The rec recipient is my apprentice, a 25yo guy who claims to despise romance of any sort. But he really liked Love, Actually so I think it's a pose. Don't know that I could get him to read a romance novel, though, unless we replaced the cover with "Geeks Guide to Unix" or something.

Raquel, then I won't keep trying to remember the blasted woman's name. The Helen MacInnes usually have a romantic relationship of some sort, as do some (maybe all?) of the Ludlum's, but the focus is mostly on the spying.

I need to try Le Carre again. Also try Furst. I'd forgotten how much I loved spy novels.

Raquel, I'm mentally singing Joni Mitchell to your 25-year-old: "The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68, and he told me, all romantics meet the same fate someday, cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe..." and then later in the song, she says "Richard, you haven't really changed, I said, only now you're romanticising some pain that's in your head you've got doom in your eyes but the songs you played are dreaming: listen! they sing of love so sweet..."

Dude. Now I'm lost in Love, Actually again. But I think you're right, and it's a pose.

re: romance and Ludlum--at least in Parsival Mosaic, the romance is integral to the character motivations, but the plot is the main focus. Beautifully convoluted.

What are the key spy novels to read?

Pretty much anything by Tom Clancy.

Pretty much anything by Len Deighton.

Still among my favorites, although kind of dated and hard to find now:

by Desmond Bagley Running Blind The Tightrope Men The Mackintosh Man a.k.a. The Freedom Trap The Enemy

by Dick Francis Trial Run

by John Le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy The Honorable Schoolboy Smiley's People

Len Deighton I like.

Tom Clancy I loathe, except the first two books.

Oh, yeah, Dick Francis.

Something more in the classic vein is Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout. Super-brainy sleuth who stays at home, while Arche Goodwin, the sidekick's sidekick, goes out into the world and gathers all the information that is grist for Wolfe's mill. Mysterious clients arrive, Wolfe cogitates then sends Archie out to investigate, Archie reports, then all the suspects, cops, and witnesses are gathered in the sleuth's office for the Big Reveal. Great snapshots of the times, too, though I don't think Archie would stay that nimble over 30+ years.

The Sum of All Fears amazed me in that I knew horrible things were going to happen, I knew *what* horrible things were going to happen, but I couldn't stop reading.
The movie was awful.

Debt of Honor was the last one of his I really enjoyed, the rest nsm.

And at least he gets most of the aviation details right.

Dick Francis counts as spy novels? I classified him in Mystery.

Tom Clancy's just a bit too wordy and too Mary Sue for me. Also I tend to argue with his politics, and can't suspend disbelief that anyone would willingly work at Langley and commute across the Cheasepeake Bay Bridge. I did recommend him to my apprentice tho.

Dick Francis counts as spy novels?

Only that one title, and I'll admit it's a stretch. I guess it fits my idea of a "spy" novel because it is about a British troubleshooter solving a problem in the preparations for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.