Books like 'The Pigeon Tunnel'
Readers who enjoyed The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure 20th century military, war & conflict thriller espionage cold-war politics war crime
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Red Winter by Marc Cameron
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this previously untold adventure, a young Jack Ryan goes behind the Iron Curtain to seek the truth about a potential Soviet defector in the most shocking entry in Tom Clancy's #1 New York Times bestselling series. 1985A top secret F117 aircraft crashes into the Nevada desert...Categorized as:
cold-war espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Berets by W.E.B. Griffin, Eric G. Dove
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThey were the chosen ones—and the ones who chose to be the best. Never before had the United States given so select a group of fighting men such punishing preparation...Categorized as:
cold-war espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
In Danger's Path by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDesperate to find someone to unite the warring interests of General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and OSS chief Donovan, FDR puts Fleming Pickering in charge of the OSS's Pacific operations... -
The Paris Assignment by Rhys Bowen
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA courageous wife, mother, and resister confronts the devastation of World War II in a heartbreaking and hopeful novel by the bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook and The Tuscan Child.Londoner Madeleine Grant is studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when she marries charismatic French journalist Giles Martin. As they raise their son, Olivier, they hold on to a tenuous promise for the future... -
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Charm School by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRead by James NaughtonSomething very strange -- and sinister -- is going on in the Russian woods at Borodino. In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA. The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected... -
The Prisoner by Robert Muchamore
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOne of Henderson's best agents is being held captive in Frankfurt. A set of forged record cards could be his ticket to freedom, but might just as easily become his death warrant. A vital mission awaits him in France—if he can find a way to escape...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure book children-books -
Retreat, Hell! by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is the fall of 1950. The Marines have made a pivotal breakthrough at Inchon, but a roller coaster awaits them. While Douglas MacArthur chomps at the bit, intent on surging across the 38th parallel, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering works desperately to mediate the escalating battle between MacArthur and President Harry Truman...Categorized as:
cold-war crime espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom New York Times–bestselling author Philip Kerr, the much-anticipated return of Bernie Gunther, our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer. With his cover blown, he is waiting for the next move in the cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany’s defeat, continues to shadow his life...Categorized as:
cold-war crime espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Black Cross by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is January 1944 — and as Allied troops prepare for D-day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that will repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects... -
The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable-a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the heart of the Cold War, they sent him to plot the ultimate assassination. Now they want him dead...It is 1953. Joseph Stalin, the world's most tyrannical dictator, is teetering on the edge of insanity, and about to plunge the world into nuclear chaos. Only one man and one woman can penetrate the Iron Curtain and stop this madman, before it's too late.But someone inside the Kremlin knows... -
Special Ops by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsW.E.B. Griffin returns to the series that launched his phenomenal career-- in an explosive new novel that pits a team of Special Forces warriors against the legendary revolutionary Che Guevara... -
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 58 ratings"Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR... -
The Company by Robert Littell
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Barnes & Noble ReviewSince the publication of his 1973 debut thriller, The Defection of A. J. Lewinter, Robert Littell has evolved into one of the most credible, consistently interesting espionage novelists of the modern era... -
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Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHe is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity--and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson... -
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins, Maria Luisa Bocchino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn November of 1943, an elite team of Nazi paratroopers descends on British soil with a diabolical goal: to abduct Winston Churchill and cripple the Allied war effort. The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution... -
Blood and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf you enjoyed W. E. B. Griffin's Honor Bound, you should segue with pleasure into this involving sequel. Set in Buenos Aires in 1943, it follows the adventures of three American soldiers as they think and fight their way through a complex story about Nazi sympathizers, dedicated supporters of the Allied cause, and other people just trying to stay alive... -
