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.

Wait, wait. Speaking as the World's Most Passionate Archie Goodwin Fan Ever - as someone who owns not only all the Nero WOlfe novels, but who has read all the Bertha Cools as well - how does he qualify as spy novels? What did I miss?

He's classic American mystery writer, with Chandler and Hammett.

Oh, that's right, it was specified as *spy* stuff. They must have chased spies occasionally.

Archie? I think he did in exactly one short story, written during WWII, when he was in the army. ANd even there, he was chasing a Fifth Columnist.

And I do find Tehanu polemically feminist in a problematic way

Agreed. I've forgiven it some of its flaws, now that it's bookended with the last two volumes, but yeah -- in some ways it feels awfully obvious and a little contrived. (In other ways, it still does feel natural; I always wondered what Tenar had done with herself, when Ged went off to do his hero/mage/cool guy thing.)

I can see how Le Guin could sometimes leave readers cold, especially some of her older stuff. (Although I love The Dispossessed, it's not because I'm passionate about any of the characters.) I think The Telling is one of her stronger novels, because it gives its main character an emotional backstory to work through.

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.

There's only one? Concur that it's a good page-turner, although at times hilariously overwrought. What I really like about it -- and this is true of all Ludlum in his prime, I think -- is the intricate detail work of spying. You know, the dead-drops and the feints and the diversions and double- and triple-backup plans. I appreciate that sensibility of the paranoid savant.

I think the best Fleming novel is Casino Royale -- it suffers least from the recycling of unconscious tropes of the author, and works best in its historical context: one of the villains is a man who spent time in a Displaced Persons camp after the war, so he quite literally has no identity or nationality at all. Also, that book is where I learned how Baccarat is played.