list of series to be added, series I have collected but have not yet read so cannot speak about. To let people know of these series that are coming, I have created a "Coming" section.
  
  
• 07/11/2016 - Incredibly talented author Charles Cumming has created a new agent well worth following. Three adventures exist so far. Please say hello to Thomas Kell of MI6, well, formerly and sometimes still.
  
  
• 07/10/2016 - There is very little of this comicbook series to get a grip on but what there is about Madam Zero is now a part of the compendium. Please say hi.
  
  
• 07/05/2016 - Having enjoyed a very nice 4th of July with family, I return to my hobby of finding spy series and I have found a winner. Actually, I found it a while back when it was recommended to me. I just now enter it. I am slow! Please welcome a very kick-butt operative named Alex Morgan to the compendium.
  
  
• 07/01/2016 - Sitting near my desk for far too long is a television series that any spy fan should already know about, complete with a couple of books by a very accomplished author. Please welcome Homeland finally to the compendium.
  
  
• 06/24/2016 - A former Army Ranger and experienced fighter turned college professor and activist joins the compendium with a two-book series. Please welcome Ethan Stone.
  
  
• 06/08/2016 - Coming just a couple of days after I had the Black Widow join, I introduce for membership the second woman from Russia's training program to use that title. Yelena Belova is another reason to sit back and enjoy a truly fun set of kick-butt-ing.
  
  
• 06/04/2016 - I was asked some time ago by two different people why, if I had Nick Fury in the compendium, did I not have the Black Widow. I answered that I planned to. Now I have. Please welcome a woman who, no matter what name or spelling she goes by, is one heckuva fun person to watch.
  
  
• 05/30/2016 - A Good Memorial Day to you all. I hope you will join me in spending some time remembering and thanking those who gave their lives so we can live ours. Then perhaps you might enjoy checking out the latest addition to the compendium. This is Black X, an impressively long-running series about a very interesting secret agent before, during, and after WWII. Since it is in the Public Domain, you can read the adventures yourself on this site.
  
  
• 05/28/2016 - A fun, entertaining two-book series from 2005-2007 comes into the group today. I enjoyed it and I think you will, too. Please welcome Dan Dailey to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/22/2016 - A funny take on British female spy life from nearly a decade ago comes into the compendium. Please welcome with a good grin ready the lovely Sophie Green.
  
  
• 05/21/2016 - We head back to the world of comic book spies or, in this case, "famous adventurer of the air" who sometimes does things for the U.S. government. Please welcome Ace McCoy.
  
  
• 05/14/2016 - After a long time in development, my new site written in Asp.Net is active. The old one had been created back in 2001 and modified over the years but the language was woefully antiquated. The new one is up to date. Of course, I am sure there are lots of bugs. I found one in Registration right away. I will fix as I (and others) find.
  
  
• 05/01/2016 - On this May Day, raining where I am so I get to stay indoors and read, I bring you a six short adventure comic series about Armstrong of the Army, published by D.C. comics in the days leading up to and into American involvement in WWII.
  
  
• 04/30/2016 - As we close out April, I bring you to a three-book series about an antiquities expert. Ayesha Ryder is a woman who has seen a lot, done a lot, survived a lot. She does not seek the kinds of excitement and adventure that life throws at her but she does not seem to duck, either.
  
  
• 04/05/2016 - What a fantastic series I have to add to the compendium tonight. The same man who gave us the very, very good Harry Tate books has given us a new character that is totally different and even better. I cannot say enough good about Marc Portman. Do yourself a favor and check him out.
  
  
• 03/12/2016 - I know you should not judge a book by its cover but the three covers for this latest addition to the compendium really make me want to read the books. Or at least look at them. A lot! Please welcome Evie Evans.
  
  
• 03/05/2016 - The beautiful Chinese agent Li Mei joins the compendium today. She is quite an interesting character and her books are really unique so check her out.
  
  
• 02/20/2016 - Back to the world of prose and a heckuva fun series with currently 8 books on the shelves and more, I hope, to come. I liked Jesse McDermitt and I hope you do, too. Please welcome this former jar-head to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/19/2016 - Another denizen of the Comic Universe joins the compendium today. Sarge Steel is a private eye turned secret agent with one pretty obvious physical trait - he has a steel left hand. And he knows how to use it!
  
  
• 02/15/2016 - After some time of not adding a non-comicbook character to the compendium, I give you a two-book series about a guy who is not really liked by anyone, myself included. Please say hello to Nick McQueen.
  
  
• 02/14/2016 - I have been busy reading non-spy books and keeping up with the latest from established series. I also have been having a blast searching out and finding a ton of comicbook spy series from the 30s on to today. A short series with two juvenile books and a handful of comics is the International Spy featuring Doctor Doom [not Victor Von Doom of Fantastic Four fame]. Since he is in the Public Domain, I have included the adventures of his I have.
  
  
• 01/21/2016 - A good decade before the previous inductee was working, Sandra of the Secret Service, aka Sandra McLane, was a woman pulled into the cloak and dagger work by accident who found she really loved it. Please welcome this comic book heroine from 1935!
  
  
• 01/17/2016 - A very enjoyable and quite different comicbook spy joins the compendium today. From the late 40s comes a female agent who can more than take care of herself. Please welcome Starr Flagg, Undercover Girl.
  
  
• 01/16/2016 - Another short run comic spy joins the group today. Jerry Malone, aka Counterspy has two adventures to relate. These are in the Public Domain.
  
  
• 01/15/2016 - On this Ides of January, I have added to the three (so far) comics that are in the Public Domain the actual pages of the comics. If you go to a character's page, currently for Miss Espionage, Blitz Buster, and Black Friday, and then click on any of the issue images, you get a larger view of the cover/first page and below it, the ability to read each of the pages that I have found. Please enjoy.
  Note - for those comics NOT in the Public Domain, no such viewing is possible.
  
  
• 01/01/2016 - Happy New Year! I wish to all those who visit my site a wonderful year to come filled with great new spy series to enjoy. A great start is this addition to the compendium, Velvet Templeton, an incredible agent who may have retired from the field but is still no one to mess with. It is an ongoing comic series from Image Comics with the first two story arcs released in trade paperback format. I loved it!
  
  
• 12/31/2015 - I end this 2015 with a fantastic addition to the compendium. There are regrettably only two books in it but each book is unique and each is a joy to read. Please welcome and, when you get the chance, please pick up and read, The Cellar.
  
  
• 12/28/2015 - While reading books as fast as family outings allow, I have also had fun with several comic books spy series that people have written to me about. Two of these comic series, each with two issues apiece, are Miss Espionage and Blitz Buster. Both of these are in the public domain and can be downloaded and read at Digital Comic Museum, a great site to visit.
  
  
• 12/26/2015 - Happy Boxing Day, y'all. I have taken an unusual twist to my regular type of spy series with a small (2 item) addition that is only comic book. From 1940, please welcome Black Friday, King of spies.
  
  
• 12/12/2015 - Thanks to a fellow spy-fi fan, and frequent contributor, I learned that a Raquel Welch movie from the mid 60's was really part of a planned series and came from the second, unfinished book therein. Please welcome the extremely alluring and dangerous Fathom.
  
  
• 11/15/2015 - Just before the new James Bond movie, Spectre came out, I received an email talking about the watches various Bonds have worn. I share the address with you because it was a hoot to read. Check out Watches Of Bond.
  
  
  
• 11/10/2015 - It has been a month since my last addition but boy have I got one now! I was absolutely and totally hooked in the first couple of pages and did not come up for air until five books and one novella had passed. Vanessa Michael Munroe is one of the most unique, fascinating, entertaining, and dangerous characters I have met in years and I cannot recommend this series strongly enough. Three letters might help: WOW.
  
  
• 10/10/2015 - I present here an eight-book series about a private investigator who used to work for the DIA and who still finds himself pulled into missions that work with them or against the CIA. Please welcome Penn Gwinn.
  
  
• 10/09/2015 - A two-book series about a lawyer specializing in cyber-crimes enters the compendium. Chris Bruen is not out to get involved in fighting international cyper-terrorists but he is pulled in nevertheless.
  
  
• 10/05/2015 - A truly terrific and fun 2-book series joins the compendium today. I just finished the second book and really wished for more but I will just have to wait, impatiently, for a while as the author crafts another gem. Please welcome Sam Dryden to the group.
  
  
• 09/19/2015 - Two totally different type of agents join the compendium this day. The first is a light-hearted, what-if two-book series which ponders the idea that before she met Jack, Jackie Bouvier might have worked for the CIA. The other is another two-book series about a British agent having to return to an area where he nearly died before and deal with people who would love to see him not living any more, Daniel Swann. Please welcome them both.
  
  
• 09/13/2015 - A fun, fast-action five-book series of first justice and then more joins the compendium. Please welcome security consultant Tom Gray to the group.
  
  
• 09/05/2015 - Two new fun spy series join the compendium this Labor Day weekend, both a lot of fun to read but each quite different from the other. First there is a young adult series about Kelly James, aka GiGi, one of the Specialists. The other is Blake Carver, a highly respected and experienced CIA operative pulled suddenly to work directly for the White House.
  
  
• 08/29/2015 - In 1973, an author wrote a fun spy thriller about a cynical agent named Charles Remly. 30+ years later, he decided to revisit that man and so the two-book series joins the compendium. Please welcome him but do not be surprised if he acts a tad snarky.
  
  
• 08/24/2015 - Colonel Buck Madison and his CIA analyst wife get into several very nasty scrapes in the four-book series joining this compendium today. Please welcome Buck & Dolly.
  
  
• 08/21/2015 - An agent from down under joins the compendium. He has been waiting for some time but finally his order in the to-be-read stack came up and here we have a 3-book series about Jonas Blackthorne. The second book is quite hard to find (I haven't yet) but the first and third are available in ebook format.
  
  
• 08/20/2015 - I am a big Jim Mullaney fan from his days as a Destroyer co-writer, creating the best stories since the first set. I am also a nut for pulp adventures. And, of course, I live on spy series. When I was gifted the first book in a pulp-style spy series by Mr. Mullaney, I leaped at it and shortly bought the next 4 books. Please welcome Patrick "Podge" Beckett, aka The Red Menace to the compendium.
  
  
• 08/15/2015 - A fun, easy to read series about two ATF agents who routinely get involved in cases outside their normal jurisdiction, enough to warrant membership her, joins the compendium. Please welcome Barclay & Neilson.
  
  
• 08/05/2015 - Having made a significant milestone, it is time to move past it. #801 is Agent 806. I mean, the 801st series to enter this compendium is Olesia Anderson, codename Agent 806. Please welcome her, but do it respectfully. She can be a tad touchy.
  
  
• 07/28/2015 - Well! #800!!! Who'da thunk it? There are still dozens more to come but for now, I will enjoy the thought of so many incredible series talked about in this compendium. Joining this group as #800 is Steve Dane. Please welcome him.
  
  
• 07/25/2015 - Today we have three series joining the compendium, all worth the time to check them out and enjoy really good adventure and suspense. Valerie Plame, herself a CIA case officer, and Sarah Lovett bring us a two-book series about Vanessa Pierson. The great talent of Douglas Preston gives us a four-book series about Wyman Ford. And Scott Matthews has a three-book series about Adam Drake, an attorney who gets involved in some interesting cases. Please welcome them!
  
  
• 07/23/2015 - A three-book series filled with terrific action and even better characters joins the compendium. Please welcome Grace Chu and John Knox, each of whom becomes a Risk Agent.
  
  
• 07/18/2015 - Put in lots of comments on two series who have been waiting for a while, Aydan Kelly and Steven Cross. I also added two new series to the compendium which I hope you will check out: Agent M and Scott Wolfe.
  
  
• 07/13/2015 - I have not read enough to do justice to the write up for a new series that I am enjoying but I thought I would add Lexi Carmichael to the compendium now. Please welcome her and please check out the books!
  
  
• 07/11/2015 - A six-book series about a hotel expert and undercover operative joins the compendium. These books are really short adventures, more like hefty novellas, but they are super fast reads. Please welcome Hunter Blacke.
  
  
• 07/09/2015 - A trained warrior who cannot remember who he is becomes a very deadly assassin in this three-book series about Matthew Cain.
  
  
• 07/08/2015 - Another exciting series from J. Robert Kennedy, this one actually preceding the one about Dylan Kane, joins the compendium. James Acton is a professor of archeology but he gets involved in lots of things that more than make him eligible for membership.
  