Secret Army by Robert Muchamore
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBritain, 1941. The government is building a secret army of intelligence agents to work undercover, gathering information and planning sabotage operations. Henderson's boys are part of that network: kids cut adrift by the war, training for the fight of their lives. They'll have to parachute into unknown territory, travel cross-country and outsmart a bunch of adults in a daredevil exercise... -
A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr returns with his best-loved character, Bernie Gunther, in the fifth novel in what is now a series: a tight, twisting, compelling thriller that is firmly rooted in history.A Quiet Flame opens in 1950... -
Field Gray by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr delivers a novel with the noir sensibility of Raymond Chandler, the realpolitik of vintage John le Carré, and the dark moral vision of Graham Greene...Categorized as:
cold-war crime espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction... -
Ship of Force by Alan Evans
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsThe summer of 1917. Britain is losing the war against the deadly German U-boats. After a close fought action, Commander David Smith uncovers what he believes is a deadly plot against Britain from a dying German sailor. Code-named SchwerttrZiger - or Swordbearer - it could turn the tide of the war in Germany's favour. But nobody will listen to him. He is under suspicion, and ignored... -
While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEnglish girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1953, the South of France. The fragile peace between the West and Soviet Russia hangs on a knife edge. And one family has been torn apart by secrets and conflicting allegiances. Eloïse Caussade is a courageous young Frenchwoman, raised on a bull farm near Arles in the Camargue...Categorized as:
espionage cold-war war political-intrigue romance historical military historical-fiction -
Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Gentleman Jim" Scott was a brilliant magnetic general. Like a lot of people, he believed the President was ruining the country. Unlike anyone else, he had the power to do something about it, something unprecedented and terrifying. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey was the Marine who accidentally stumbled onto the plot... -
The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin, Stephen Lang
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn November 1942, war is raging in Europe. The invasion of North Africa has begun. In Washington, OSS Chief William J. Donovan finds himself fighting a rear-guard battle against an unexpected enemy: the rival intelligence chiefs back home...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Assassination Option by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJames Cronley’s first successful mission for the new Central Intelligence Directorate has drawn all kinds of attention, some welcome, some not, including from the Soviets, his own Pentagon, and a seething J. Edgar Hoover... -
The Honor Of Spies by W.E.B. Griffin, Scott Brick
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsGriffin?s Honor Bound novels have been hailed as ?terrific? (Newark Star-Ledger) and ?immensely entertaining? (Kirkus Reviews), with ?enough derring-do, romance and action to satisfy Griffin?s legions of fans and bring him new ones? (Rocky Mountain News). The new book is his best yet... -
Bomber by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe classic novel of the Second World War that relates in devastating detail the 24-hour story of an allied bombing raid.Bomber is a novel of war. There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die.Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Eagle Day by Robert Muchamore
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLate summer, 1940.Hitler has conquered France. Now he intends to cross the Channel and defeat Britain before winter arrives.A group of young refugees led by British spy Charles Henderson faces a stark choice. To head south into the safety of neutral Spain, or go north on a risky mission to sabotage the German invasion plans.For official purposes, these children do not exist... -
The One from the Other by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhilip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy—featuring the tough, fast-talking, noirish detective Bernie Gunther—is a publishing phenomenon that continues to win new fans more than fifteen years after its initial publication. Kerr has brought Bernie back in a highly anticipated thriller that will delight fans of the original books and attract new attention to the backlist... -
Dark Star by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe acclaimed author of Night Soldiers offers a dramatic and exciting spy thriller of Eastern Europe on the brink of World War II. In the back alleys and glittering salons of Europe, there is a thin line between survival and betrayal, as Soviet NKVD agents and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in a brilliant duel of espionage. Like watching Casablanca for the first time.--Time...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Mr Einstein's Secretary by Matthew Reilly
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA SECRETARY LIKE NO OTHERIN AN EPIC SPANNING 40 YEARSAll Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein.But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy...Categorized as:
war crime espionage thriller political-intrigue fiction historical-fiction historical -
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The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs compelling and disturbing as when it was first published in the midst of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate continues to enthrall readers with its electrifying action and shocking climax....Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator.. -
