Spy Girls Crime Fiction Booklist A range of fictional female spies and operatives - From contemporary Alias or Emma Peel types to classic cold war spy heroines. A range of genres (Action & Adventure, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery, Romantic Suspense) are included.
Other Suggested Lists: Espionage | Action & Adventure

A list of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist (BL), Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus, and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on this list. Titles are alphabetically by author.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

  • Loose Lips
    Author: Berlinski, Claire
    Publisher: Random $ 21.95 ISBN: 0375509089 Date: 2003
    Few books about life inside the Central Intelligence Agency have been written by women, and none have the wit, suspense, and authenticity of Loose Lips, Berlinski's dazzling first novel about a love affair between intelligence officers.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Flashpoint
    Author: Brockmann, Suzanne
    Publisher: Ballantine $ 21.95 ISBN: 0345462327 Date: 2004
    "One of the superstars of romantic suspense" ("The Dallas Morning News") offers an exciting new thriller about men and women operating where the CIA cannot, and where every step they take may be their last.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Into the Volcano: A Mallory & Morse Novel of Espionage
    Author: Devoe, Forrest
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0060723769 Date: 2004
    Taking readers from New York to Istanbul to Cannes to the island known as the Dragon's Throne, this Cold War homage to James Bond establishes Jack Mallory and Laura Morse as a secret agent duo for the ages.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination
    Author: Fielding, Helen
    Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670033332 Date: 2004
    Move over 007--a stunning, sexy, new player has entered the world of international espionage. Her name is Olivia Joules and she's ready to take America by storm with charm, style, and her infamous overactive imagination.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Kiss Me While I Sleep
    Author: Howard, Linda
    Publisher: Ballantine $ 25.95 ISBN: 0345453433 Date: 2004
    Chock full of intrigue, breathless action, and sensuality, Kiss Me While I Sleep is a daring thriller of passion, sudden twists, and richly imagined characters--the most gripping and complex novel of Linda Howard's career.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Rift Zone
    Author: Hillhouse, Raelynn
    Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765310139 Date: 2004
    starLJ
    Raelynn J. Hillhouse has constructed an engrossing novel of espionage, action, and heart-pounding danger. Told with knowledge and authenticity, Rift Zone takes you inside the workings of communist East Germany and the Soviet Union. - Publisher Marketing.
    Updated 7.13.04
  • Little Drummer Girl
    Author: Le Carre, John
    Publisher: Knopf Date: 1984
    Charlie is a promiscuous, unsuccessful, English actress in her twenties. Vacationing on the Greek island of Mykonos with friends, she longs for commitment. But to what? To whom? Intrigued by a handsome, solitary bather, Charlie finds herself lured into the "theatre of the real." For the mysterious man is Kurtz, an embattled Israeli intelligence officer out to stop the bombing of Jews in Europe. Forced to play her most challenging role, Charlie is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist...and soon proves herself a double agent of the highest order. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Acrobat
    Author: Lira, Gonzalo
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312286945 Date: 2002
    starKirkus starBooklist
    They are young, they are tough, they are resourceful--and they have been targeted for assassination by their own agency. Most important of all, what will it take for them to realize they have a traitor among them?
    Updated 3/14/02
  • Counterparts
    Author: Lira, Gonzalo
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0399143122 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    A wholly original thriller, as fresh and startling a debut as any novel in recent years, Counterpartswill leave readers spinning as the action speeds to its satisfyingly fierce conclusion. When Sister Marianne, a nun with a past, becomes a target of a fearsome international assassin, FBI agent Margaret Chisholm and CIA agent Nicholas Denton team up to investigate.
  • Masquerade
    Author: Lynds, Gayle
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385479611 Date: 1996