  
• 07/05/2015 - A terrific two book series about a con man's son who uses the tricks his father taught him to take on some pretty nasty bad guys joins this compendium. Please welcome Rollie Waters to the group. His adventures are a lot of fun.
  
  
• 07/04/2015 - Happy Birthday, America! I am enjoying a quiet holiday morning adding to this site about fictitious heroes while I am appreciating the freedom I enjoy, made possible by the real heroes out there. Thanks to all of you!
  
  
• 07/03/2015 - Continuing my resumption of adding series to this compendium. The exploits of '30s hero (written in the '80s), Agent 13, written by Flint Dille and David Marconi, are a lot of good escapist fun.
  
  
• 07/01/2015 - Happy Canada Day!
  
  
• 06/28/2015 - In the last month I have been quite ill, got better and went on a vacation where I almost immediately got ill again and then, returning to work, had a backlog of stuff to do. At the same time, GoDaddy, my host provider, informed me support for the Access database I used was being dropped so I had to convert all my data (a lot) to MySql and rewrite my pages to handle that.
  So, my reading dropped a bunch and no new series were added.
  Until now. Please welcome Dan Morgan, a very well-written series (I am part way through the books) by Leo J. Maloney, to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/09/2015 - Thanks go out to Chris who pointed out that his copies of the Peter Townend books about the reported Quest have his first name as Philip while I have it Peter. I had it wrong. I own the books and they definitely have his name as Philip. I read the books, albeit years ago but I still messed up. It has been corrected.
  
  
• 05/09/2015 - A veteran CIA operative with five adventures chronicled joins the compendium. Please welcome Robert Cuma's Steven Cross.
  
  
  
• 05/08/2015 - I've been "meaning" to read Jerome J. Foody's series about CIA agent Jeremiah Flynn but while I was dawdling, his agent has been busy and now there are nine books in the series. Please welcome a long over-do member to the compendium.
  
  
• 04/20/2015 - A talented female agent who is also a practiced psychic joins the compendium today. MI6 agent Tana Standish is an operative during the Cold War who must deal with enemy agents as well as other psychics.
  
  
• 04/17/2015 - A product of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland, Declan McIver, a former member of a group called Black Shuck, joins the compendium today with a preliminary write-up.
  
  
• 04/07/2015 - A lot of reading has been going on as well as a ton of clean-up work on the site but no new entries have been made for the past month. That ends today with a blast from the past. The series started half a century ago but deals with events 100 years before that. Please welcome to this site Jim West and Artemus Gordon, known to many of us as the Wild Wild West.
  
  
• 03/07/2015 - I have been planning to read Mark Sava series for some time but kept putting it off for some incredibly dumb reason. Finally, I started reading and was totally hooked. It is terrific. If you have not already, check it out! And please welcome a really good series to the compendium.
  
  
• 02/28/2015 - One of my favorite writers, Brett Battles, has joined with another skilled and experienced author, Robert Gregory Browne, to give us this two-book series about a very interesting woman named Alexandra Poe. Please welcome her. Politely.
  
  
• 02/21/2015 - Following a couple of days later the entry of the Man from C.A.M.P., I bring yet another sexpionage series though I could give very little information as I cannot afford the books. Please welcome Phil Scott, Secret Agent xx96. If anyone knows anything more about him, please let us all know.
  
  
• 02/17/2015 - Fellow spy fan Darrel sent me an email about a series from the 60's, Jackie Holmes, The Man from C.A.M.P., a 10-books series I had never heard of. Thanks, Darrel!
  
  
• 01/30/2015 - A lot of reading of some really good books, some spy and some not, has filled my January with great entertainment. One of those set of books came from Jacques Antoine who has given us the newest member of this compendium, the young and dangerous Emily Kane. Check her out!
  
  
• 01/03/2015 - Happy New Year! A couple days late, but hey! I have been enjoying the three-book (so far) series about an FBI agent catching and turning spies from Russia. Please welcome J. J. McCall by S. D. Skye. I hope she sticks around a while. She is a lot of fun.
  
  
• 12/28/2014 - A two-book series about a retired operative named Adam Wolf joins the compendium today. The stories are more crime novel than spy-fi but his training as an agent definitely are needed to keep him alive. I liked the books a bunch.
  
  
• 12/26/2014 - Highly addictive and entertaining action author Jack Higgins joined up with another very experienced author, Justin Richards, to bring us a couple years ago a 4-book series about twin teenage children of a spy, kids who are forced by circumstance to enter their father's unhealthy world. They are the Chance Twins, Rich and Jade.
  
  
• 12/23/2014 - A really, really good cross between spy-fi and sci-fi and horror joins the collection today. Noted horror/sci-fi author Jonathan Maberry was nice enough to give us a (so-far) six book series about an agent named Joe Ledger who works for the Department of Military Sciences which deals with very unusual problems. One of which has Ledger having to kill a terrorist twice.
  
  
• 12/21/2014 - Another spy series by Dennis Wheatley joins the compendium, this time about the adventurer and occasional spy Duke de Richleau. It is an 11-book series that started in 1935 and went until 1970.
  
  
• 12/18/2014 - A often light-hearted but sometimes darned intense series about a middle-aged female bookkeeper who gets more involved in spy work than she really wants joins the compendium. I am enjoying the books, of which there are currently 8. I hope you do as well. Please welcome Aydan Kelly by Diane Henders.
  
  
• 12/17/2014 - W.E.B.Griffin created several fantastic series over many years. One of the, about Charley Castillo, aka the President's Agent, joined this compendium years ago. Now two more series are presented, both about operatives in the OSS during WWII. Though both have main characters that drive the adventures, both are known by different titles. Please welcome Men At War and Honor Bound.
  
  
• 12/11/2014 - A three-pack of series from the same author, Fritz Galt, make their way into the compendium. Two of them are related as they deal with brothers, both in the CIA; Mick Pierce and Alec Pierce. The third is about a college student, Brad West, who falls in love with a Chinese pilot and falls in trouble a lot.
  
  
• 12/07/2014 - After trying his hand at spy fiction with Tiger Mann, Mickey Spillane took another break from Mike Hammer novels with Morgan The Raider, a modern-day pirate with apparently first name. He started a sequel but never finished it. Forty years later, Max Allan Collins was allowed to complete the second Morgan adventure.
  
  
• 12/06/2014 - We have in this collection an agent who is a vampire. We have one who is a werewolf. Now we add one who is not a zombie but, boy!, does he fight a bunch of them. Chad Halverson is pretty good (and intense) for those who like reading about the zombie apocalypse.
  
  
• 12/04/2014 - It takes a pretty impressive operative to go up against experienced agents who go rogue and Mark Cole is such a man. He has three adventures out so far about him.
  
  
• 11/30/2014 - Greg Rucka, the man who gave us the terrific Tara Chace adventures, has created a new character of whom two books are out. Please welcome Jad Bell.
  
  
• 11/26/2014 - Though he is not a spy by profession, you would never notice it by the trouble he gets into. Please welcome to this group Gage Hartline in a, so far, two-book series.
  
  
• 11/25/2014 - Before the young people of CHERUB spied their way around the world, the founder of that organization, Charles Henderson, was knee deep in trouble during WWII and to carry out his mission, he banded together Henderson's Boys.
  
  
• 11/24/2014 - Over a decade ago, two very unusual characters were introduced to the spy world, one a trained and competent agent and the other .. not so much. They are now available again in ebook format. Please welcome Hardin and Knight in a three-book series.
  
  
• 11/22/2014 - Despite the books being incredible, I held out adding the terrific spy novels by Alan Furst because they were not a series as I normally consider it. I've had my mind changed and I am pleased to add to the compendium the Night Soldiers.
  
  
• 11/19/2014 - An odd addition to this compendium is presented today. The same man, Robert Tralins, who gave us the Girl from SIS also gave us six adventures of an industrial spy, or counter-spy, named Valentine Flynn. They are kind of a hoot but risqué only if you are stuck in the 60s.
  
  
• 11/09/2014 - After another sojourn non-spy fiction genres (a three-book sci-fi jaunt as well as an Urban Legend, as I think it is called, series [vampires are among us!]), I present to you preliminary info on two series.
  The first is a young adult series by action adventure expert Chris Ryan dealing with Zak Darke, Agent 21.
  The second is from the late 60s - early 70s about a British barrister, Martin Ainsworth, who is approached by British Intelligence to help out a time or two.
  
  
• 10/11/2014 - Two new series are inducted into this compendium, both well worthy of membership. The first is a former thief turned SEAL turned CIA agent turned thief, Robin Monarch by Mark Sullivan with three books and three novellas. The second series is another CIA agent, this one trained in rescuing hostages in very hostile situations, Ryan Drake by Will Jordan.
  
  
• 09/27/2014 - Preliminary information on three more series was entered today. Each of these have three books. They are Scott Roarke by Gary Grossman, Hadrian Black from Roger Vallon, and Daniel Shandon by Vance Duplechin. Please welcome all of them.
  
  
• 09/26/2014 - After some time reading lots of different topics, I am adding several series in the next week or so. I just have preliminary comments of most of them. Starting it off, please welcome a private spook named Jason Peters by Gregg Loomis and CIA agent Alex Law by Kent Harrington. Both series have 3 books.
  
  
• 09/13/2014 - My friend and fellow spy enthusiast, Johny Malone, host of unaplagadeespias, told me about the new Malko books being released in English. The details that I have were added today. Thanks, Johny, and thanks to those bringing English readers more Malko.
  
  
• 09/10/2014 - The two-book series about Raymond Ingelram, better known as Rogue Male comes to this site. Though the time separation in the two adventures is roughly 3 years, the time between the writing is 40+ years! The second book is quite worth reading. The first book is such a fantastic hunter-hunted adventure, it should be considered mandatory.
  
  
• 08/28/2014 - I have been reading like crazy but several of the books have been non-spy series (yes, I do still read other things). However, I have added recently preliminary entries on two young adult spy series: the two-book novelization series of the movies about Cody Banks and the very impressive 10+ book series about a group of spies who are all underage, CHERUB.
  
  
• 08/07/2014 - After having worked on it for some time, I am pleased to add to this compendium a most fascinating series from nearly 80 years ago. Please welcome the inimitable Mr. Moto who is very very happy to meet you. Please be very very careful how you treat him, though, as Mr. Moto is very very good at what he does. In case you were wondering, Mr. Moto uses the double adverb a lot!
  
  
• 08/04/2014 - A series from a couple of years ago about a husband-and-wife team working for the President has joined the group. Please check out R.L.Tyler's Vince and Cat.
  
  
• 07/30/2014 - Preliminary data was recently entered on an interesting spy from the 30-50s, Gregory Sallust by British author Dennis Wheatley. I am still writing on it but thought I would tell people about it now.
  
  
• 07/26/2014 - E. Baron sent me information about more Derek Flint items that have been around for a bit but I never knew about - a made-for-tv movie and a single-issue comic book. Thanks for the heads-up! The entry has been updated.
  
  
• 07/21/2014 - I have been asked on a few occasions why I do not have Simon Templar, the Saint, in this compendium. As much as I love the character (I have all the books and have read most of them) I did not think he had done enough "spy" stuff to warrant it. Finally I went over every novel, novella, and short story and made a list to see how many were at all cloak and daggerish. By far and away enough were so, with considerable pleasure, I present to you Simon Templar, the Saint.
  
  
• 07/17/2014 - A trilogy about a male operative making a break from his secret, illegal organization and the struggles to pull it off is the latest entry into this compendium. Please welcome Sebastian Hannar, the Ninth Orphan.
  
  
• 07/01/2014 - Two new series are added today though both of them have just the preliminary data about them and some of that may be wrong. I am reading them but thought I would say something now so please welcome WR Park's Rance Colby, a 5-book series, and William Esmont's two-book series about Kurt Vetter.
  
  
• 06/18/2014 - I have just finished reading the second of two terrific spy books being reprinted by the University of Chicago Press in connection with the British Library as part of their Spy Classics series. The Great Impersonation and The Spy Paramount, both by the terrific E. Phillips Oppenheim from the 1930's, were incredible reads that I would recommend to any lover of spy-fi. Mr. Oppenheim, who is sadly hardly known to most readers, was a fantastic talent in the era and neither he nor his books should be forgotten. I cannot suggest strongly enough to get you to check them out.
  
