英國評出史上最牛20部間諜小說，有1部為我們中國爭了氣！

小編按：近期，《人民日報》轉載報道了一份「史上最傑出的20部間諜小說」的榜單。原因是英國老牌權威報紙《每日電訊報》從過去一百多年的歷史裡評出了最傑出的20部間諜小說。其中不乏我們熟悉的作品，如「007邦德系列」的原著《俄羅斯情書》，《諜影重重》的原著《伯恩的身份》，《三十九級台階》及前蘇聯小說《春天的十七個瞬間》等。

此外，這份榜單中還有許多大名鼎鼎的作家，如諾貝爾文學獎獲得者吉卜林、英國著名小說家毛姆、現代主義大師約瑟夫·康拉德、約翰·勒卡雷和格雷厄姆·格林。

在這些煌煌之作中，令人遺憾也令人驚喜的是僅有一部來自東方——它就是中國茅盾文學獎得主麥家的《解密》。

《每日電訊報》對《解密》的評語是：這是一個關於孤僻天才成長為傑出破譯家的故事，延續了中國古典小說的敘事傳統，整個故事撲朔迷離、如夢似幻又枝節繁生，但最終讀者會迫不及待去破解書中的奧秘，就像小說主人公對待他的密碼一樣。

十二年前，一部叫《暗算》的電視劇橫空出世，然後是一部叫《風聲》的電影狂攬票房，一下子掀起了中國商業諜戰影視的狂潮，它們是《解密》的兄弟姐妹。麥家以充滿迷宮式的命運感和神秘感的寫作，拓寬了中國文學的疆域，也讓華語影視發現一個新大陸：諜戰。正因此，麥家被譽為「中國諜戰小說之父」。

下面是這份榜單，來自英國《每日電訊報》，由同濟大學博士繆佳和鄭科鵬聯合翻譯。（按照出版時間排序）

Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)

「Here begins the Great Game,」 declares Mahbub Ali when he recruits the young Kimball O』Hara, a happily independent teenage orphan, into the British Secret Service in 1890s India. Ali meant the battle between Britain and Russia for supremacy in Asia; he wasn』t to know that Kim would mark the inauguration of another Great Game – the tradition of espionage-as-entertainment. Aside from its vast influence on later spy fiction, Kipling』s magical novel certainly played a part in the personal mythology of Harold 「Kim」 Philby, whose extraordinary career would shape the spy novel』s development in the second half of the century.

《吉姆》魯德亞德·吉卜林 （1901）

當馬赫布卜﹒阿里在十九世紀九十年代將金博爾﹒奧哈拉這個年輕快樂卻無依無靠的孤兒招募進印度的英國秘密情報局時，他宣告說：「偉大的遊戲開始了！」

阿里所謂的「偉大的遊戲」是指英國和俄國在亞洲的霸權之爭。可他還不知道，吉姆的加入將標誌著另一場偉大遊戲的開始。除了對後世的間諜小說產生巨大影響外，吉卜林的這本魔幻小說也無疑在哈洛德·金·菲爾比的個人傳奇中起了重要的作用，而後者所創下的非凡事業則在上世紀下半葉塑造了間諜小說的發展。

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (1903)

Childers, a clerk in the House of Commons and a hero of the Boer War, wrote his only novel as a warning. He wanted the political establishment to realise that Britain lay in greater danger of invasion from Germany than from her old enemy, France. 「There is no sensation, only what is meant to be convincing fact,」 he declared. At first glacially paced, and always heavier on sailing detail than action, the plot concerns two friends who unmask a fiendish traitor as they cruise their converted lifeboat along the Frisian coast.

《沙洲之謎》厄斯金·柴德斯（1903）

柴德斯是英國國會下議院的議員，也是布爾戰爭中的英雄。這是他的唯一一本小說，以示對政府的警醒。他希望政治團體能夠認識到，英國受到德國入侵的危險要遠遠大於法國，雖然後者才是英國的老對手。柴德斯說：「書中沒有什麼嘩眾取寵的內容，只有讓人信服的事實。」

小說的開場節奏緩慢，對航海細節的描述遠遠多於動作場面。整個情節講述了兩個朋友駕駛著他們改裝的救生艇在弗里西亞海岸巡航時揭發一個邪惡叛徒的故事。

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (1907)

This is a book that demands to be read twice in quick succession: once, quickly, to find out what happens; then again, more slowly, to luxuriate in Conrad』s incomparable sentences. (Most subsequent spy writers were perhaps wise to keep their prose fairly functional.) The agent of the title is the seedy porn shop owner Verloc, who is ordered by a foreign power to blow up Greenwich Observatory, although, in a le Carré-ish twist, the purpose of this terrorist outrage is to frame a group of anarchists. Its ending may be the saddest and most savagely ironical of any in fiction.

