Terror in the Back Stacks

Gayle Lynds has the best narrative engine in the thriller-fiction trade, plus a passion for the espionage subgenre that shines through all of her work. Her latest offering, The Book of Spies (St. Martin's Press), richly demonstrates her talents. It also adds an interesting new element--an uncommon overtone of historical fantasy.

Publishers Weekly outlines this story’s plot:

A legendary library, containing written works dating back to ancient Rome and Greece, forms the tantalizing background. When The Book of Spies, one of the bejeweled volumes of the Library of Gold (a rare book archive people have sought for centuries) surfaces, the CIA links a terrorist plot with the library and a cabal of powerful men who have been its keepers. Rare-book expert Eva Blake and former intelligence agent Judd Ryder have personal reasons for joining in the hunt for the library. Eva, released from prison for vehicular manslaughter in the death of her husband, learns that her husband, an authority on the library, is alive. A sniper shot Judd’s father, a CIA agent, soon after the father claimed to have learned important information from the library. These two complicated, appealing characters complement the satisfying, conspiracy-laden plot that smoothly moves throughout Europe at breakneck speed.

This makes the Jason Bourne adventures look like tourist postcards.

Says Lynds, “My interest in the library dates back more than 20 years. On June 28, 1989, I was reading the Los Angeles Times when [an article titled] ‘Kremlin Tunnels: The Secrets of Moscow’s Underworld,’ by Masha Hamilton, caught my attention ... I was enthralled by this ‘library of gold-covered books,’ which immediately became in my mind the Library of Gold ...”

Lynds’ villains are as interesting as her heroes. One of them in The Book of Spies has a special talent for descriptions. Example: “But then, this was Dubai, epicenter of a storm of commerce, with free-trade zones, speed-corporate licensing, no taxes, no elections, and almost no crime. It was said the city's bird was the building crane ...”

Kick this book to the top of your list.

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.

Gayle Lynds on a Bubble

Today on the Murderati Bubble, Barry Award-winning author Elaine Flinn talks with thrillermeistress extraordinaire Gayle Lynds about her latest novel, The Last Spymaster, and ... well ... mostly silly stuff. (’Tis the nature of the Bubble.)

Flinn, whose most recent book is Deadly Collection (2005), has recently subjected David Montgomery, Paul Guyot, Stephen Booth, Elaine Viets, Denise Hamilton, and others to similar treatment. All are accessible on the Murderati blog Flinn shares with fellow mystery authors Pari Noskin Taichert, Denise Dietz, Naomi Hirahara, Jeffrey Cohen, Simon Wood, and J.T. Ellison.