  
• 06/15/2014 - Two young people, separate series, join the compendium today. Both of them are designed for the teenage market but both are well deserving of entry here as they are truly enjoyable. Please welcome Cammie Morgan of the Gallagher Girls and say another hello to Alex Rider, agent of MI6.
  
  
• 06/02/2014 - Some months ago I went against my self-imposed rule about only dealing with spy series that take place at least some after WWII. This was with the impressive series of short stories in the Ashenden series. I continue my foray deeper into the past with one of the first series to really make a difference in the fictional world, the terrific tales of Richard Hannay by John Buchan. There will be more pre-WWII series to come but after Ashenden, there is none I would suggest stronger than Sir Richard.
  
  
• 05/30/2014 - A soldier working with Army Intelligence is selected to go to work with a highly secret division of the DIA in the series about Jim Chapel. Tons of action extremely well written. A great page turner.
  
  
• 05/25/2014 - Though written in the past year, the series introduced today in this compendium is about a "beatnik spy" named Gunner Quinn, a jazz musician and oft-times agent pressed into service by the CIA, taking place in the mid 50's. Good writing and good storytelling.
  
  
• 05/20/2014 - It was not very long ago I welcomed John Milton to this compendium. In the latest of that series' books is a tale co-starring Beatrix Rose, a former agent with more than just an axe to grind. I loved the tale but wanted more. The author has been kind enough to deliver. Please welcome Ms. Rose - but do it politely as she is not one to annoy.
  
  
• 05/14/2014 - From one of the fertile minds that forty-plus years ago gave me one of my all-time favorite character, the incredible and not-to-be-believed The Destroyer, comes a related series about the lead character's two children and the path they now walk. It is similar to their father but different enough to be unique. I have enjoyed and think you will, too, the The Destroyer - Legacy series. Please welcome this new series to the compendium.
  
  
• 05/02/2014 - I do not believe I mentioned it but a few days ago I added the preliminary information about a really good two-book series by David Hagberg and Senator Byron Dorgan. I just finished my write-up on it so please welcome Nate Osborne, sheriff of Billings County, North Dakota.
  
  
• 04/28/2014 - While I am still working on my preliminary write-up about the series, I wanted to introduce the books in the 11-book action-packed series about the former SAS, then undercover cop, then MI5-connected agent Spider Shepherd.
  
  
• 04/14/2014 - A terrific series, if you enjoy British adventures from the Sixties like I do, joins the group. The six-book series about steeplechase jockey and horse owner, and part-time spy for British Intelligence, Richard Graham is a lot of fun to read. I have not completed my write-up as I am in the middle of reading it but will do so soon.
  
  
• 03/17/2014 - Over the years I have had quite a few very unique series to enjoy and write about. Today I bring to you one that is very much a unique experience, one that I truly enjoyed immensely. Nathaniel Cade is an agent for the President, sworn to protect this nation until his final day, which may be a while since he is a vampire. Written by Christopher Farnsworth, this three-book (so far) series had me totally hooked from the first page and never let go. I really enjoyed it a lot. It is a great vampire series which is also a pretty awesome spy series as well. I truly recommend it as a change of pace and a source of good entertainment.
  
  
• 03/01/2014 - After a couple weeks catching up on new books in much loved series (like Steve Carver and Jonathan Quinn), I pulled another series from the to-be-read shelf and present to you the three books about investigator/international negotiator David Martini. Written in the mid-to-late 60s by Colin Forbes under a penname (okay, even Forbes is a penname), they are entertaining books by a man on his way to becoming a master.
  
  
• 02/19/2014 - The northernmost North American country provides the latest entry into this compendium. Justin Hall is a member of the Canadian Intelligence Service, an agent who specializes in the heat of North Africa though the first novel takes place in his own country's frigid upper region.
  
  
• 02/14/2014 - Happy Valentine's Day. The newest entry in this compendium is someone you would never associate with hearts and flowers as his life as an agent for the Russian military and as a criminal with the Russian mob is not a very romantic one. Please welcome the incredibly addictive Volk.
  
  
• 02/12/2014 - Last month I added the highly enjoyable series about Jack Noble. One of its supporting cast members has her own book now and, combined with the large roles she plays in his series, I decided to invite her to join us. Please welcome, but do not antagonize, Clarissa Abbot.
  
  
• 01/23/2014 - Have I got a series for you! At least I enjoyed the heck out of it and I think you may as well. It is about a government assassin named John Milton who says so long to the Service despite being told no one leaves. It is about his life on the lam and it is a terrific read that kept my attention through three books without any lull. Please welcome this former agent to the group.
  
  
• 01/22/2014 - Darren wrote to me and pointed out that I had not told anyone about Ostara Publishing's re-release of the first two books in the David Callan series. This is part of their Top Notch Thrillers imprint and its editor, Mike Ripley, had told me about it some time ago and I posted reviews about them on Amazon. But I did not mention in these pages. What a doofus! If you have not read the Callan series, you owe it to yourself. Darn fine writing.
  
  
• 01/05/2014 - A belated Happy New Year to everyone reading this. I was going to bring this new member into the fold a few days ago after I read the first couple of books but I am now almost finished with the sixth book and I am forcing myself to stop reading long enough to ask you to welcome freelance operative Jack Noble.
  
  
• 12/31/2013 - As the year ends, a two-book series about a vending machine driver turned geopolitical analyst joins the group. Please welcome Casey Shenk to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/30/2013 - Please welcome the beautiful and highly resourceful CIA agent and full-time super-model Jaclyn Johnson, available in e-book format. She comes to this collection with four novels and a novella to entertain us.
  
  
• 12/29/2013 - Arie was kind enough to send me information of the passing in October of prolific spy author, Gerard de Villiers, creator and writer of the Malko series.
  
  Scott sent me information of a book each, along with great scans, in the Michael Berresford and Stephen Fletcher series.
  
  My appreciation to both.
  
  
• 12/27/2013 - Belated Merry Christmas to all. My apologies to the authors of about 8 series that I added quite some time ago. I somehow messed up my database for those entries and the wrong books appeared in the listing. I have hopefully corrected that. I have also been busy reading so I might have new series to write about. And I have been clearing up some that needed comments added. Lots more series to come in this New Year.
  
  
• 12/19/2013 - With considerable delight I bring to your notice a series from back in the 40's. Written with tremendous skill and amusement is this somewhat light-hearted mystery/espionage series about a young married couple who find far more trouble than they deserve. Please welcome to the compendium Arab and Andy Blake by Richard Powell.
  
  
• 12/16/2013 - A very exciting, action-filled series currently available in ebook format joins the group today. With three books and one short story, there is a lot to enjoy with John Purkiss, nicknamed the Ratcatcher because it is his job to track down British spies who have gone off the reservation. And he is very good at it.
  
  
• 12/09/2013 - I had thought for a long time I would bring to this compendium a character who, though there was only one book about him, had been a fictional spy for five decades and one I really enjoyed. It was after several of you asked about him that I finally added him. There is still work to do to add several dozen comic books but for now, please say hello to Nick Fury.
  
  
• 12/07/2013 - A two-book series that just barely qualifies, IMHO, as a spy series but definitely qualifies as a darn good read joins the group today. Please welcome reporter Jack Warner to the compendium.
  
  
• 12/05/2013 - Another bout of pneumonia or some such has laid me low this past Thanksgiving and messed with my reading as well as my socializing with family - both acts of vicious sabotage. Oh well! Please welcome a series that has been in the wings for too long, E.V.Seymour's quite enjoyable Paul Tallis, former policeman now unofficial agent for MI5.
  
  
• 11/18/2013 - Preliminary entry has been made on a former CIA agent now a major player with the European Counterterrorism Agency. Please welcome Allan Topol's Craig Page to the group.
  
  
• 11/09/2013 - A very, very good series about an FBI forensic artist and agent named Sydney Fitzpatrick joins the group. These books work fantastically as mysteries, suspense, and spy-fi. The author, Robin Burcell, is just terrific.
  
  
• 11/08/2013 - Please welcome two new members of this compendium. The first is a British agent who takes on crime and spies with equal measure, Ludovic Fender. The second is an FBI agent, Andy Fisher, who plays by his own rules.
  
  
• 11/07/2013 - It is nearly two weeks after I announced I had restarted Your Comments on this site. That was rather premature and I got hammered with really naughty stuff I could have done without. Well, Take 3. We will see how this goes.
  
  
• 10/18/2013 - Once again I have enabled the 'Leave your comments and grade' section of the site. I have put back in the Login/Register. Hopefully the spam will stop but I doubt it.
  
  
• 10/12/2013 - The two-book series about the Red School, an orphanage with a difference, joins the group. This very enjoyable escape tells of an organization that trains kids from an early age to be killers for the government. As implausible as it is a hoot to read.
  
  
• 10/08/2013 - The preliminary write-up of John Russell, an Anglo-American reporter living in pre-WWII Berlin has been entered. I am still reading the books but wanted to induct this very interesting series into the group.
  
  
• 10/02/2013 - Please observe a moment of silence for the death of a true giant in the industry. Tom Clancy passed away today after a brief illness. Mr. Clancy was one of the few authors who could hold claim to having invented or perfected a genre. In this case it was the incredibly exciting techno-thriller. I had the honor of an all-to-brief one hour chat with him in the late 80s on a hotel balcony during a game convention. The man was impressively articulate and knowledgeable and he most definitely could write. RIP, sir.
  
  
• 09/20/2013 - Robert Charles Smith, writing under the penname of Charles Leader, gave us a two-book spy series in the mid-60s about a British Marine Captain working in Naval Intelligence in the Far East. Please welcome Paul Mason to the group.
  
  
• 09/14/2013 - Some time back I was told about a new series about Tom Palfrey. At first I thought it was a continuation of the John Creasey series, and a good argument could be made for considering it such. However, I have finally read the series and decided that though the main character is the grandson of the original Dr. Palfrey, he is decidedly his own man worthy of its own series. Please welcome the newest agent with Z5, written by the son of legendary author John Creasey, Richard Creasey.
  
  
• 09/13/2013 - A two-book series from the late 80s joins the collection today. Frank DiGenero is an FBI agent who, no longer undercover taking down the Mob, finds himself up against terrorists from two separate areas but both planning very nasty things.
  
  
• 09/12/2013 - I just watched the series finale of Burn Notice and was very, very pleased. I am sorry at the loss of a character but it was for a good reason. And the last couple of minutes with Sam and Jesse and then with Michael and Fi, really well written. My congratulations for a great series that ended terrifically without burning any bridges.
  
  
• 09/08/2013 - At the height of the spy-craze in the 60's, the porn publisher Bee-Line came out with its own female agent will to do anything and anyone to protect her country. These three books are really, really bad but they are about a spy so they fit in this compendium. Say hello to Jane Blond, the Girl from B.U.S.T.
  
  
• 09/06/2013 - Life stepped in and delayed my reading of the Emma Caldridge series after I first added it last month. Emma would not, luckily for me, be pushed around. I have read the series, absolutely loved it, and have finished my write-up. I have given it top grade. It is more adventure than spy novel but it still fits my criteria and this series is so darned good, it deserves this second shout-out. If you want an exciting, very well-crafted set of adventures, Emma is a great choice. I hope that Ms. Freveletti will keep us entertained for years to come.
  
  
• 09/04/2013 - Telecommuting to work today because the doctor says I have regular (not walking) pneumonia and lots of rest is called for. When I am not working at my desk, I am lying down as per the doctor and my own weak frame. Since I cannot sleep that much due to coughing (sighs of pity here, please), I read and I am able to present a series that has been on my to-do list for a while now and should not have been held back. Dingle & Jones are two agents who worked for British Intelligence during the late 60s and early 70s and is a very enjoyable at that. Very well written, good plots, likeable and believable heroes. I am pleased to welcome this duo into the group.
  
  
• 09/03/2013 - Spy-fiction fans have been given a huge gift today with the release of a Homeland novel. Written by the immensely talented author Andrew Kaplan, Homeland: Carrie's Run describes a mission she was on in 2006 and clearly shows even then she speaks her mind and does not back down. I very strongly recommend this book.
  
  
• 09/01/2013 - It is a Sunday on a holiday weekend and I have either the worst and weirdest kidney stone OR, my wife believes, Walking Pneumonia. I have the benefit of a nurse for a mother-in-law (fantastic woman, she) and my wife is simply awesom so I can survive until Tuesday but this sucks.
  