《秘密特工》（又譯為《間諜》） 約瑟夫·康拉德（1907）

這是一本需要連續閱讀兩遍的書：第一遍，快速地找出發生的故事；然後，再慢慢地看一遍，讓自己完全沉浸在康拉德筆下那些無可比擬的語句中（而後來的大多數間諜小說作家很明智地讓他們書中的散文段落寫變得更具功能性）。

小說標題中所指的「秘密特工」，是一家下流色情店的老闆維洛克，此人受到外國勢力的指使去炸毀格林威治天文台。儘管在勒卡雷式的情節轉折中，該恐怖暴行的目的是要嫁禍於一群無政府主義者。故事的結局也許是小說中最讓人悲哀也最具諷刺意味的部分。

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)

Enter Richard Hannay, ramrod-backed hero on the run, falsely accused of murder, while himself in pursuit of a master of disguise who wants to steal vital British defence secrets. There was nothing kinky about Buchan – when made a peer, he took the title Baron Tweedsmuir – so if you want a blonde in handcuffs, watch the Hitchcock film. The original novel is an almost entirely woman-free zone, although in its sequels Sir Richard does marry the equally plucky Mary, a nurse and fellow agent. Slightly dim, Hannay still makes a surprisingly effective spy, although he does break his cover whenever he feels like giving a foreigner a good thrashing. Buchan』s novels are easy to patronise, but extremely difficult to better.

《三十九級台階》約翰·巴肯（1915）

由於被誣陷謀殺，背脊挺直的男主角理查德·漢內一直被追蹤而四處逃亡；與此同時，他自己也在苦苦追尋一位想要盜取英國國防重要機密的偽裝高手。

巴肯本人並沒有什麼古怪變態之處——他可是被授予了特威茲穆爾男爵的貴族——所以如果你期待有戴著手銬的金髮女郎的話，那去看希區柯克導演的電影吧。原小說中幾乎完全沒有女性角色，儘管在續集中理查德先生確實和同是間諜兼護士的瑪麗小姐結婚了，而瑪麗小姐的勇敢和堅決可一點都不遜色。

漢內看起來稍顯愚笨，但他仍然恰到好處地塑造了一個了不起的間諜形象，雖然他在想要痛打外國人一頓時暴露過自己的身份。巴肯的小說淺讀容易，但要深入非常困難。

Ashenden, or the British Agent by W Somerset Maugham (1928)

This collection of stories drew closely on Maugham』s own experiences as an intelligence officer in Europe during the First World War. Half of the original draft allegedly had to be burnt after Winston Churchill declared that it would be in breach of the Official Secrets Act. Maugham broke new ground in conveying the drudgery of spying, for all its periodic excitements. John le Carré declared him 「the first person to write about espionage in a mood of disenchantment and almost prosaic reality」. The mood was too much for Goebbels, who denounced the book for its typically British cynicism.

《英國特工》威廉·薩默塞特·毛姆（1928）

這個故事集是基於毛姆在一戰期間作為歐洲情報員的親身經歷而寫成的。據稱，在丘吉爾宣布這部作品違反了《國家機密法》後，有一半原稿不得不被燒毀。

毛姆筆下的間諜工作日常顯得乏味單調，緊張和刺激只是周期性的事件，這種描述方式別具一格。約翰·勒卡雷宣稱毛姆是「第一個以清醒的、不帶有任何幻想的、幾乎是平淡乏味的現實筆調來講述間諜活動的作家」。不過這種筆調不為戈培爾所喜歡，他譴責這部小說帶有典型的英式犬儒。

Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler (1940)

The hero is Graham, an English engineer vital to the successful rearmament of the Turkish Navy. On the voyage home from Istanbul, he tries to work out which of his fellow passengers must be the Nazi agent trying to assassinate him. Like most Ambler protagonists, Graham is hopelessly ill-suited to being a spy; but, thanks to the assistance of an unexpectedly decent socialist, he comes good. Ambler was the first writer to use the spy novel as a vehicle for left-of-centre sympathies, but he was not remotely po-faced about it: in this novel, the obligatory nice Lefty admits that he only became a socialist to annoy his wife.

