The Big Book of Espionage

October 12, 2020
Penzler’s enjoyable 10th Big Book anthology (after 2019’s The Big Book of Reel Murders) presents 55 stories first published between 1927 and 2015 from such established genre authors as Ian Fleming and Olen Steinhauer, as well as mainstream authors including John Galsworthy and O. Henry. The four themed sections—WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and Other Terrors, Other Battles, a catch-all that includes the covert struggle against terrorism—enable readers to trace how different writers treated the same conflict. As in Penzler’s other Big Books, many of the gems are from obscure writers, such as prolific pulp contributor H. Bedford-Jones, whose “Free-Lance Spy” features intrigue surrounding a draft treaty, and Marthe McKenna, who has perhaps the most unusual background of any contributor. Born in Belgium, McKenna received the Iron Cross during WWI for her care for injured German soldiers, before becoming an operative for Britain and its allies, experiences she fictionalized in “Gas Attack!” Penzler provides hours of intelligent escapism that combine plots centered on deception and betrayal with real-world political history. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber.

November 1, 2020
Penzler's latest ""Big Book"" anthology is sure to delight espionage-fiction readers, both for the quality of the stories and for the way its organization (beginning with WWI and extending through WWII, the Cold War, and beyond) gives a sense of the genre's evolution. Penzler's selection and commentary--in his general introduction as well as in biocritical overviews of each author--highlight how the spy novel grew from heroic adventure tales through more realistic portrayals of what spies do (beginning with W. Somerset Maugham and Eric Ambler) and, thematically, from stories of good versus evil through more nuanced explorations of moral ambiguity. Interestingly, Penzler goes a bit off the grid by including work from writers not typically associated with espionage (Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Erle Stanley Gardner, Stephen Hunter, and Sara Paretsky), but each of these outliers' contributions proves appropriate to the theme and worthy on their own merits. Hunter's ""Citadel,"" in particular, is one of the collection's highlights, a masterfully constructed tale about a superspy sent to Nazi-occupied France to steal--wait for it--a rare book. Pour yourself a stiff one (or three) and settle in for a treat.

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