As a journalist who covered the CIA, diplomacy, and wars in the Middle East, author David Ignatius gained real-life insight into the worlds of espionage and special operations.
It is knowledge he’s put to productive use in a series of realistic, cerebral thrillers set in that clandestine world.
Here are some of our favorite David Ignatius espionage thrillers to satisfy your need for intrigue.
Bloodmoney
The border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places on the planet for Western intelligence operatives.
So it proves in this 2011 novel of daring and vengeance featuring Sophie Marx, a young CIA operative tasked with discovering who is killing her colleagues in a top-secret cell.
In a world of smoke and mirrors, bluff and double-bluff, Sophie soon realises there is nobody she can trust.
Ignatius brilliantly conjures up a world of paranoia and violence in which nothing is quite what it seems, and mistakes are deadly.
Agents of Innocence
Idealistic CIA operative Tom Rogers is sent to Beirut in the early 1960s, a time when the Middle East was relatively peaceful and the Lebanon was a playground for the rich and famous.
His mission is to penetrate the PLO and turn a top terrorist into a US asset. It’s a tough assignment, one that is made even harder by the constantly shifting alliances and bewildering subterfuges he encounters along the way.
Ignatius’ deep understanding of his subject shines through in a taut thriller that truly captures the nuts-and-bolts of secret operations.
The Bank of Fear
The search for the hidden billions of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein leads to a high-stakes and deadly game in this slow-burning, but ultimately explosive 1994 thriller.
Computer analyst, Lina Alwen, and financial investigator Sam Hoffman are given the job of finding the concealed money.
They follow the trail from London to Baghdad via Switzerland, but the closer they get to uncovering the brutal despot’s hidden hoard the more dangerous their task becomes.
Body of Lies
CIA soldier Roger Ferris has his leg shattered during a combat mission in Iraq. A year later, he’s back in the Middle East with a plan to track down a lethal terrorist leader known only as ‘Suleiman’.
Inspired by ‘Operation Mincemeat' Britain’s successful attempt to fool the Nazis about the date and place of the D Day landings, Ferris concocts a literal body of lies—the corpse of a fabricated CIA operative holding supposed secret plans.
Designed to flush America’s deadliest enemy into the open, the scheme has dangerous repercussions our hero had no way of predicting.
The Director
This New York Times bestseller sees Ignatius brilliantly tackling what is increasingly becoming the preoccupation of every intelligence service—cybercrime.
New CIA director Graham Weber’s first week in his new role ends badly when a grubby teenager turns up at the US consulate in Hamburg and informs the staff that the agency’s computer system has been hacked.
More worryingly, he has a list of agents’ names to prove it. The scramble to plug the leak and hunt down those responsible creates a breakneck narrative that thunders to a sensational and unexpected climax.
A Firing Offense
Ignatius is on home turf in this 1997 thriller in which rising-star reporter Eric Truell starts being fed scoops by what appears to be a loose cannon within CIA.
As an international trade war erupts, the source tells Truell that his own newspaper is unsuspectingly at the heart of it all thanks to an enemy agent operating within the newsroom.
Should Truell spy on his colleagues to catch the person responsible? And can he actually trust the information he’s being given?
A spellbinding tale of truth and lies.
The Increment
Iran’s nuclear programme is at the centre of this stylish 2009 thriller that kicks off when Harry Pappas, head of the CIA’s ‘Persia House’, starts receiving covert information from a whistleblower deep within Iran’s secret weapons development unit.
Soon, however, the scientist who’s supplying the intel starts to panic. He’s convinced he’s being followed and demands to be exfiltrated.
Fearful of a mole within his own house, Pappas turns instead to Britain’s top secret ‘The Increment’, a deadly group of UK government assassins, to do the job for him. His decision will have deadly consequences.
The Paladin
For the CIA, running covert operations against a US citizen is illegal, but…
When the agency receives information that an Italian news organisation headed by an American could be the front for an enemy intelligence operation, operations officer Michael Dunne is sent to Europe to infiltrate the group.
When things go wrong and he’s exposed, his bosses let him take the fall. When he gets out of jail, Dunne sets about finding those who betrayed him and exacting his own form of justice.
The Quantum Spy
High-tech warfare is the subject of Ignatius’ superb 2017 techno-thriller. The USA and China are locked in a battle to build and run the world’s first quantum computer—the digital world’s answer to the nuclear bomb.
The first to cross the finish line will have military hegemony over the planet for decades to come, so, naturally, neither side can leave anything to chance.
When the CIA uncovers evidence of a mole in the programm, operative Harris Chang is given orders to find them before it’s too late.
Siro
In 1991, the Soviet Union was still America’s number one enemy, the Cold War still as chilly as a frosty morning in New England.
Bridling against what he sees as unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions on intelligence operations, CIA operative Alan Taylor sets out to drive a nail into the coffin of the rival superpower using a beautiful new recruit as his weapon.
Ignatius creates a world filled with anxiety and moral ambiguity with trademark elegance.