《恐懼之旅》埃里克·安卜勒（1940）

故事的主人公叫格雷厄姆，他是一名英國工程師，對土耳其海軍成功重整軍備起著至關重要的作用。在從伊斯坦布爾回家的航途中，他試圖在同行的乘客中找出那個竭力想要暗殺他的納粹特工。

像安卜勒筆下大多數的主人公一樣，格雷厄姆沒有當間諜的潛質，但他出乎意外地獲得了一名正派的社會主義者的幫助，這才使得事態能化險為夷。安卜勒是第一位將間諜小說作為一種工具來表達對左翼分子的同情的作家，但他並沒有將其刻版化：在這部小說中，那位義不容辭的好心的左翼分子承認說，他之所以信奉社會主義是為了激怒他的妻子。

Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes (1942)

MacInnes, who wrote more than 20 spy novels, would probably advise any budding espionage writers looking for fieldwork that the next best thing is to marry a spy. Her husband, Gilbert Highet, was an agent for MI6 as well as an eminent Oxford classicist. This, her second novel, concerns a British intelligence officer who tries to spy on Nazis in Brittany by impersonating a French local for whom he happens to be a dead ringer. MacInnes pulls off this difficult literary conceit, making you believe that the interloper can really fool his doppelganger』s mother, fiancée and mistress. So authentic was the novel』s depiction of espionage behind enemy lines that it was used to train real-life Allied spies.

《布列塔尼任務》海倫·麥金尼斯（1942）

麥金尼斯寫過20多本間諜小說，她可能會對任何想要進行實地調查的間諜小說新手這樣建議：接下來你要做的事情就是和一位間諜結婚。因為她的丈夫是著名的牛津大學古典學者吉爾伯特·海特，也曾為軍情六處工作過。

這是麥金尼斯寫的第二本小說，講述了一名英國情報員試圖通過冒充一位和他長得極像的當地法國人來窺探布列塔尼的納粹分子。麥金尼斯成功地完成了這種極具困難的文學構思，她讓你相信這名冒充者真的能騙過和那位法國原型的母親、未婚妻和情婦。這本小說對敵人後方間諜活動的描寫得如此真實，以至於它被盟軍用於現實的間諜訓練中。

From Russia, with Love by Ian Fleming (1957)

The fifth and best Bond novel. You wouldn』t know it from watching Robert Shaw and Sean Connery in the film but when Red Grant tries to shoot Bond on board the Orient Express, our hero stops the bullet with a handy copy of an Eric Ambler novel. It could be read as a metaphor for the way Fleming scuttled the gritty reality that Ambler had brought into the genre. But for all his books』 absurdities, Fleming has many fine qualities. As Ambler himself put it, 「Critics rarely remark on how well written the James Bond stories are. I suppose that with a man as civilised and amusing as Mr Fleming, good writing is taken for granted.」

《 俄羅斯之愛》伊恩·弗萊明（1957）

這是第五部也是最好的一部邦德系列小說。可能單看羅伯特·肖和肖恩·康納利在電影中的表演你還意識不到這點，但當看到瑞德·格蘭特試圖在東方快車上射殺邦德時，邦德用手邊的一本埃里克·安卜勒的小說止住了這顆子彈，你也許就懂了。這也許可以被視為一個暗喻，表示弗萊明打破了安卜勒為間諜題材所帶來的那種殘酷現實感。

除了小說中的一些情節過於荒謬以外，費萊明的作品仍然有許多優秀的品質。正如安卜勒本人所說：「批評家們很少評論詹姆士·邦德系列小說寫得如何。我覺得一個像弗萊明先生這樣文明而又有趣的人，寫出好的作品總是理所當然的。」

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (1958)

Greene made his reputation in the Thirties with thrillers noted for the sort of grimness that is usually described as 「realistic」, but this later book, written after he had actually worked for British Intelligence, suggests he came to feel that a spirit of irreverent farce was more fitting. Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana, reluctantly agrees to spy for the British to fund the extravagances of his daughter Milly (who, in an unmistakably Greene-ish touch, complains that she』ll lose her faith if she doesn』t get the gifts she』s prayed for) and ends up inventing reports when he can』t find anything out. Castro complained that it dealt with Batista』s Cuba too frivolously, but it』s really British Intelligence that』s being sent up something rotten.

