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.

Spy novels --

Ludlum, through about 1985. Hard to single out any one, but I remember The Osterman Weekend quite fondly. And The Bourne Identity is such a page turner that it took me many years -- and several readings -- to discover the Mack-Truck-sized hole in the story.

Also second Fleming's Bond novels. Especially The Spy Who Loved Me (literally, the book and the movie share a title and the Bond character -- and absolutely nothing else) and Casino Royale. Though beware, he is of his time (1950s and early 1960s).

Ooh, I second the MacInnes. I haven't read her in yonks, but I loved her when I did.