  Of course, it means I can do no more than sit in a chair feeling miserable and watching a baseball game and later tonight a NASCAR race. And in the meantime try to do something productive with my site.
  
  I tell my wife I would much rather be outside doing yardwork in the 90+ degrees and she has the good grace to snort fairly quietly.
  
  So! Please welcome Ray Felton, a British private eye who took on Nazi sympathizers and Communist agents and other really bad guys in the late 50's.
  
  
• 08/16/2013 - A terrific four-book (so far) series with a trilogy of novellas to go with them are the adventures thus far written about a terrific new member of the compendium, the ultramarathon runner and brilliant biochemist, Emma Caldridge by the highly gifted and award-winning author Jamie Freveletti. I handed these to my wife before I tried them and she devoured them. She was right. These are great.
  
  
• 08/14/2013 - After a couple of weeks updating a lot of information of already reported series, especially television and movie entries, I have another series to introduce. Berglund and Delgado are depicted in a two-book series that is really a lot of fun.
  
  
• 07/27/2013 - Preliminary entries made on two additional series. The first is a two-book financial spy series from the late 90's about Sarah Jensen, employed by MI6 and the Bank of England. The second is a three-book series from the mid-60s about a man named Philip Jordan who works for a British agency called MIx.
  
  
• 07/24/2013 - Fellow spy fan Mark pointed out that I had gotten the order wrong on Paul Bannerman and Christopher wrote to let me know the person behind the Paul Kenyon pseudonym of the The Baroness was noted science fiction author Donald Moffitt. And a very knowledgeable Fred has been giving me info on numerous authors. My thanks to these gentlemen and all who have helped improve my site. Anyone who knows where I have gone wrong, please drop me a line.
  
  
• 07/23/2013 - The awesome talent that is David Baldacci has blessed us readers with yet another terrific spy series, this one being about the CIA assassin Will Robie. I devoured the two books in the series and then had to ask myself which series I would like the next Baldacci adventure to be in. The answer was, whichever one he wants. They're all good!
  
  
• 07/15/2013 - Some clever S.O.B. polluted my new Opinion section, filling it with lots of garbage. What a delight some people are. No wonder there are so many fictional assassins out there. Wishful thinking on a lot of our parts. "He needed killin'" will often get a lots of nods.
  
  I have cleaned up the garbage and hopefully put in something to slow them down. We will see. If you put in an opinion and it was lost, I apologize. Please try again.
  
  
• 07/11/2013 - HOPEFULLY I have your comments back in place since my system failed a while back. I have removed the need to become a member (eliminated the whole membership concept 'cause it never worked right). Please start leaving comments. They are fun to read.
  
  
• 07/05/2013 - If you can, take a moment to check out what I am doing with the Modesty Blaise page. I am having a blast reading the almost fifty years of comic strips, many I read years ago but most new to me. What an amazing creature our Modesty is. I have all the strips but it takes time to read them and more time to pull images. But I enjoy it and every couple of days I will add to it. I strongly recommend checking out Titan's great line of Modesty material.
  
  
• 07/04/2013 - Happy Birthday, America!!!
  
  
• 06/29/2013 - When I listened to the audio version of The Panther by Nelson DeMille, the latest in the John Corey series, I was surprised and very pleased to find another of his characters, Paul Brenner playing a major role in a whole new job. I was also pleased when it occured to me that with the second Brenner book almost qualifying him for this site, the new book definitely did. Welcome, sir!
  
  
• 06/26/2013 - My pal Johny from Argentina told me about The Rat Catchers from 1966. I knew of the British television series but did not know about the two books written. This series has now been added and it is a good one.
  
  
• 06/23/2013 - A two-book series about an FBI agent who is pulled from his normal work to take part in a task force that gets him doing things he never dreamed of joins the group. The main recurring character is a man named Bob Still so he gets the naming honor. Please say hello to him.
  
  
• 06/22/2013 - Though I entered the preliminary info about him some time ago, I did not mention it in What's New. I do so now since I finished the write-up. I am talking about the action-packed spy series (one book, one comic, four movies) about Ethan Hunt, aka Mission Impossible III.
  I make it separate from the original series because it is really a different universe for me (the Jim Phelps I grew up with would NEVER turn traitor).
  
  
• 06/19/2013 - A moment of silence, please, as the spy-fiction world acknowledges the death of one of its best-selling authors. Vince Flynn, the creator of the Mitch Rapp series, passed away today at age 47 from prostate cancer. He will be missed.
  
  
• 06/17/2013 - I had a lot of fun revisiting an old friend as I invited John McClane of the NYPD to join the group. Comprised (so far) of three books, two of whom were not about him, five movies, and a few comic books, his exploits fighting terrorists, and those pretending to be, and dictator-wanna-be's definitely make him eligible. Plus it gave me an excuse I didn't need to buy the latest DVD just out.
  
  
• 06/06/2013 - A very interesting and enjoyable series joins the group today. The style is definitely a look back at hard-boiled detectives with the main character, Hal Schroeder working with the FBI, the remnants of the OSS, and the newly formed CIA. Check it out. Available in book and ebook formats.
  
  
• 05/31/2013 - As May comes to an close, a four-book series about an International Investigator by the name of Barry Ross joins the group. Written by Ann Livesay, they tell stories about a man who travels the world on behalf of his very rich aunt getting involved in all sorts of adventures, always with spies and terrorists and global criminals involved. These are fun reads by a woman who has done the same travels as her character.
  
  
• 05/28/2013 - A new addition to the site today and a very pretty lady she is but do not fall for her. Others did during WWII and after and, well, it did not work out so well for them. This is an 8-book series by the terrific Christopher Nicole, recounting the adventures during and after WWII of Anna Fehrbach, agent for MI6 and later the CIA.
  
  
• 05/27/2013 - Maybe I am back and running. Not sure. Too nervous to look that hard. My brother is working with me to perhaps move to Joomla for added features and stability over my home-grown programming. In the meantime... I continue.
  
  
• 05/25/2013 - Got part of the site working using REALLY old technology - files instead of a database. This is just until I can get the new system figured out and working. Only the Characters work right now. The rest is still sick.
  
  
• 05/22/2013 - Informed by my hosting service that my code is really old (10 years) and technology has moved on. I told them that I, too, was old and I am still working but, well, never mind. Looks like I have to change my site to another system. Lots of work ahead.
  
  
• 05/18/2013 - Kind of a catastrophe. My site went down. Mostly. It still ran but none of my pages would talk to the database which held everything the pages were supposed to say. The pages, not getting the info, got really snooty and did not show anything. My host provider says everything is fine. Does not look so fine from my end.
  
  
• 05/11/2013 - Finally a new series to add to the collection. I have been planning and working on the new stuff on my site that I have been remiss. Say hello to the great Frederick Forsyth's first series to grace this listing with Cal Dexter. I could have given star billing to character Paul Devereaux but Dexter won.
  
  
• 05/09/2013 - Today I launch a major expansion to my site. It still looks the same, though that too is undergoing work. The change I mean is the addition of several new Sections. In addition to the 'About the Series', 'My Comments', 'Grade', and 'Books', I have added, when appropriate, 'Movies', 'Television', 'Comic Books' and 'Comic Strips'. I am trying to now include any instance where a spy series has moved to tell a story.
  
  It is a huge undertaking and will occupy me for quite some time. Only a couple of series have been touched in the initial launch ('Mission: Impossible' and 'Matt Helm') but I am working hard.
  
  
• 05/03/2013 - A very good friend who captivates me every month with a terrific article on crime novel, which can be read at ShotsMag, Mike Ripley, was kind enough to send me just off the presses two new/old books. They are part of Top Notch Thriller's efforts to keep quality out-of-print authors from being forgotten. These particular books are Tightrope by Antony Melville-Ross, book 3 of the Al Trelawney series, and Berkely Mather's The Terminators, book 2 in the Idwal Rees series. If you cannot find them in your local bookstore, both can be gotten online at Amazon and Barnes&Noble in paperback and eBook format. I so very heartily recommend both.
  
  
• 05/02/2013 - I heard from author Andrew Kaplan that his latest in the Scorpion series, Scorpion Deception, is due out later this month. I am looking forward to reading it. You should, too!
  
  
• 04/09/2013 - Some may have noticed. I am created a special mobile version of the site. If going to the normal gateway (www.spyguysandgals.com) on a mobile device such as cellphone, smartphone, or tablet, you shoul be redirected to pages that are more geared to that size screen. From a normal computer, you can get to it via www.spyguysandgals.com/m_index.asp. Let me know of problems.
  
  
• 04/07/2013 - A two-book series about retired CIA agent Tony Dantry by veteran publisher Richard Scott joins the group. It is a preliminary write-up as I finish the second e-book.
  
  
• 04/04/2013 - Long overdue for admittance to this collection is the awesome work of one of the best writers of suspense and intrigue, Nelson DeMille. Please welcome the 6-book series about John Corey and if you have not already, do yourself a favor and read them. Truly good reads.
  
  
• 03/28/2013 - Please say hello to Will Cochrane, aka Spartan, as he joins the collection with a two-book series recently released. Be nice to the man and do not get him angry because he does not suffer anyone anything.
  
  
• 03/24/2013 - Johny Malone, host of the great spy site unaplagadeespias, told me the Kenneth Royce book No Way Back was a Spider Scott adventure. I told him it wasn't. I got it to be sure. I was wrong (surprise!), happily. Johny does it again. Thanks, my friend!
  
  
• 03/22/2013 - No new series today but a huge rewrite to the Richard Quintain entry. I had thought there were 7 books in the series with a couple of possible more. Turns out there are 16 1/2. Very strange series.
  
  
• 03/15/2013 - Happy Ides of March! Nothing exactly new today but I did complete write-ups started ages ago on four series and thought I would mention them since it had been so long from I first talked of them. They are Allen Cheyney, Janine Simms, Freya Matthews, and Bob Sullivan.
  
  
• 03/10/2013 - Joining this collection of exciting spy guys and gals is an incredible fighting machine who is also not hard on the eyes. Please welcome the luscious and deadly Chandler, a woman who needs no second name. She brings with her two thrill-ride novels and one novella but at least one more of the former and two of the latter are on the way.
  
  
• 03/08/2013 - No new series (still reading) but I did add a few books to existing series, mostly new releases. Friend Johny wrote me about another in the Brandy French series and sent me a cover image. And another fellow reader told me about a book in the Charles Russell series, The Need To Know, which really surprised me.
  
  
• 03/01/2013 - A very funny, very imaginative two-book series about an agent with the silly nickname of Sally Sin joins the group. She is a hoot but just because she has an amusing take on, well, everything, do not think she is someone to take advantage of. She proves over and over you can be light-hearted and still be kick-butt.
  
  
• 02/17/2013 - Please welcome to the collection a very interesting and enjoyable series which takes place during the last days of WWII and the first days after, Peter Cotton, by Aly Monroe. I think you will enjoy them as much as I have, and that is a lot.
  
  
• 02/15/2013 - I need information on a little known erotic spy series that came out, all 7 adventures, in 1974. Published by a company known as Eros Goldstripe. The heroine is Brandy French and she is in the same vein as Eve Drum (the Lady from L.U.S.T.).
  
  
• 02/12/2013 - A fellow spy-fan named Philip W. let me know a few days ago of a third in the Su-Lin Kelly series. I just bought it today and now add it to the collection. Thanks, Philip!
  
  
• 02/06/2013 - I have been really enjoying a 3-book series about an FBI agent who leads an anti-terrorism team. One of the main characters helping him is his cousin, Tommy, who happens to work for the Mob. Please welcome to the group Nick Bracco, by Gary Ponzo, available in e-book format.
  
  
• 02/01/2013 - In the late 70's in Britain, a combination cop/spy series that I truly enjoyed aired on television. 15 books taken from many of these episodes formed the series I present to you now, The Professionals.
  
  
• 01/24/2013 - Not any new series for a couple of weeks because I have been indulging in reading new books by series I have already included. What a great pasttime!
  
  
• 01/09/2013 - Preliminary entry for a fairly new three-book series about a member of the super-secret Taskforce, dedicated to taking the fight to the terrorists. Welcome Brad Taylor's Pike Logan.
  
