Cloak & Lager: Denver Espionage Book Club

Book about one of the most important leaker of Soviet KGB secrets ever.

Please note: this book is new-ish (published within last year) so order from the library early if you are! I have no idea how popular it’ll be, but if your library doesn’t have it Prospector likely can supply you with one within 2-3 weeks.

The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB by Gorden Corera
272 pp.

Summary:

The story of how one man—a librarian for the KGB—became a traitor to the intelligence agency, stealing the most prized Soviet-era archives and smuggling them to the West.

How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret, heavily guarded archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover and deep amongst the files. The work goes on for decades but remains so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no one even notices you are gone.

The Spy in the Archive tells the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin—an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty archives—ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy; a traitor to his country but a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today.

Historian and journalist Gordon Corera tells of the operation to extract this prized asset from Russia for the first time. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, with vivid flashbacks to Mitrokhin’s earlier time as a KGB idealist prepared to do what it took to serve the Soviet Union and his growing realisation that the communist state was imprisoning its own people. It is the story of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union, to raise a family there, and then of one man’s journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion, betrayal, and defection.

At its heart is Mitrokhin’s determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world by revealing its darkest secrets. This is narrative nonfiction at its absolute best.

Interwar spy/detective fiction about a man falsely accused of espionage while on vacation who is then compelled to identify the true spy. Should be a breezier read!

Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
272 pp.

Summary:

When Josef Vadassy arrives at the Hotel de la Reserve at the end of his Riviera holiday, he is simply looking forward to a few more days of relaxation before returning to Paris. But in St. Gatien, on the eve of World War II, everyone is suspect–the American brother and sister, the expatriate Brits, and the German gentleman traveling under at least one assumed name. When the film he drops off at the chemist reveals photographs he has not taken, Vadassy finds himself the object of intense suspicion. The result is anything but the rest he had been hoping for.

Since this is the hotness lately, let’s read and/or watch about the Troubles!

I will commit myself to re-reading the book AND watching the FX on Hulu series, but you are welcome to do either/or and we can see what the discussion will be like with this mixture of mediums. I fear expecting everyone to do both is overkill.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Keefe
441 pp.

And/or:

Say Nothing, FX on Hulu TV series, 9 episodes.

Book Summary:

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

An influential and fun early example of the genre!

The Scarlet Pimpernel by EmmuskA Orczy
182 pp.

Summary:

The Scarlet Pimpernel is Baroness Orczy's classic adventure novel about Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy Englishman who has a secret identity as a daring rescuer of aristocrats from the French Revolution. Orczy's thrilling tale of heroism and romance is a timeless classic that has captivated readers for over a century. Set in 1792, The Scarlet Pimpernel follows Sir Percy as he outwits the forces of the French Revolution to save innocent lives. With a colorful cast of characters and an exciting plot, Orczy's classic novel is an unforgettable reading experience that will leave you wanting more.