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Occasional Notes from Suzanne's avatar

I know this will garner eye rolls, but my favorite retired spy is Elizabeth from the Thursday Murder Club series. She’s smart, a woman of a certain age 🙋🏻‍♀️and droll. As a woman heading into 63 years, I enjoy main characters who are still living a full and interesting life.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

No eye rolls here. I LOVED her, and I can't wait to see Helen Mirren bring her to life on the screen. When I was reading the book, I imagined Elizabeth as Helen M. Good pick!

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Jena's avatar

OMG zero eye roll from me!! LOVE Elizabeth and those books - so excited for the show too xoxoxo

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Sarah Williams's avatar

Elizabeth was so good. And those books have some emotional heft to them. Good choice.

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Margaret Allbee's avatar

Yeah, she's great! Good pick!

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Kathy's avatar

Mine too.

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Louise Gobron's avatar

My favorite is Harriet Welsch of Harriet the Spy. She is confident, observant and dedicated to her craft. She rocked a Billie Eilish style decades before Ms. Eilish came into being. I aspired to be her notebook-wielding self when I was her age.

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Michelle Wilson's avatar

Lifelong connoisseur of spy novels-I read Le Carre with my dad in HS and Harriet was the first one who popped into my head as well!

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Keri Chang's avatar

Harriet was my first thought as well! I didn't eat tomato sandwiches but I felt a kinship because my favorite soup was tomato and also felt verrryy oppressed when I had to eat different kinds of soup.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

I love this so much: "my favorite soup was tomato and also felt verrryy oppressed when I had to eat different kinds of soup"

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Louise Gobron's avatar

Yes, I was fascinated by the tomato sandwiches as well. I couldn’t fathom having just tomatoes in a sandwich, but I did go on a ham/cheese/pickles/tomato/lettuce/ mayo/mustard on toast sandwich jag in 3rd grade that lasted the whole school year. (My poor mother.) I guess predictability was highly valued at that age.

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Keri Chang's avatar

For the first several years of my daughter's school life (this includes several years of preschool and kindergarten), she insisted upon grilled cheese sandwiches. Yep--cooled, congealed cheddar sandwiches, eaten hours after being toasted. She stands by the decision to this day. (She's 29 now) Kids are so funny and weird!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

TBH, that sounds pretty good to me, too.

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Elizaebeth's avatar

Fantastic choice! Pivotal :)

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Margaret Allbee's avatar

For fictional, I love Pino Lella from Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan. Based on the true story from WWII of an Italian teenager who was involved in the resistance at first, then through a fluke becomes the personal driver for the most powerful Nazi in Italy. He uses this new position to became a spy. Loved this book.

For real, actual spies, I was completely blown away by the story of Virginia Hall, from Sonia Parnell's book, A Woman of No Importance. Virginia Hall, an American, was extremely important to the French Resistance. WOW, what a woman!! Super tough (she started spying after losing a leg!!), amazing at her job, extremely smart....just an incredible and very underrated hero of WWII. I am in awe of her.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Dave also really loved 'A Woman of No Importance.' And I loved hearing the stories about Virginia while he was reading that book. What a broad!

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Jessica's avatar

Yes to Virginia! My first thought to this question were two REAL spies — Virginia Hall and Nancy Wake. “A Woman of No Importance” and “Code Name Helene” are two fantastic books about real, badass, extraordinarily competent spies.

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Jena's avatar

I ordered A Woman of No Importance off your review here 😘

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Dave talked about it in our France episode if you want more bits and bobs about it:

https://strongsenseofplace.com/podcasts/2024-05-24-france/

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Culatta's avatar

I vote for Emma Makepeace in the Alias Emma series! Just finished the most recent one (The Trap) last night and she's just GREAT. Language skills, trust issues, always surveying the possibilities and ready for anything. Bonus = Martha the costumer who disguises Emma (and whoever else needs it) with pitch perfect clarity.

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Sarah Williams's avatar

I’ve never heard of this series. Excited to look into it.

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Larissa Milne's avatar

Same here Sarah!

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Margaret Allbee's avatar

Yes!!!! Such a fun series. Really like those books!!

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Louise Gobron's avatar

I don’t know the series, but it seems it has lots of great ingredients. Thanks for the introduction!

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Kathy's avatar

I love the women from Killers Of A Certain Age and The Martini Club. I love strong female characters in their golden years. Not grandma baking cookie type characters. Lol

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Kathy's avatar

Forgot to mention that I love martinis and like women who can kick ass.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Vodka or gin? I used to be vodka all the way, but now I'm strictly gin!

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Michael Jensen's avatar

Gabriel Allon was my choice as well! And Melissa McCarthy in Spy was brilliant.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

She's so cute and badass at the same time, which, TBH is true in real life, too.

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Michael Jensen's avatar

And it was a really fun movie. But here's the real question: who should play Gabriel!

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Michael Jensen's avatar

I'm thinking Oscar Isaac. And Gal Gadot as Chiara!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

I like to think of Chiara as Eve Hewson, but with an appropriate accent.

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Michael Jensen's avatar

Had to look her up, but I can see it.

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Elizaebeth's avatar

C'mon, y'all, it's gotta be George Smiley from John Le Caré's books (Tailor Tinker Soldier Spy, among many others)! He's the epitome of the Everyman thrust into extreme murk, just trying to unravel the lies and make the world safe.

