The Spy's Bedside Book

Oct 3, 2024 7:28 PM

Author:Graham Greene,Hugh Greene

On its first appearance in 1957, Hugh and Graham Greene's The Spy's Bedside Book provoked a storm of interest, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, 100 copies were bought by East German Intelligence.

This classic anthology, with a new introduction by the former head of MI5, Stella Rimington, includes stories by some of the great writers on spying and many practitioners, including Ian Fleming and John Buchan, Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Belle Boyd, Walter Schellenberg and Major André, Sir Paul Dukes and Vladimir Petrov, and. from the golden age of mystery and suspense, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim. There are also some unexpected figures: William Blake, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, all suspected of spying in three great wars.

How can you hide messages in a boiled egg? Why should you always put pepper in your vodka when in Russia? Answers to these questions and much more can be found in this thrilling collection, which will enthral readers once again with its tales of espionage from a bygone era.

Reviews

I fear England will be infested with alien agents who have learned their trade from this revealing and mischievous compilation

—— The Evening News (London)

[A] marvellous anthology of spy stories

—— Jeremy Lewis , The Oldie

This charming 1957 curiosity, a compendium of espionage vignettes, will bring out the spy in everyone

—— Evening Standard

If genius is an exceptional capacity for imaginative creation, Poe had it in spades. With Dupin in The Murders In The Rue Morgue, he created the first detective story before the word 'detective' existed

—— Daily Mail

The modern horror novel owes an enormous debt to Poe, and the novel of psychological horror owes him almost everything

—— Spectator

Thanks to Poe, we now have a Protector yet more powerful, a figure we can take to our hearts, or into our subconsciousnesses: the Great Detective.

—— The Times

If you love thrillers, you have to read these stories.

—— Alice Fisher , Observer

Famed for his macabre tales of Gothic suspense, Poe actually invented the detective fiction genre in 1841 with the creation of his brilliant Partisan investigator Auguste Dupin.

—— Val Hennessy , Daily Mail

A great read, exciting, assured, fast-paced and utterly scary. Wonderful stuff

—— Adrian Magson, Shots

If you are a fan of thrillers, then this will certainly be up your street. It is a quite a page-turner and one you certainly won't be able to put down

—— No 1 Magazine

Instantly engaging and terrifying crime thriller ... once you start reading, you won't want to stop. 5 stars

—— Scarlet

Anyone who enjoys crime fiction will welcome this first novel

—— Scottish Home and Country

Patterson is in a class by himself.

—— VANITY FAIR

... opens with one of the most chilling murder scenes I've read in a long time ... High-octane stuff

—— Daily Express

I was completely swept along by it. It was absolutely fantastic: I romped through it. It is wonderfully-well and scarily described. There is a James Bond quality. It was inspired. Cross Country has an amazing sense of speed, there's a really brilliant tension in the plot. You really believe in Alex Cross.
You're just completely engrossed in it from start to finish. Absolutely incredible. Taking [Cross] into Africa is a masterstroke. The story is unrelentingly exciting.

—— The Simon Mayo show, BBC Radio 5 Live

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