  
• 01/04/2013 - A HUGE mistake in grading was discovered by myself today and I am so ashamed I never caught it until now. Somehow my stupid fingers gave to the terrific, and ground-breaking, Harry Palmer series by the incomparable Len Deighton a 'B+' when it should have been 'A+'. I only just discovered it and I feel like a dope. I will have to review all my grades now. Again, Mr. Deighton, my sincere apology (assuming the unlikely event he has ever heard of my site).
  
  
• 01/03/2013 - Belated Happy New Years! I start the year off in spectacular style with the welcoming of the 666th series in the compendium. While many look at that number as the sign of the beast, for me it is the number of Sam Capra, an absolutely fantastic new series by a much decorated author, Jeff Abbott. I was totally blown away by the first book and am just about done with the second but could not wait to make sure everyone who honors me with a visit knows how great this writer is.
  
  
• 12/27/2012 - I bring to the group a three-book series about an interesting British agent named Patrick Matson from two decades ago. Play nice, Mr. Matson. Others are watching.
  
  
• 12/25/2012 - Merry Christmas to you all. Santa and my wife were nice enough to give me an Amazon gift card capable of buying a large number of ebooks and there are a ton of new spy e-series available online these days.
  
  
• 12/17/2012 - An ebook series currently having 4 action-packed adventures joins the group. This one is about a 28-year-old kick-butt former Mossad agent who wants to be left along but who finds others not so inclined. The lady in question is named Jet and I have really enjoyed the non-stop action by Russell Blake.
  
  
• 12/03/2012 - A 7-book mystery/espionage series about an Oxford don who is called to duty by the British Foreign Office on many occasions makes its entry into this compendium. Please greet Ambrose Usher.
  
  
• 11/29/2012 - Preliminary entry today for a three-book series about British agent Peter Cotton. An interesting note to this series is that it is about a male agent written by a female. This is a nice change.
  
  
• 11/27/2012 - I heard from the author of the Maxim Gunn series, Nicholas Boving, that he has been adding to the series without me knowing and has several additions available in e-book format. I have updated my site to reflect those that are ready now and his site indicates more coming. Also, I had heard a while back from another reader who suggested I give the Gunn books another look. With these new books, I think I will. Really great looking covers, too. I've always been a sucker for great covers and the designer of these did an awesome job.
  
  
• 11/26/2012 - I received word that Sol Weinstein, the hilarious wit who brought us the four fun capers of Israel Bond, passed away yesterday at the age of 84. RIP, Mr. Weinstein. You made me laugh many times over. Shalom.
  
  
• 11/21/2012 - A British spymaster, stern and used to getting his way, Allen Cheyney comes to join the group.
  
  
• 11/10/2012 - Please welcome a new member of the team. A (so far) two-book series available electronically on Kindle and Nook, Tom Dugan is a marine engineer who makes a few waves (sorry) of his own when bad guys try to hurt his friends. I just learned of this series and am reading the first book now so will have more on his page soon.
  
  
• 11/01/2012 - Preliminary entry on the four-book series about CIA agent Janine Simms. I am still reading the series so will add more later.
  
  
• 10/20/2012 - The beautiful red-haired female agent Sherazad joins the group with a three-book series. As I say in my write-up, the covers and the blurbs make you think they are a sex-filled lascivious ride but that is definitely not the case. You can get one of the first two books fairly cheaply but the third is way out of my price range.
  
  
• 10/05/2012 - A really terrific series that came out a year or so ago joins the group. Jammer Davis is an investigator with the NTSB who gets involved with some pretty nasty business in this two-book series. I really enjoyed them a lot and hope he will find time to write more.
  
  
• 09/21/2012 - While there is still a bit more I wish to write about the latest member of this collection, I would like to introduce you all to Bob Sullivan, a reporter who has a habit of snooping into the world of the snoops. It is a three-book series by a master storyteller.
  
  
• 09/11/2012 - Though almost done with the Frank Delaney series and the Victor series, and enjoying both series, I face the dilemma of what to do!!! The newest Jack Reacher book, A Wanted Man, just arrived in the mailbox and regular visitors to this site will likely know I consider this series, though not a spy, to be the best adventure/suspense series I have ever read. Thanks for the latest books, Mr. Child. (No, I did not get it free - I ordered it back in March - but he wrote it!).
  
  
• 09/10/2012 - A relatively new three-book series about reporter/spy Frank Delaney by Canadian reporter Michael E. Rose makes its entry into the compendium.
  
  
• 09/03/2012 - Wow, work really got intense and my reading took a major hit. That and the number of existing series with new books has grown to frightening heights and I spent some quality time with those old friends, like David Trevellyan and Sean Dillon and Joe DeMarco. Lots of new series to consume and write about but not much time. I am currently enjoying the first book in two series, one of which I present on a preliminary basis here. That is the two-book (so far) adventure of a freelance assassin turned CIA contract killer named only as Victor, written by British author Tom Wood.
  
  
• 08/13/2012 - A two-book action/adventure series about an OSI agent working directly for the Director of National Intelligence in the struggle against terrorism, Jericho Quinn is a very fast, very fun read and he joins the group today.
  
  
• 08/08/2012 - #650. I would not have ever guessed there would be so many but here we are. And the series I have chosen to mark this milestone is a really, really entertaining one quite unlike most of the spy series I have read. The spy guy is Nick Daley, an agent with the CIA in this two-book series by Diana R. Chambers. Taking place during the mid to late 80's, this series is well worth the reading and luckily for us all, it has just been given new life in the e-world so if you cannot find a hard copy of them, download them to your favorite electronic device.
  
  
• 08/04/2012 - Nothing new today BUT I want to urge everyone who loves crime, suspense, and thrillers to check out http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/, a terrific source of articles, reviews, and news. I read every month's issue without fail. Especially entertaining is veteran author Mike Ripley's article Getting Away With Murder. Mr. Ripley is also the man helping decide which great spy books are brought out of obscurity by Top Notch Thrillers. Yes, I am giving them a plug but only because they (and Mike) are doing a great thing for spy-fi fans.
  
  
• 08/03/2012 - A two-book spy/mystery series starring an aging Dean of Science at a fictional but prestigious Ivy League university joins the collection. Please welcome, and then go out and buy (used, unfortunately) the adventures of George Riam.
  
  
• 07/26/2012 - The preliminary remarks have been posted on a fascinating four-book (thus far) series about a former KGB operative now living in the West and doing occasional work for MI6 and the CIA. Please welcome to the collection Anna Resnikov, an operative who is as deadly as she is smart and beautiful.
  
  
• 07/21/2012 - A two-book series about an aging British footballer forced into the cloak and dagger world joins the collection. Say hello to Terry Keegan, a man who does not want trouble but will not back away from it either.
  
  
• 07/19/2012 - For the past 5 days I have enjoyed the presence of a kidney stone which apparently decided to break into a couple of smaller ones. Pain medicine is great for helping to reduce the suffering but it plays havoc with one's ability to read and remember what one read. Nevertheless, I am finishing up the preliminary write-up on one of the sleaziest and most interesting characters in a long time - the short, fat, sweaty, conniving, beguiling, and captivating Frenchman Charles Pol, the delightfully icky character created by superb writer Alan Williams.
  
  
• 07/10/2012 - From the mid 80's comes a three-book series based on a terrific action television show that I greatly loved back then. It dealt with Robert McCall which, as my comments indicate, shows what happens when bad guys come up against a good guy who can be even nastier than them. Terrific show. I miss the actor, Edward Woodward.
  
  
• 07/09/2012 - I survived my 60th birthday today. Wonderful dinner with family. Got a new scanner for the book covers. And received three books in the mail to add to my to-be-read pile. Not a bad day, even if I did reach a major milestone in life.
  
  
• 07/08/2012 - Please welcome the newest member of this association, the incredibly beautiful and totally dangerous Catherine Ling. The so-far 5 books in which she does her best to make life unpleasant for the bad guys are by best-selling author, Iris Johansen. Initially introduced as a character in the Eve Duncan, forensic sculptor, series of suspence novels, Ling's first adventure with Duncan takes them on a search for Ling's kidnapped son and pits them against a man who is helping terrorists destroy cities. She then appears as a co-star in three more Duncan books before going on her on in the latest, but hopefully not last, book out so far.
  
  
• 07/07/2012 - A new look to the site. A tad lighter with a new, temporary logo. I invite anyone who can has artistic skills, which I obviously lack, to try their hand at a logo. I like the silhouette approach but my handiwork needs work!
  
  
• 07/04/2012 - Happy Birthday, America! 236 years old. Of course, Great Britain and France and such would call us teenagers but being such an avid reader, I prefer the term Young Adult.
  I do have one announcement today and that is I have begun a major revist to the Authors section of this site. I am trying to put in a bit more information about the author (I am not competing with Wikipedia, however) as well as a fairly comprehensive list of non-spy series works, including known pseudonyms. I am finished the "A" list.
  
  
• 06/28/2012 - A captivating and intriguing five-book series by Michael Bowen about a retired Foreign Services operative named Richard Michaelson joins the club today. Largely considered a mystery series, which it most decidedly is, it involves a man who spent a large chunk of his career with the State Department watching what the watchers were doing - namely gathering much the same intelligence for State that the CIA and others were gathering but then reporting it straight and not with the sanitization that rivalry often brings. While finding killers might appear to be the primary goal of the stories to many readers, Michaelson also gets involved with considerable intrigue and goes up against and sometimes cooperates with the FBI, CIA, and the rest of the alphabet crowd. The writing is fantastic, by the way.
  
  
• 06/23/2012 - If you want an exciting few hours of great reading or great listening, check out the two-book series about Nathan McBride by Andrew Peterson. I did and was extremely glad for it. I look forward to more adventures about this former Marine/CIA sniper and, should the author be so kind as to write them, I know I will enjoy them as much as I did the first two.
  
  
• 06/22/2012 - Away on a business trip for a few days, I can now take the time to bring on the two-book series Airwolf, aka Hawke_Stringfellow. This novelization series of several episodes from the mid-80's action spy series was quite nostalgic, even if I did give it an over-all low grade. No offense to the author for the low marks, though, as he did very well with what he had to work with. My thanks to Johny Malone for his tip.
  
  
• 06/16/2012 - I have been the lucky receiver of a fair number of scans from site visitors, scans that are different than the covers of the books I own. It was suggested by Dean Brierly many, many months ago that I put in some mechanism to show alternate scans and I have finally gotten it done. The current method I chose is to put to the right of the image in the Books section of each series a "+" if there are more than one scan. Clicking on the image takes you to another page, as it has for some time, showing a much bigger image. Beneath the image are numbers to click to see more images, if there are any more. I may find a better way to do this but for now, it is what it is. There are extra images for a handful (maybe 30+) series so far. If you have any scans you would like to share, please send them!!!
  
  
• 06/13/2012 - A frequent visitor to this site, John, was nice enough fill me in on the identity of the writers of a couple of the Bart Gould books that I had not known. He also commented that it would be nice to be able to click on the images on the homepage which are changing and go the appropriate series page so, after a few programming goofs, I think I have it working. I may add this feature to other pages when I get some time. Thanks, John.
  
  
• 06/10/2012 - Corbett and Leigh are a duo in a two-book techno-thriller series from '89-'93 by one of the giants of that genre, Dean Ing.
  
  
• 06/06/2012 - A two-book series that I comment is rather Hitchcockian in feel is entered into this compendium. The hero is not a spy but a travel agent named Sergei Roff.
  
  
• 06/02/2012 - I was remiss to not also mention in my comments about the return of Desmond Cory books that there is a new one. Not a series book but still a Desmond Cory novel and that is worth crowing about. It is On the Gulf, an espionage/action adventure taking place in the Gulf region and filled with interesting characters. It, too, is available on Kindle so check it out!
  
  
• 06/01/2012 - Fantastic news for spy series fans! I just learned from the sons of Johnny Fedora creator, Desmond Cory, that they have made available for Kindle readers several of the Fedora adventures. This includes the first three adventures which came out before James Bond's first mission: Secret Ministry aka The Nazi Assassins, This Traitor, Death aka The Gestapo File, and Dead Man Falling aka The Hitler Diamonds. This is in addition to Top Notch Thrillers' release of Undertow. A terrific spy series written by a terrific writer is no longer stuck on the used-book shelves. My thanks to his sons for doing this as well as for telling me about it. In addition to the Fedora books, they are also bringing back his private detective series about ex-cop Lindsey Grey which I also look forward to re-meeting. Eventually, his son, Richard McCarthy, said, they hope to release The Head, the only Fedora adventure I have never found.
  