《哈瓦那特派員》格雷厄姆·格林（1958）

在上世紀三十年代，格林因他所著的恐怖小說而成名。他的小說中的恐怖常常被人描述為「特別現實」。但這本寫於他為英國情報部門工作之後的晚期作品，則表明他逐漸感到荒誕的鬧劇氛圍可能更合適。

沃莫德是一名哈瓦那的吸塵器推銷員，他不太情願地同意了為英國人做間諜，以此來資助女兒米莉過著豪奢的生活（米莉曾用一種典型的「格林式」的口吻抱怨說，如果她得不到她所祈禱的禮物，她就會失去信仰）。但他最後卻一無所獲，只能胡編亂造地報告了一番。卡斯特羅抱怨說，小說過於輕率地描述了巴蒂斯塔政權下的古巴，而真正正在腐化的卻是英國的情報部門。

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (1963)

When the young David Cornwell, an intelligence officer working for MI6, published his pseudonymous third novel, it was hailed as the first work of fiction to present the business of espionage as it really was. Le Carré himself would say that this was precisely what the book didn』t do. As he once told me: 「My service passed it, on the grounds it was not reflective of the truth, and gave away no secrets.」 It is better regarded as a great feat of imagination. Although le Carré has written many fine novels in the ensuing half-century, he has never quite recaptured anything as thrillingly transgressive as the cynicism of his anti-hero Leamas, who describes the rest of the Secret Service as 「people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives」.

《柏林諜影》（又名《寒風孤諜》《受冷漠的人》） 約翰·勒卡雷

這是年輕的英國軍情六處情報員大衛·康威爾（即勒卡雷的原名）出版第三部匿名小說，它被稱讚為第一本如實再現間諜活動的虛構作品。勒卡雷自己卻說這正是這部作品沒有做到的。正如他曾這樣告訴我那樣，「我所在的部門審查並通過這本書，是因為它沒有反映任何事實，也沒有泄露任何秘密。」因此，將之視為豐富想像力的偉大傑作更為合適。

儘管勒卡雷在接下來的半個世紀里寫了許多優秀的小說，但他再也沒有從來創造出一個像書中那位利馬斯一樣喜歡冷嘲熱諷、令人驚心動魄的反英雄角色了，這個角色曾把情報部門的其他人描述為「一群通過扮演牛仔和印第安人來照亮他們腐化生活的人」。

A Taste for Death by Peter O』Donnell (1969)

Definitely not to be confused with the P?D James novel of the same name, this is instead the highlight of a series of novels about Miss Modesty Blaise, underworld-boss turned freelance enforcer, employed by Sir Gerald Tarrant of the British Secret Service. Modesty, who began life in a comic strip that ran in the Evening Standard for 38 years, is often described as a female Bond but is in fact a much more interesting character inspired by a young Balkan refugee O』Donnell met while serving in Persia in the war. A Taste for Death takes Modesty and her sidekick Willie to Panama and Algeria, with a finale in an abandoned fort in the Sahara. Progressive readers will be glad to hear that, in this one, Modesty doesn』t resort to her favourite trick: distracting baddies by taking off her top.

《死亡的味道》彼得·奧唐奈（1969）

千萬別把這部小說與P. D.詹姆士的同名小說相混淆。這是《女諜玉嬌龍》系列小說中最最精彩的一部。女諜玉嬌龍曾當過黑社會頭目，後來變為一名自由的僱傭兵，受雇於英國特工部的傑拉德·塔蘭特爵士。玉嬌龍在倫敦《標準晚報》的連環漫畫中活躍了長達38年之久，常為人們譽為「女邦德」，但實際上她是年輕的巴爾幹難民奧唐奈在波斯服兵役時突發靈感創造的一個更為有趣的人物。