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Jessica's avatar

It’s a fact that lady spy stories are literary catnip to me. For purely fictional: Eve, a WWI spy in “The Alice Network.” I didn’t love everything about that book, but I could not put down the Eve chapters.

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Larissa Milne's avatar

My first thought was Jackson Lamb, for all the reasons Dave cited. He’s a reprehensible human being, but absolutely the guy I’d want in my corner when the going got tough (even if he would never admit being in anyone’s corner.)

I did a binge-read of about 10 Gabriel Allon books—which I loved—a while back, but I sorta OD’d on them & haven’t read one since. Sounds like I need to go back!

Recently I’ve been enjoying plucky safecracker-turned-British-spy Electra McDonnell in the WWII mystery series by Ashley Weaver. Ellie’s not quite what the stuffed shirts in Special Branch are used to, but she’s got the mad skills they desperately need. Hijinks & adventure ensue.

On the big screen I’m definitely on Team Daniel Craig in Skyfall!

In the more obscure category I really enjoyed the character Malotrou played by Mathieu Kassovitz in the French series The Bureau. French agent in super-deep cover in Algiers & then Moscow, with all the accompanying intrigue & personal agony. Excellent.

And let’s not forget flawed heroine Carrie Matthews from “Homeland”!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

The Gabriel Allon books kind of dipped in quality for me a little bit for a while there, but now Daniel Silva is back on his game in a big way. The last few years have been AWESOME.

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Bookishly Delightful's avatar

My favorite is Stephen Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s naval historical fiction series. He is an absolute delight. He is an extremely intelligent, likably complex character.

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

YES! Good pick!

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Alix's avatar

Alex Rider was the first spy I thought of. We listened to the series on audiobook when my son was younger. They’re great fun and made long car journeys fly past.

Recently I loved Keira Knightly and Ben Whislaw in Black Doves.

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Jena's avatar

Love both Mel and Dave's picks - but the one that popped into my mind is Marie Mitchell, from the book "American Spy" by Lauren Wilkinson. I've been checking every year or so hoping for a sequel!!

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Culatta's avatar

Oooh I loved her - yes give us a sequel, Wilkinson!

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Danielle's avatar

Helen McInnes!!! The Venetian Affair being one of many. She was the Queen of spy novels back in the day! I realized I don't have a single book of hers anymore. They were lost in a flood. Book shopping! Thanks for that!!! Why Helen? Just her words in the page. Spies in the Cold War. Spies all over Europe. Just fun and gripping.

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Jim Brennan's avatar

OK, so a sentimental choice, Michael Havelock aka Mikhail Havlicek (with appropriate Czech accents for my Prague pals), from Robert Ludlum's "The Parsifal Mosaic" - maybe the first spy novel I ever read. He is resourceful, dangerous, but caring and kind, a great story as he and his love are manipulated into believing they betrayed each other. I also like the obvious Jason Bourne (from the books, less so the movies, no offense to Matt Damon whom I like well enough as an actor). George Smiley from LeCarre, previously mentioned here, and I plan on researching many of the other recommendations!

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

I haven't read any Robert Ludlum. Do I need to?

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Jim Brennan's avatar

I would recommend it - I'd start with, in approximate order, The Parsifal Mosaic, The Bourne Identity, or The Materese Circle. After awhile, his books got kind of formulaic, but those three (and two Bourne follow-ups) are worthwhile, IMHO

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

Thank you for the tips!

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Jim Brennan's avatar

Oh, and I will narrow down your first 2 choices to Parsifal Mosaic or Bourne Identity. Materese Circle is a fun, grandiose plot spy caper, but I honestly don't remember the protagonist. Mikhail and Jason, those I definitely remember!

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Jim Brennan's avatar

another 'oh', last comment, Bourne in the books vs the movies, Jason Bourne's amnesia was touched on in the movie, but it was the entire theme of the first novel. A doctor discovers a microfilm embedded in his leg that leads to millions of (1980's!) dollars, he has no idea where they are from. Like in the movie, he discovers he's a bad ass fighter, with no memory of why. And early on in the book, when he is recognized by people he has no idea whom they are, the sh*t hits the fan, and he comes back to rescue Marie, an innocent bystander, and she is blown away by that. The resultant relationship between them is so much better explored in the book than the movie - as books can usually do.

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Lauren's avatar

Ooh if you want an amazing and obscure AND real life spy, check “MI5 and Me, A Coronet Among the Spooks” by Charlotte Bingham. This is a memoir published by Bloomsbury in 2018 and one of 2 nonfiction titles she penned. There are quite a few novels by her as well (something like 43!) that I have yet to make my way through but would be SO fun to search and try to collect.

A Coronet Among the Spooks details her life as a debutante in London in the 1950s keeping an eye on the Russians that have made their way into high society. FABULOUS voice and so fun and TRUE!

I hope you enjoy 🙂

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Melissa Joulwan's avatar

"A Coronet Among the Spooks details her life as a debutante in London in the 1950s keeping an eye on the Russians that have made their way into high society."

Yes, please.

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Rachel Cass's avatar

I’m not sure I’d say she’s a favorite, but I read some of my mom’s Mrs Pollifax books when I was a kid and they were my first introduction to how fun spy craft could be.

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