  
• 05/30/2012 - For your delightful reading pleasure I present the three-book series about James Pettigrew, an average-looking man who blends in so well you never notice him, even as he goes about his business for the British Secret Service. Written back in the late 50's, they are very good reads.
  
  
• 05/26/2012 - Johny Malone clued me into the newest entry in the compendium, an absolutely delightful two-book series about a lousy thief who turns out to be an okay spy. His name is John Tibbett and he was written by a man who played Sexton Blake on television for a couple of years. Besides being a good actor, the man was a darn good writer. Furthermore, the second book in the series now holds the position of my favorite title for a book, beating out the previous one, "I Was Following This Girl".
  
  
• 05/24/2012 - Thanks to my friend and fellow spy fan, Bruce, I am able to present the two-book series about retired, though still active, agent William McLendon. These books, one coming out in 1978 and the sequel in 1989, were written by former CIA agent David Atlee Phillips, younger brother of James Atlee Phillips, aka Philip Atlee of the Joe Gall series. Thanks, Bruce. Sorry it took so long to get these entered.
  
  
• 05/21/2012 - A two-book series from the very early British 60's about a respectable safe designer (and skilled safecracker) Richard Logan joins the group. While only the second book is legitimately a spy adventure, the first reads so much like one, I give it an honorary membership.
  
  
• 05/20/2012 - A series which reads every bit like a traditional spy series with lots of international action and excitement, the three-book series about Alec Haig, written by Alan White but using the character's name as his pseudonym, joins the group. Haig is a security consultant working for a major multi-national company and goes lots of places to keep his company secure.
  
  
• 05/16/2012 - I have been asked a couple of times why, if I have listed the The Executioner and Stony Man series, I do not list the two companion series, Able Team and Phoenix Force in this compendium. I honestly cannot say since I have owned the books from the time they started in 1982 until they merged to become Stony Man in 1992. Well, for whatever reason they had been omitted, they no longer are.
  
  
• 05/13/2012 - Happy Mother's Day! My daughter and I just finished serving my darling wife a nice breakfast and as she recovers from our cooking, I take this opportunity to add the preliminary entry on a three-book series about Jake MacIntyre, a former U.S. Ranger who is now a successful photo-journalist who gets involved in very interesting adventures in different parts of the globe.
  
  
• 05/11/2012 - Say hello to the two-book series about Jack Lund, a CEO of a major company that spends more time as the head of Security as he does anything else. Gun battles and car chases and high-speed air and sea battles and bombs going off all over the place and spies stealing technology and so on all make the corporate boardroom seem rather tame.
  
  
• 05/10/2012 - Added three articles which I had loaned the nascent online Espionage Magazine with the understanding that after a couple of months I would put them here. They were fun to write and maybe they will be fun to read. The names are Realism Vs Enjoyment, Stop Arguing!, and A Note To Would-Be Spy Writers.
  
  
• 05/09/2012 - While the write-up in the About The Series section is only preliminary, I have added the six-book series about Special Branch detective Jessica Jones, a woman who is a cop given the job of operative and minder. This series is written by the incredible Christopher Nicole who is as gifted as he is prolific. I have just started this series but already I know I will love it.
  
  
• 05/06/2012 - I sadly read in the paper this morning of the passing last April 22 of one of the truly gifted spy writers, Bill Granger. He died at the age of 70 after having suffered some years back a series of strokes. According to his wife, those strokes had left him largely unable to write which explains why his terrific series, Devereaux, stopped when it did. Sleep well, sir. And thank you sincerely for many, many hours of great reading.
  On a not so important note, I finally finished my write-up on Jeff Saunders. Note sure why it took me a week to do it. Books were not bad at all and the author was very knowledgeable.
  
  
• 05/05/2012 - Happy Cinco De Mayo! Today I added a three-book series from the late 70s concerning a spymaster named Mark Sherwood, a man who calls upon men who served under him during WWII to undertake dangerous missions nearly three decades later. This is a very enjoyable series.
  
  
• 05/04/2012 - Happy Star Wars Day! At least, May the Fourth be with you. Added the three-book series about the retired agent known the world over as The Prisoner. As had been pointed out by several visitors to the site, this series was about a spy who was a prisoner because he of his occupation and so really belonged.
  
  
• 05/03/2012 - Heard from Andrew Kaplan, the creator and writer for the excellent two-book series the Scorpion who, besides pointing out I had misspelled his name (my apologies, sir!), also let me know that a third book in the series will be coming out in July. I pre-ordered it immediately and I recommend the same for all fans of spy fiction. Read the other two, of course, as they are really, really good.
  
  
• 04/29/2012 - Added a German spy who may well hold the record for the most adventures by a single author. The author is C.H.Guenter and the series is Robert Urban, aka Mr. Dynamite. There is an impressive 314 adventures from 1965 to 1992. It was my friend, Johny, who pointed out I had missed him even though I had most of the American edition books. My bad for forgetting.
  
  
• 04/28/2012 - Added a two-book series about Jeff Saunders, a CIA agent from the mid 70s and from 2005 a three-book series about Cleo North, a former USAF Office of Special Investigations who is now a very successful security consultant who finds herself drawn into spy cases via her old employer, the US government.
  
  
• 04/27/2012 - Cleaned up several series which had no grades, no About The Series or no My Comments. Now I feel I can start adding newly found series. My stack of new series to be added is getting quite high thanks to tips from several site-visitors. Special thanks go to Bruce and Johny who continue to help me find some great gems. I invite anyone who knows of a series I do not have here to let me know!
  
  
• 04/17/2012 - Jonathan Gaunt is an agent for the Scottish government whose duties takes him all around Europe and gets him involved in some very nasty but always very enjoyable troubles in this 10-book series from the 70's and 80's.
  
  
• 04/12/2012 - A really good four-book series about a spymaster named Richard LeGrande joins the group. This gritty and entertaining series from the early to mid 60's is a gem that, as I say in my write-up, is all but forgotten and it should not be.
  
  
• 04/04/2012 - A two-book series about a retired CIA agent with no first name, Tarp, joins the group. Of course, Tarp could be the first name though I doubt it. The books were written in the early 80's and deal with a man who left the Agency after many years of service and wants to stay out of the business for good but is enticed back into it, once by a former head of Britain's MI-5 and once by his old opponents, the KGB, who need an outsider to stop one of their own guys.
  
  
• 04/02/2012 - All fans of spy fiction should take note of the wonderful job being done by Ostara Publishing with their Top Notch Thrillers series in which great fiction that has regretfully gone out of print are brought back. Two of my favorites, Quiller and Jonas Wilde, are among those being returned. My thanks go to them for such a great idea and a very special thanks goes to Mike Ripley, their series editor. Mr. Ripley is an award-winning mystery writer and also the columnist for SHOTS Crime & Thriller Ezine. The entire ezine is a great way to spend some time with articles and interviews. Mr. Ripley, with whom I have exchanged emails and someone I consider a friend even though I have not yet had the privilege of meeting him, has a monthly column called Getting Away With Murder. I never miss a month and you should not either.
  
  
• 04/01/2012 - A two-book series about another CIA agent betrayed by his boss and forced to flee for his life, this one is about Joe Stanford.
  
  
• 03/29/2012 - Nick Sten is a noted surgeon in Madison, Wisconsin. He is also the man a KGB General goes to when a Soviet scientist needs a radical operation only Sten can perform. Naturally, the CIA cannot pass up the opportunity to make use of the good doctor. In this two-book series, Sten has no desire to be involved in the CIA-KGB fight but no one asked his opinion. Interestingly, I almost named the series after the KGB general because he gets more print than the doctor.
  
  
• 03/27/2012 - A Delta Force officer who is occasionally seconded to the CIA, Mike Thorpe would never consider himself a spy in this two-book series but his adventures tell a different story.
  
  
• 03/25/2012 - MI-6 Agent Daniel Marchant is the star of a two-book (soon to be 3-book) series by Jon Stock. The CIA really does not like this agent!
  
  
• 03/23/2012 - The Robert Ludlum's book The Janson Directive came out a year after his passing. A decade later, Paul Garrison was hired to bring Paul Janson back and he joins the collection.
  
  
• 03/22/2012 - I thought I had added Joseph Finder's incredibly good two-book series about Nick Heller a while back because I devoured the books in just a couple of sittings. I was wrong so here they are. Heller is referred to as a "private spy", a man who finds out things others do not want known.
  
  
• 03/21/2012 - Andrew Kaplan's thus far two-book series (one more is set to come later this year) about the CIA assassin known only as Scorpion joins the team. This likely has the longest gap in books with the first written in 1985 and the latest in 2012, 27 years.
  
  
• 03/20/2012 - Steve Harvester, a two-book series with the first book written in 1953 and the second in 1974, joins the group. Harvester is an agent for a private organization out to help the Western world.
  
  
• 03/18/2012 - Changed the home page of the site to show the last few new things.
  
  
• 03/15/2012 - A CIA agent who gets a really raw deal from the Agency and then is asked nicely to help them out is Nathan Stand by John Kern in this two-book series that came out in 1988.
  
  
• 03/08/2012 - Another marine biologist who gets involved in lots of international intrigue and outstanding suspense joins the group as Charles Ryan's Cas Bonner is rediscovered in a four-book series from the early 90's.
  
  
• 03/06/2012 - From the mid 60's comes a two-book fairly light-hearted but fun series about Paul Baker who works occasionally for an unnamed agency of British Intelligence.
  
  
• 02/28/2012 - Kent Rathman, a Navy SEAL who is seconded to the CIA and learns to regret it. The two-book series was written by James Huston.
  
  
• 02/26/2012 - A trifecta today. Three series by the same author, Elliott Cannon. Each of these agents, Shaw Whitaker, Jeffery Steele, and Guy Fosse, work for a man named Ordish, aka Tricky Dicky. Much like the three agents by Berkley Mather who work for the Gaffer, these guys find dealing with their boss as challenging as the enemy.
  
  
• 02/24/2012 - A most interesting, unassuming but still fascinating civil servant is our William Holmes. Though he is always making little of his unstated position at 10 Downing Street, this youngish man with the quick smile is invariably the one called in when there is trouble happening. I have read several of the 6-book series from the early 60's and I heartily recommend them for a terrific change of pace. It was again Bruce who brought Mr. Holmes to my attention and for that I am very grateful as a site manager and as a spy-fi fan.
  
  
• 02/22/2012 - John Manning was a British agent with the Bureau of Special Investigations in the three-book series from the late 60's that now joins the group.
  
  
• 02/19/2012 - A series with one of the most incredible plot twists I have ever seen in any genre, let alone spy-fi, has joined the group. Say hello to the team of Ross & Lyle. It is astonishing. Thanks again to Bruce for the tip.
  
  
• 02/17/2012 - Please welcome David Sloane, a two-book series from the late 80's by Robert A Liston. Another tip from Bruce.
  
  
• 02/15/2012 - Added a new article to the site, hopefully correcting a horrible omission of mine in not telling anyone and everyone of the incredible reference books and such that I have used over the years to collect the information contained herein. The article is On The Shoulders Of Giants and I hope readers will check out these books and sites.
  
  
• 02/14/2012 - Not exactly a valentine is the head of a British Intelligence agency called the Department of Subversive Warfare but its spymaster, Cedric Harper, joins the collection as a man who is willing to make use of all sorts of people to get his job done.
  
  
• 02/10/2012 - 600!!! Wow! Please welcome to the ranks the 600th spy series covered in this compendium. The spy is the retired businessman, Charlie Connelly, who agrees to help the CIA on small things during his many business travels. An excellent travelogue in addition to being a fun read.
  
  
• 02/05/2012 - At the prompting of a site visitor, Bruce, I have added a character I once said no to and I am glad I changed my mind as the books about Alison Gordon are a lot of fun. Bruce also told me about a 7th book in the Onyxx series which I have added, as well as several complete series I did not have. They will be added over the next week. My thanks to you, sir!
  
  
• 01/29/2012 - Added long long long overdue links to my fellow spy sites in the C.O.B.R.A.S. link in the header. My apologies to them for the delay but I acknowledge I am a bum, especially since these sites have given me hours of enjoyment.
  
  
• 01/27/2012 - The first e-book series I have read, available on both Kindle and Nook, has joined the ranks here at SGAG. It is about MP-5, a group of four CIA operatives working in various regions of the world.
  
