What's New
The last ten major changes to the site.
- 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'. 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 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 . 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 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 .
- 03/25/2023 - Heading back two decades for a half-dozen adventures about a young chap named , 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. 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 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 .
- 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. 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, Baxter. I did not think very much of them but maybe you will.
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What's New!
SPY FICTION!
Say the word SPY to most people and they will respond with James Bond,
with good reason as he is the best known of all fictional spies. With 20+ blockbuster movies over the last 40+ years,
along with the standard movie hype, virtually the entire world knows about 007 and his License To Kill.
Of course, James Bond is by no means the only spy in the world of fiction, just the best known. Who are the rest?
Who has his or her own license to kill, thrill, or chill. How do these agents stack up against each other? Who would
you want beside you in a car chase, in a knife fight, in a dark alley, or beneath the covers?
This site is dedicated to the many, many men and women who, at least in fiction, have defended our freedoms against all forms of enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, granted a few of them were just in it for the money and many were only after the excitement, and sex played a huge role in the motivation of more than a few. But still, their actions helped not only preserve our way of life (on paper) but also brought us, the readers, many hours of escapism and vicarious pleasure.
So, who are these people that I have slaved so diligently to present to you? They are the men and women of spy-fi about whom there is a series. Single-book characters need not apply. There has to be at least two books. Two's the minimum but the more the merrier.
Moreover, I have confined membership to the English language. If it wasn't put into English so I can read it, I haven't worried about it.
Each spy has his or her own page. Click on the "Characters" button to go to a listing page. Click on the letter the
character's last name starts with (or a more common moniker like "Death Merchant" if appropriate). That will take one
step further into the labrynth. Finally, select the character's name from the list and, voila!
Have fun!!