The Decade of the Spy

Are we smack dab in the middle of the decade of the spy? Yes, says Gayle Lynds, bestselling author, member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, and co-founder of International Thriller Writers. And on M.J. Rose’s Buzz, Balls & Hype blog, she articulates the reasons for this.

With loud sturm and drang, we’re going through the most radical restructuring of [America’s] intelligence community since the CIA was fashioned from the ashes of the OSS after World War II. The result is a brand-new espionage czar--the Director of National Intelligence, orchestrating all of our covert agencies, with explosive fallout that includes the recent resignation of Porter Goss from his post as director of Central Intelligence.

Lynds goes on to talk about how this trend has brought new life to a portion of the genre that many publishing insiders had pronounced dead just a decade ago.

And sales of spy novels have done a complete reversal from the 1990s when publishing declared anything espionage as dead as the Cold War. Today, editors actively look for books in the field.

To read more of Lynds’ argument, click here.