  
• 01/25/2012 - After several years of refusing to consider adding him, I have relented and today put in The Man From SADISTO, a series that is worth checking out for the satirical and historical values it possesses - certainly not for the quality of the books.
  
  
• 01/19/2012 - A search feature was added to the site. It is located a) at the top of the home page and b) at the bottom of each series and author and article page. I hope it is useful.
  
  
• 01/17/2012 - Introduced a section to let other leave their own grades and comments for a series. I would love to hear from others out there.
  
  
• 01/14/2012 - After some pushing by others and then some re-thinking on my part, I have added corporate lawyer/sleuth and part time spy, David Danning, a fun series which is mostly detective stories but which evolve into spy adventures for the last two cases, much like Honey West did.
  
  
• 01/08/2012 - The first two books of a planned trilogy about 60's agent, Paul Dark, has joined the group.
  
  
• 01/01/2012 - Happy New Year! And welcome the first addition of this new year, Nicholai Hel, a series that took 31 years to be (read the entry to understand).
  
  
• 12/31/2011 - Likely the last series added this year (considering it is the last day!) is Michael The O'Kelly, a reporter and former agent who loves danger. Strange middle name, though. Really enjoyable series so far.
  
  
• 12/30/2011 - Al Glenne, the third foreign agent, takes the stage.
  
  
• 12/29/2011 - The second of the three foreign agents mentioned below, Malko, is brought into the fold.
  
  
• 12/27/2011 - Added OSS-117, a CIA agent whose adventures started before Bond. This is one of three foreign spies I have long kept from my site because they were not originally written in English. Enough people argued the other way that I have given in.
  
  
• 12/24/2011 - Say hello to Cleopatra Jones, an agent with an unspecified American department who kicks butt with the best of them.
  
  
• 12/22/2011 - An agent from down under (Australia) joins the group: Alan McQueen, the protagonist of 3, soon to be 4, adventures.
  
  
• 12/21/2011 - CIA agent, formerly retired, Jordan Sandor, fighting the very good fight in two adventures so far, joins the collection.
  
  
• 12/19/2011 - Say hello to late-60s British spy Stephen Fletcher, hero of two, possibly three, adventures.
  
  
• 12/17/2011 - Paul Kilgerrin is a new addition to this collection. A hard-boiled private investigator, Kilgerrin is called upon by Military Intelligence on many occasions to help out where their agents have failed..
  
  
• 12/16/2011 - Yet another article was added. This one is Time Travel Can Be Fun. Still fun rambling. Hopefully a little fun to read, too.
  
  
• 12/04/2011 - A new article, Love Is In The Air - A Look At Romance Spy Series has been added. A lot of research and a lot of fun to write.
  
  
• 12/01/2011 - Adam Hood, an Australian operative in a 3-book series was added. I have two of the books on order so will complete the write-up soon. The third book is not available at this time (The Seajet Spies).
  
  
• 11/30/2011 - Finally I have finished the column And The Winner Is as well as two new columns Sex Sell! And So Do Explosions and If I Had But One Series. Fun to write. Hopefully fun to read.
  
  
• 11/28/2011 - Brought into the fold the first French agent written originally in English (as far as I know at this time). He is Alfred Baum of the DST.
  
  
• 11/20/2011 - A scientist who is pulled into working for British Intelligence is the newest member to the collection, though since the two books written about Geoffrey Branscombe were done 60 years ago, new is relative.
  
  
• 11/14/2011 - The enigmatic Bowler-hat wearing Mr. Groode, a British spymaster who directs the action of two different American operatives in a 4-book series joins the collection.
  
  
• 11/12/2011 - Max Flynn is a British agent from the early 80's who is probably the hardest series to collect I have come across so far. Each of the two books go for $200+ on the used market and the author, despite being very popular today, has pulled them from the market for not being very good. I would love to be able to read them to give my own opinion. Nevertheless, through his help, I have enough information to bring the character into the fold.
  
  
• 11/09/2011 - Say hello to Jonathan Grave, an expert at hostage rescue who gets involved in incredibly good adventures so much entrenched in national and international intrigue that he absolutely belongs in this group. I am still reading the third book and will finish the write-up on the series soon.
  
  
• 11/07/2011 - From the author of the Inspector Otani mystery series comes a two-book series about a Cultural Attache who is not a spy though telling everyone else that is a challenge. His name is Ben Lazenby.
  
  
• 11/01/2011 - With the help of one of Desmond Cory's sons, I was able to write up the synopsis of The Head in the Johnny Fedora series. Someday I hope to read the book myself.
  
  
• 10/25/2011 - The same man who unfortunately gave us the Girl from H.A.R.D. wrote a two-book series about British agent Silas Manners, who now come onto the site. These were not bad!
  
  
• 10/22/2011 - A great four-book series about a former and part-time CIA operative and medieval history professor named Horatio Cassidy joins the collection.
  
  
• 10/20/2011 - Dewey Andreas is a former Delta Force soldier turned oil rigger who is in the wrong place when terrorists attack and turn him into a man belonging in this collection.
  
  
• 10/16/2011 - Added a three-book series about a father-son team of agents, a rare combination, Patrick and Quentin Wright.
  
  
• 10/13/2011 - Introduced a two-book series about a successful crook asked to help, unofficially, MI-5, named Jacko Jackson.
  
  
• 10/10/2011 - Mikael Petros is an interesting two-book series about a character thrown into the world of international intrigue with the simple choice of killing a major leader or dying.
  
  
• 10/09/2011 - Brought in a two-book series from the mid 90's about a former SAS operative helping the FBI against terrorists. The man is named Mike Cramer. Also, an announcement was placed in the Israel Bond series telling how they are being reprinted!
  
  
• 10/08/2011 - A two-book series, this time about a sort-of freelance agent named Patrick Morley, joins the group. This guy has an interesting pedigree.
  
  
• 10/02/2011 - Added the three-book series about the agent Peter Lacey. Interesting that two additions have the same name, one as the first and the other as the last.
  
  
• 10/01/2011 - Added the three-book series about private investigator Lacey Lockington, a humorous series of private eye meets spies by Ross H. Spencer.
  
  
• 09/30/2011 - Brought Emma Streat and Jeremy Waller series uptodate. Don't know why I let them languish as I read them a bit ago.
  
  
• 09/29/2011 - Did the writing on John Apparite, a fun series that takes place in the 50's though it is written in the present.
  
  
• 09/28/2011 - Finished the write-up on the American ninja agent named Sam Borne.
  
  
• 09/27/2011 - Added the two-book series about Marieanne Payne, a British agent.
  
  
• 09/24/2011 - Finished my write-up on the British reporter Davis Troy, a series well worth reading. It was particularly interesting from an historical point of view as the writer is able to pull you into his world, one written in the early 60's, and let you experience it for yourself.
  
  
• 09/09/2011 - Did the write-up on the Philip Scott series.
  
  
• 09/06/2011 - Brought into the group the two-book Sam Borne series, written by E.B.Cross.
  
  
• 09/05/2011 - Scanned the covers for Jack Reacher, enjoying revisiting 15 awesome adventures and looking forward to the end of the month when the 16th comes out.
  
  
• 09/04/2011 - Finished the write-up on Brian Douglas.
  
  
• 08/27/2011 - A three-book series about a helicopter pilot who is forced into several espionage missions, David Pross, was added.
  
  
• 08/26/2011 - Introduced the two-book series about the Queen's Investigator known as Keys.
  
  
• 08/25/2011 - Finally got a copy of Host Of Extras by James Leasor and confirmed it is in the Jason Love series, albeit with Love being in more of a supporting role.
  
  
• 08/22/2011 - With great joy, I added the seventh book in the Haggai Godin series. I thought there were only six but learning of the seventh was fun and getting my hands on it even funner.
  
  
• 08/20/2011 - Added a two-book series based on the ITV series Neil Burnside with the spymaster, Neil Burnside, leading the way.
  
  
• 08/18/2011 - Added and wrote up a two-book series about a beautiful genius and a rugged Special Forces operative called Martinelli & Marshall.
  
  
• 08/13/2011 - Finished my statements on Matt Garrett. I really recommend this series to lovers of modern day paramilitary action.
  
  
• 08/11/2011 - Completed the write up of the Black Swan, aka Shauna Bishop, series.
  
  
• 08/07/2011 - Added the fourth book in the Ryan Kealey series, The Exile.
  
  
• 08/06/2011 - Noel Hynd's three book series about Alexandra LaDuca has been added. It is also known as The Russian Trilogy.
  
  
• 08/05/2011 - It turns out Claire McNab had written three more Denise Cleever books. These have now been added.
  
  
• 08/04/2011 - A third book in the Erik Chatham series, Immediate Action has been added.
  
  
• 08/01/2011 - The fifth book in the Liz Carlyle series was added, just as she is about to come out with the 6th - hard to keep up.
  
  
• 07/31/2011 - Added the three-book erotic spy series Black Swan, aka Shauna Bishop. I had been told about it some time ago by 07/29/2011 - A fifth book in the Jeff Pride series was brought to my attention by Johny Malone, this one published under the author's real name. Just got the book to confirm it.
  
  
• 07/28/2011 - Finished write-up on Halloran series, a two-book series I really enjoyed.
  
  
• 07/27/2011 - Increased the James Bond listing to include Jeffrey Deaver's Carte Blanche.
  
  
• 07/23/2011 - Added a book to the Payne & Jones series and one in the Kirk McGarvey.
  
  
• 07/17/2011 - Introduced a three-book series about the interesting former agent returned to duty named only (so far) as Wyatt, from the early 80's. Looks quite interesting.
  
  
• 07/11/2011 - Added another book in the Camel Club series. What a great read!
  
  
• 07/09/2011 - My fellow spy fan, Johny Malone, sent me two missing covers from the Ed Noon series. He also sent me the names of two writers in the Peter Winston series as well as three alternate titles in the Jonathan Anders series. Thanks, my friend!
  
  
• 07/08/2011 - Added another book in the Alexander Hawke series.
  
  
• 07/07/2011 - Added another book in the Joe DeMarco series.
  
  
• 07/05/2011 - Added another book in the Scot Harvath series.
  
  
• 07/04/2011 - Added another book in the Gabriel Allon series.
  
  
• 07/01/2011 - After a LONG hiatus for a project for my employer, I am back. Added the 9th book in Scot Harvath series.
  
  
• 04/29/2011 - Put in a 4th book in the Michael Jagger series, as pointed out by a correspondent. The book is A Big Enough Wreath which I was certain was not a Jagger book but he proved otherwise so I bought it and showed he was right. Finished my writings on the Paul Richter series.
  
  
• 04/28/2011 - The two-book series from the early 80's about Patrick Chambers, a former college dean and now plant shop owner who takes clandestine assignments on the side joins the group.
  
  
• 04/27/2011 - Introduced a two-book series from the mid 70's, British DI-6 agent Martyn Cale.
  
  
• 04/26/2011 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "W", "Y", and "Z". I will on occasion find some, especially those done early in my clean-up process, that I could do better but I will not announce it.
  
  
• 04/25/2011 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "U" and "V".
  
  
• 04/24/2011 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "T".
  
  
• 04/21/2011 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "S".
  
  
• 04/20/2011 - Added two two-book series. The first is an American named Emma Streat, a former opera singer, who gets mixed up with spies while investigating her husband's death. The second is an ATF agent, Jack McClure, who does special missions for the President.
  
  
• 04/19/2011 - Added a five-book series about a British agent named Paul Richter written by James Barrington. You should see the size of these books! The first two total 1300+ pages!. Looks like a lot of action.
  
  
• 04/18/2011 - A third book in the Jassy Vane series, The Checkerboard Caper has been added. Completed the write-up of Desmond Drake.
  
  
• 04/17/2011 - Added a two-book action series about a body-smuggler named Stephen Haden.
  
  
• 04/16/2011 - Finished my write-up of the excellent Tom Cain work about Samuel Carver. The Louis Morgon series was also completed.
  
  
• 04/15/2011 - Revisited series starting with "W","Y", and "Z". Nobody has written a series starting with "X" that I know about.
  
  
• 04/12/2011 - Revisited series starting with "U" and "V".
  
  
• 04/11/2011 - Added a new two-book series about an agent working for Department K by the name of Philip Scott. I had owned the first book for ages but only recently learned there had been a sequel several years later.
  
  
• 04/10/2011 - Revisited series starting with "T".
  