    A woman who has lost her memory may be a CIA agent gone bad or an innocent target. But it's almost impossible to see the truth.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • The Coil
    Author: Lynds, Gayle
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312301448 Date: 2004
    Lynds returns with the sequel to the "New York Times" bestseller Masquerade--a high-octane international thriller
    Updated 12.01.04
  • The Cutout
    Author: Mathews, Francine
    Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 055310893x Date: 2001
    As thousands watch, the American Vice President is kidnapped from the streets of Berlin, and in the midst of the fire and terror, a dead man comes back to life. Eric Carmichael was a risk-taking CIA agent obsessed with a terrorist organization called 30th April--until they got him first, bombing the jetliner on which he was a passenger. But when the tapes of the VP's abduction show Eric alive, it is his widow who must discover whether his obsession has driven him into playing the ultimate double game.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Blown
    Author: Mathews, Francine
    Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 0553803301 Date: 2005
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Crisis Four
    Author: McNab, Andy
    Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345428072
    starPW
    Crisis Four is the stunning sequel to the #1 British bestseller Remote Control by the veteran commando-turned-author whose true-to-life fictional accounts of special forces rip the lid off the super-secret world of terrorism and black ops.
    Updated 6/27/00
  • Witch Hunt
    Author: Rankin, Ian
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 19.95 ISBN: 0316009105 Date: 2004
    From blockbuster talent Ian Rankin comes a pulse-pounding thriller about the hunt for a cunning female spy with deadly allure.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Sleeper
    Author: Riehl, Gene
    Publisher: St Martins $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312310536 Date: 2005
    Updated 12.01.04
  • At Risk
    Author: Rimington, Stella
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 1400043700 Date: 2005
    Drawing from her experience as the first woman director general of MI5, Rimington offers a story that is smart, tautly drawn, and suspenseful from first page to last. At Risk is a stunning debut novel that plunges readers headlong into today's shadowy and fever-pitched battle between terrorism and Intelligence.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • A Gentleman's Game: A Queen & Country Novel
    Author: Rucka, Greg
    Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 0553802763 Date: 2004
    Based on the graphic novel series that won the coveted Eisner Award, A Gentleman's Game is an electrifyingly realistic, headline-stealing thriller with an unforgettable protagonist--one who redefines every rule she doesn't shatter.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • AKA Jane
    Author: Tan, Maureen
    Publisher: Mysterious $ 22 ISBN: 0892966599 Date: 1997
    When Jane Nichol's literary agent offers her the chance to travel to Georgia and write, she realizes that it's a perfect opportunity to leave MI5 (England's FBI) and her tortured past behind. But Jane soon finds that Savannah holds more than just atmosphere, for among its historic houses and murky swamps lies a dangerous, bitter enemy--and Jane will have to rely on all her years of espionage training to survive.
    Updated 12.01.04
  • Run, Jane, Run
    Author: Tan, Maureen
    Publisher: Mysterious $ 22 ISBN: 0892966599 Date: 1999
    After rescuing the kidnapped nephew of a member of Parliament, secret agent Jane Nichols notices something very wrong with the captive, something hauntingly familiar. Could this willing hostage hold a key to the mangled history of Jane's violent past?
    Updated 12.01.04
  • The Company of Strangers
    Author: Wilson, Robert
    Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151008469 Date: 2001
    Award-winning novelist Robert Wilson transcends the genre of spy novels in this thrilling page-turner that also an imaginative and affecting tale of romance which begins in Portugal during World War II. A "Los Angeles Times" Best Book of the Year.
    Updated 12.01.04

    • Classic Cold War Heroines:

  • Evelyn Anthony
  • Helen McInnes

    • Series:

  • Mrs Polifax by Dorothy Gilman
  • Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell

    • And . . .

  • Altman, John. A Game of Spies (2002)
  • Frayn, Michael. Spies (2002 )
  • Sofer, Barbara. The Thirteenth Hour (1996)
  • Stryker, Dev. A Wilderness of Mirrors (2000)
  • Weber, Janice. Frost the Fiddler (1992)
  • Weber, Jance. Hot Ticket (1998)
  • Sofer, Barbara. The Thirteenth Hour (1996)