New York Times Bestselling
Author of The Company and
The Amateur
Robert Littell’s iconic spy novels in new paperback editions
with forewords from Mick Herron, Ken Nolan, and Francine Mathews.
The Amateur
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“A taut, chilling plot and a protagonist as memorable as one of Len Deighton’s, or le Carré’s Smiley.”
—The New York Times Book Review
Charlie Heller is an ace cryptographer for the CIA, a quiet man in a quiet back-office job. But when his fiancée, Sarah Diamond, is murdered by terrorists at the American Embassy in West Germany and the Company refuses to pursue her killers, Heller takes matters into his own hands. Tracking down Sarah’s killers behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia, Heller becomes both the hunter and the hunted—an amateur facing off against the world’s deadliest assassins and spies. But nothing will stop him from getting revenge. Expertly plotted with shocking twists and pulse-pounding suspense, 'The Amateur' is a sleek and stunning novel that belongs on the shelves of every espionage fan.
The Once and Future Spy
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“An unusual, absorbing book that should keep you riveted . . . A searing look at the amorality of those who think the end is more important than the means.”
—The New York Times Book Review
The most elite levels of the CIA’s Counterintelligence unit are on the verge of pulling off an operation so huge it will change global politics—and so secret that it has no paper trail. But the operation’s organizer, Roger Wanamaker, has evidence that the plan has sprung a leak. Now it is a deadly race against time to “walk back the cat”—isolate the leak and plug it—before the scheme is exposed and an international conflict is ignited. Meanwhile analyst Silas Sibley—nicknamed “The Weeder” due to his talent for parsing intelligence with experimental computer technology—has uncovered information no one was ever meant to find. Now he has to decide what to do with it: expose the unfolding atrocity, even if it means cutting the knees out from the intelligence agency he works for and has, up until now, believed in? Or is there some other solution? Clinging fiercely to the legacy of his ancestor American Revolutionary war hero Nathan Hale, the Weeder takes matters into his own hands. Surprising and complex, this psychological deep dive into obsession, loyalty, and history, poses the question: Whose truth should be believed?
The Defection of AJ Lewinter
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“This is dazzling work, literature of a high order that happens to address the madness of the Cold War . . . The Defection of AJ Lewinter is just about perfect.”
—The Washington Post
An engineer who’s spent most of his career studying ceramic nose cones for ballistic missiles, American scientist A.J. Lewinter is used to being a cog in the military-industrial complex—until, while at a conference in Tokyo, he rushes into the Russian Embassy offering to defect. Hard-edged US intelligence operative Leo Diamond sets out to determine what, if anything, Lewinter knows; on the Soviet side, KGB agent Yefgeny Pogodin must decipher whether this high-level defection is another ruse in a long-standing war. Neither global superpower knows what to expect from Lewinter, the wild card, but both sides know this: If he’s telling the truth, his information could be the final turning point in the Cold War. A darkly funny spy thriller from one of the most brilliant voices of espionage fiction, 'The Defection of A.J. Lewinter' is a shockingly prescient portrayal of international politics.
The Sisters
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“Artfully constructed, well-written, and has more switchbacks than the road up Pike.”
—The Detroit News
Legendary CIA agents Francis and Carroll were once called “the Sisters Death and Night” by their colleagues. As the duo approaches retirement, some within the Company say that they are past their prime. To shift the balance of power in America’s favor at the height of the Cold War, Francis and Carroll hatch a plan worthy of their former triumphs: awaken an infamous KGB assassin thought to be living in New York and trick him into implementing their master plot to assassinate the president of the United States. They first deceive the Potter, former head of the KGB, into revealing the identity of his most notorious student. After realizing that he has betrayed his best sleeper agent, the Potter races to stop his protégé from committing the Sisters’ operation. Praised for having “the plot of plots” by the New York Times, 'The Sisters' is a spy classic swirling with brilliant puzzles, shocking double-crosses, and resonant questions about ideology.
The Visiting Professor
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“An engrossing suspense-filled thriller.”
—Sunday Telegraph
Lemuel Falk, a theoretical “chaoticist,” has been denied permission to leave Russia for the last twenty-three years—likely because he knows a few state secrets. He is shocked when his twenty-fourth request is approved and he is offered a position as visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies in upstate New York. As soon as Professor Falk arrives in America, a fellow professor dies under mysterious circumstances. When he agrees to assist in the investigation at the behest of local police, he is plunged into a new kind of chaos: a high-stakes academic catfight, an affair with a much younger woman, and cascading offers from domestic spies looking to capitalize on his knowledge—all while the ghosts from his past in Russia return to haunt him. A wholly original novel from a master of intrigue, 'The Visiting Professor' is a portrait of chaos theory, the limits of rationality, and the ironies of America.
Mother Russia
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“Littell is so gifted a creator of intelligent entertainment that I could give away almost everything and still not spoil your pleasure in reading.”
—NPR‘s All Things Considered
In Moscow, a city that runs on paranoia, black marketer Robespierre Pravdin survives by hustling wristwatches and employing his ample—though slightly mad—charm to escape any close calls with the authorities. His plan to stay off the state’s radar is foiled when he moves in with an enigmatic woman known only as “Mother Russia.” She enlists his help to track down evidence that will prove an unthinkable crime: that their national hero, a writer, is a fraud, his most famous novel plagiarized. As Pravdin is drawn deeper into a conspiracy both literary and political, he becomes a pawn in a dangerous game. Can he find his way out of one last tight spot—possible treason? Twisty and engrossing, 'Mother Russia' is an essential tragicomic depiction of survival in a crumbling surveillance state.