  
• 04/09/2011 - Introduced two three-book series. The first is about Louis Morgon, a retired CIA agent living in France who is forced back into action, written by Peter Steiner. The second is Matt Garrett by A.J.Tata, a series about a trouble-shooting agent.
  
  
• 04/08/2011 - Added two books to the Samuel Carver series. Also added my write up on the series now that I've read 3 of the 4 books. I had to correct some notes I had made (was I drunk?) when I put in that Carver was American working for the CIA. Wrong!. My apologies, Mr. Cain.
  
  
• 04/05/2011 - Revisited series starting with "S".
  
  
• 04/04/2011 - Added preliminary information on one new series, this one about Allison Alexander, a woman who goes to work for an anti-terrorist division of Interpol named Anastasia.
  
  
• 04/03/2011 - Added preliminary information on several new series: One about Jeremy Waller which has two books, a two-book series about John Apparite, a three-booker about Eckstein & Baum, and a two-book series about Milo Weaver. Since I have not read the books, only collected them so far, my information is not complete.
  
  
• 04/01/2011 - A two-book series about a semi-retired CIA agent named W. Cooper was added.
  
  
• 03/28/2011 - Put in another book in the series about adventurer Vic Stallard, Prey! which came out in 1978.
  
  
• 03/20/2011 - Added a new two-book series about a former CIA agent suffering from Alzheimer's and at odds with the CIA, Drummond Clark. Also added a fourth book in the Michael Westen, Burn Notice series.
  
  
• 03/19/2011 - Revisited series starting with "R".
  
  
• 03/16/2011 - Revisited series starting with "Q".
  
  
• 03/15/2011 - Revisited series starting with "P".
  
  
• 03/14/2011 - Brought in another series, this one about an Assistant Attorney General who has to take on several interesting adversaries. The character is George Williams and I read all three books before taking the time to enter it into this compendium. I really recommend it.
  
  
• 03/13/2011 - Revisited series starting with "O".
  
  
• 03/11/2011 - Added a fifth book in the McHugh series. I had been certain that The Five Faces Of Murder was not a McHugh book but happily I was wrong.
  
  
• 03/09/2011 - Revisited series starting with "N".
  
  
• 03/05/2011 - Revisited series starting with "M".
  
  
• 03/01/2011 - Revisited series starting with "L".
  
  
• 02/27/2011 - Finished my write-up of the Steve Brady series. Fun set of adventures.
  
  
• 02/26/2011 - Introduced a new series to the group. Davis Troy, a three-book series about a reporter who gets involved in lots of excitement. Also added the Book descriptions for Alexander & Guiness series, still needing the About the Series and My Comments to be done.
  
  
• 02/25/2011 - Revisited series starting with "K".
  
  
• 02/24/2011 - NOTE!!! Added a new feature called The Year Was. Get to it from the Home page and enjoy!
  
  
• 02/20/2011 - Revisited series starting with "I" and "J".
  
  
• 02/18/2011 - Revisited series starting with "H".
  
  
• 02/15/2011 - Revisited series starting with "A".
  
  
• 02/14/2011 - Added a six-book series about Steve Brady. I have just started reading the first book and it is a lot of fun. I think Brady is going to be a very funny spy to follow.
  
  
• 02/13/2011 - Finished the entry for Cliff Remington.
  
  
• 02/12/2011 - Revisited series starting with "B".
  
  
• 02/10/2011 - Added a book to the Paul Fox series, Operation Watchdog. And added the first book in the Emma Greaves series, Chance To Die, proving to myself finally it really is in the series!
  
  
• 02/09/2011 - Revisited series starting with "C".
  
  
• 02/05/2011 - Revisited series starting with "D".
  
  
• 02/04/2011 - Revisited series starting with "E".
  
  
• 02/01/2011 - Revisited series starting with "F".
  
  
• 01/30/2011 - Filled in the details of the Al Trelawney series.
  
  
• 01/29/2011 - Put in a precursor to the Joe Gall series, Pagoda.
  
  
• 01/28/2011 - Revisited series starting with "G".
  
  
• 01/25/2011 - Added two different two-book series: Brian Douglas by John Lee and David Llewellyn by Herbert Crowder.
  
  
• 01/23/2011 - Brought in the cleaned version of "R" covers. Added a book to the series about Grace Flint.
  
  
• 01/22/2011 - Filled in the missing book in the Victor Mace series.
  
  
• 01/21/2011 - IMPORTANT! Started a Revisit of the spy series contained herein, looking for those whose description seem sparse to me. I will go through them alphabetically though probably not in order and will comment when each "letter" group is done.
  
  
• 01/20/2011 - Two more books and a change in the order of books for the John Gail series.
  
  
• 01/18/2011 - Jerry Cornell, a two-book (sorta) series by Michael Moorcock joins the listing. Also added three books (no synopsis yet) to the Marc Savage series.
  
  
• 01/16/2011 - Added three new series to the listing. The first is Black-Ops agent Ben Treven. The second is British MI6 agent David Trevellyan. And the third is a CIA agent and the gifted woman he works with, Jax Alexander and Tobie Guinness.
  
  
• 01/14/2011 - Submitted the character Victor Mace, an action hero also called the Kung Fu Monk Master who is often hired by the CIA for an assignment.
  
  
• 01/09/2011 - Brought in the cleaned versions of "P" and "Q" covers
  
  
• 01/05/2011 - Just inputted the four-book series from the mid-60s dealing with Giancarlo Melrose, a half-Italian, half-American spy.
  
  
• 01/04/2011 - Al Trelawney, a three-book series from the late 70's has been added.
  
  
• 12/30/2010 - The insurance investigator and oft-times spy Milo March joins the group with 21 books.
  
  
• 12/29/2010 - Introduced the character of Sebastian Kettle though much more needs to be done.
  
  
• 12/28/2010 - Brought in the cleaned version of "O" covers
  
  
• 12/26/2010 - Added comments on a score of books scattered throughout the different series, too numerous to mention.
  
  
• 12/23/2010 - Brought in the cleaned version of "N" covers
  
  
• 12/22/2010 - Brought in the cleaned version of "M" covers
  
  
• 12/21/2010 - Updated the Paul Brodie series with the addition of two books, The Icarus Threat and Under The Icefall.
  
  
• 12/20/2010 - Put in the synopsis of the two books in the Peter Avakian series.
  
  
• 12/19/2010 - Added two books to the Mark Hood series, Spy From The Deep and The Reluctant Assassin.
  
  
• 12/17/2010 - Brought in the cleaned versions of "L" covers.
  
  
• 12/15/2010 - Brought in the cleaned versions of "C" covers.
  
  
• 12/15/2010 - Brought in the cleaned versions of "I", "J", and "K" covers.
  
  
• 12/06/2010 - Another 60's agent to take on world-domination minded villians, Bulldog Drummond was added.
  
  
• 12/04/2010 - Brought in the cleaned versions of "H" covers. Updated the The Executioner series. Also added the two-book Mark Castle series.
  
  
• 12/02/2010 - Put in the six-book series about Steve Carradine.
  
  
• 11/30/2010 - Put in the fourth book in the Shane Schofield series.
  
  
• 11/28/2010 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "G". Also added the two-book Dan Walker series.
  
  
• 11/26/2010 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "F".
  
  
• 11/24/2010 - Added cleaned versions of covers of series starting with "D" and "E".
  
  
• 11/21/2010 - Added a nice transition in the character page so the larger images show better.
  
  
• 11/08/2010 - The 8th book in the James Burlane series, Tyger! Tyger! was added. I had known this book was by Richard Hoyt but only recently learned it was in the Burlane series. Replaced the book covers of those series starting with "B" with far cleaner ones.
  
  
• 11/07/2010 - The 10th book in the Steve Austin, The Six Million Dollar Man series, International Incidents was included. Also added was the 6th book in the Onyxx series, Sleeping With Danger.
  
  
• 10/29/2010 - Replaced the book covers of those series starting with "A" with far cleaner ones. It is a lot of work but they look much better.
  
  
• 10/28/2010 - Put in book #2 in the Max Moss series, Countdown To China. I had thought there were just four books in the series and when I was told there was a fifth, I figured it would be after the others, not before all but one!. Also added About The Series and book descriptions, along with images, in the series about Jane Moneypenny. Comments will follow when I've had a chance to read at least one book.
  
  
• 10/23/2010 - Added two books in the Charles Garrett series. Had missed them before because they were published under the author's real name of Frederick Nolan instead of pseudonym Donald Severn as were the first two books.
  
  
• 10/22/2010 - Received a copy of Daniel Da Cruz The Captive City, book 3 in the Ape Swain series. I had thought for years this was not in any series but was told I was wrong. I bought it to prove my belief. I was wrong but now I have the book!
  
  
• 10/20/2010 - Received the third book in the Desmond Drake series, Desmond Drake Goes West. Unfortunately, it was a hardback with no dust jacket so no image. Trying to figure out a way to get the 40+ books for which I do not have images.
  
  
• 10/18/2010 - Received a copy of The Manchester Thing, published under the alternate title of The Manchester Connection. It is the first book in the Mark Farrow series by Angus Ross. I have been wanting this book for many years! Also added Burn Notice: The Fix, in the Michael Westen series.
  
  
• 10/17/2010 - Major revamp of the look and feel of the site, prompted by seeing how much better other spy sites looked (thanks to Johny Malone for the inspiration). I put a lot more emphasis on the cover art as they bring the books to life. Drop me a line to let me know how you feel about it.
  
  
• 10/15/2010 - Received word from Johny Malone of a dozen books in already listed series I had not known of. I am ordering those I can afford. That's a lot of books at one time. I'm a little embarrassed that I missed a few of these. Looking at it a different way, though, with about 4000 books being covered, 12 books represents 3 tenths of a percent.
  
  
• 10/14/2010 - Finally brought this What's New section online though it is still under construction
  
  
• 10/13/2010 - Added three series:
  Nails Fenian series by Hal D. Steward. I got the first book yesterday. I love the lurid cover.
  Burn Notice series by Tod Goldberg. I received one of the books today, the other two are on order.
  Samuel Carver series by Tom Cain. I had the two books but just hadn't added them yet. I read the first 20 pages of the first book and already know I want to finish it.
  
  
• 10/08/2010 - Received word from Johny Malone of unaplagadeespias.blogspot.com of several series I didn't know about:
  Steve Carradine by Manning K. Robertson
  Black Swan by J.J.Montague
  The Brothers Levy by William Goldman
  Mark Castle by Carl Marcus
  Sebastian Kettle by James Dillon White
  Nails Fenian by Hal D. Steward
  and a couple more I'm still pondering whether they fit. Still, 6 at one time is IMPRESSIVE! I have ordered most of the books and will add them as I get information.
  - By the way, check out his site. It's in Spanish, which I can just barely read a bit. It has really interesting comments about spy novels and some great covers. It is well worth the time. It looks a LOT better than mine. Anybody know a good web designer who works free?
  - On the subject, I have been reading the other sites linked to Mr. Malone's site, members of COBRAS. Really great stuff. Really.Geoffrey Mildmay and Desmond Drake series now that I've gotten the 3 of the first and 2 of the second. Read the first Mildmay book and enjoyed it. Not much action but compelling writing. I have just skimmed the Drake books.
  
  
• 09/12/2010 - Received an email from a viewer who asked for a page giving my A and B graded series. I am trying to decide how best to present it.
  
  
• 09/10/2010 - Heard from another viewer (name unknown, just the email) about two old series:
  Geoffrey Mildmay by Burke Wilkinson (3 books)
  Desmond Drake by Sea-Lion (3 books)
  I've ordered the books and will enter the series when I get information. He showed me some ideas for books he is writting and I liked what I read. I hope he continues writing.
  
  
• 09/01/2010 - Added a Slide Show of book covers beside the Series information. I wrote for the front page a really cool slideshow Java applet with dozens of different transitions but not sure if I should use it.
  
  
• 08/20/2010 - Started writing my articles again for the first time in forever. I finally felt I had gathered enough information to make commenting have some validity. I would love to hear comments.
  
  
• 07/07/2010 - Heard from Dean Brierly mentioning the French series Al Glenne by M.G. Braun. I have pondered whether to include the English versions of translated series like Glenne and Malko and OSS-117. I haven't decided yet. I very much welcome opinions on the matter.
  - By the way, if you can, search the web for Mr. Brierly's articles. That man can write!
  
  
• 07/01/2010 - Changed the Book Enlarged Image window to include information on the book.