A Game of Lies by Rebecca Cantrell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJournalist Hannah Vogel returns in A Game of Lies by award-winning author Rebecca Cantrell In preparation for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Nazis have rid the streets of anti-Semitic material and other propaganda, and present a peace-seeking face to the world. Journalist and part-time spy for the British, Hannah Vogel, shudders to think of what lies under the temporary coat of gloss... -
Top Secret by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the #1 New York Times�bestselling author, a brand-new series about the Cold War—and a different breed of warrior. In the first weeks after World War II, a squeaky-clean new second lieutenant named James D. Cronley Jr. is spotted and recruited for a new enterprise that will eventually be transformed into something called the CIA...Categorized as:
cold-war espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn instant classic in the Bernie Gunther series, with storytelling that is fresher and more vivid than ever. Berlin, 1934: The Nazis have secured the 1936 Olympiad for the city but are facing foreign resistance. Hitler and Avery Brundage, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, have connived to soft-pedal Nazi anti- Semitism and convince America to participate... -
The Polish Officer by Alan Furst
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSeptember 1939. As Warsaw falls to Hitler's Wehrmacht, Captain Alexander de Milja is recruited by the intelligence service of the Polish underground. His mission: to transport the national gold reserve to safety, hidden on a refugee train to Bucharest... -
Avenger by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAttorney Calvin Dexter hangs his shingle in a quiet New Jersey town, has a reasonably successful practice, and takes the hills strong while triathalon training. But Dexter is no ordinary man.The summer before he goes to college, Ricky Colenso travels to Bosnia to volunteer as an aid worker. A few weeks later, he disappears and is never heard from again... -
Our Woman In Moscow by Beatriz Williams
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives returns with a gripping and profoundly human story of Cold War espionage and family devotion.In the autumn of 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family's sensational disappearance...Categorized as:
cold-war crime espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Berlin Game by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsWhen a valuable agent behind the Iron Curtain signals he wants out, it's up to Bernard Samson, once active in the field but now anchored to a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. But soon, Samson is confronted with evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues...Categorized as:
cold-war crime espionage political-intrigue war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
Soldiers of Freedom by Samuel Marquis
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSOLDIERS OF FREEDOM is the true story of the 1944-1945 War in Western Europe and the final Allied struggle to conquer Nazi Germany. The story is told through the eyes of William McBurney, a tank gunner in the 761st Tank Battalion, the first African-American tank unit in U.S. history; dynamic General George S. Patton, Jr., commander of the U.S... -
Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer, Otakar Brousek ml.
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe third novel in Jeffrey Archer’s compelling saga, the Clifton Chronicles1945. The vote in the House of Lords as to who should inherit the Barrington family fortune has ended in a tie. The Lord Chancellor’s deciding vote will cast a long shadow on the lives of Harry Clifton and Giles Barrington... -
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Spandau Phoenix by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Spandau Diary—what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II... -
The Last Nazi by Andrew Turpin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe buried contents of a Nazi train. An aging SS mass-murderer. And the wartime secrets of a U.S. presidential hopeful’s Jewish family, hidden for seven decades. War crimes investigator and ex-CIA officer Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the contents of a Nazi train, hidden by Hitler's Third Reich, a ruthless blackmail plot, and financing for a U.S...Categorized as:
crime espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure -
The Defector by Chris Hadfield
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIsrael, late 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MIG fighter is racing at breakneck speed over the arid scrublands below . . . and promptly disappears...Categorized as:
espionage war cold-war crime political-intrigue fiction historical-fiction audiobook -
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsShortlisted for the Booker Prize, Under the Frog follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the anti-Soviet uprising of 1956... -
The Double Agents by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsW. E. B. Griffin's iconoclastic OSS heroes face a historic challenge in the brand-new volume of the "New York Times"-bestselling series. Critics and fans alike welcomed the return of the Men at War series with "The Saboteurs...Categorized as:
espionage political-intrigue politics war thriller 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Hart's War by John Katzenbach
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSecond Lieutenant Tommy Hart, a navigator whose B-25 was shot out of the sky in 1942, is burdened with guilt as the only surviving member of his crew. Now he is just another POW at the fiercely guarded Stalag Luft 13 in Bavaria...
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