在《死亡的味道》中，玉嬌龍和她的搭檔威利來到了巴拿馬和阿爾及利亞，故事最終在撒哈拉沙漠的一個廢棄的堡壘中結束。進步的讀者會很欣喜地聽到，玉嬌龍在這部小說中並沒有採用她最喜歡的伎倆：脫去外衣以分散敵人的注意力。

Seventeen Moments of Spring by Yulian Semyonov (1969)

It seems only fair to pick a novel from the other side of the Iron Curtain, but Seventeen Moments of Spring is far from a token inclusion. It』s one of the most suspenseful thrillers ever written. Semyonov composed it at the instigation of Yuri Andropov, the KGB chief who was on a mission to redeem the dismal reputation of the Soviet intelligence services. It』s set in the final weeks of the Second World War when Russian agent Maxim Isaev, disguised as a Nazi official, is trying to prevent a peace deal between the Germans and the Americans. The book spawned one of the Soviet Union』s most popular television series in the Seventies, and Isaev has become a folk hero in Russia. Propaganda at its most entertaining.

《春天的十七個瞬間》尤里安·謝苗諾夫（1969）

為了公平起見，似乎應該從「鐵幕」的另一邊選一本小說入選，但《春天的十七個瞬間》遠非只是作為一個代表而入圍。這是史上最具懸疑性的驚悚作品之一。謝苗諾夫是在克格勃首腦尤里·安德羅波夫的鼓動下進行的小說創作，而安德羅波夫的目的是要挽回蘇聯情報局慘淡的名譽。

故事發生在第二次世界大戰的最後幾周，俄國特工馬克西姆·伊薩耶夫喬裝打扮成納粹官員，試圖阻止德國人和美國人之間的和平協議。由這部小說所改編的電視劇在上世紀七十年代的蘇聯成了熱播劇，而伊薩耶夫也由此成為俄羅斯的民間英雄。這可算得上一次最具娛樂性的政治宣傳了。

Other Paths to Glory by Anthony Price (1974)

Price』s novel is about connecting the dots between two types of warfare. Somebody is murdering survivors of the Battle of the Somme as well as the historians who have been talking to them; the crimes are somehow connected with a summit between nuclear powers. Our hero, the reluctant but brilliant spy David Audley, unravels a plot convoluted even by Price』s standards. The dialogue is superbly comic and there is a wonderful sense of history as an almost living thing, and of the nobility of historians who feel obliged to seek out the truth, no matter how unpalatable.

《榮耀之路》安東尼·普萊斯（1974）

普萊斯的小說講述了兩種類型的戰爭之間的聯繫。有人正在謀殺索姆河戰役中的倖存者，以及那些和倖存者們交談過的歷史學家；而這些犯罪與核大國峰會之間有著某種聯繫。故事的主人公，不情願但才華橫溢的間諜大衛·奧德利，揭開了一個即使以普萊斯的標準來看也算是極為錯綜複雜的陰謀。小說對白非常滑稽，有一種妙不可言、極其生動的歷史感，也凸顯了那些歷史學家們的高尚——他們覺得自己有義務去尋找真相，而無論真相多麼令人難以接受。

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (1980)

In the Seventies, Ludlum suffered briefly from what may have been the most profitable bout of amnesia in history. It inspired him to create the character of Jason Bourne, a man with no memory but outstanding survival skills, which become very useful as he traverses the globe to find out not only who he is but also why both the CIA and someone called Carlos the Jackal want to kill him. Despite Ludlum』s dogged refusal to lapse into plausibility, any niggling critical doubts the reader may have will be crushed by the sheer power of his storytelling. The Matt Damon films do this and its two sequels justice, but beware novels written under Ludlum』s name since his death.

《伯恩的身份》羅伯特·陸德倫（1980）

在上世紀七十年代，陸德倫經歷了一次可能是史上最賺錢的失憶症。他由此受到啟發創作了一個名為傑森·伯恩、沒有記憶但生存技能超強的人物。為了弄清自己的身份，也為了弄明白中央情報局和一個叫「豺狼」卡洛斯的人為何都想殺他，傑森·伯恩開始他的穿越世界，而他那超強的生存技能在這趟旅途中發揮了極大的作用。

儘管陸德倫拒絕承認故事的真實性，但讀者任何吹毛求疵的批判質疑，都會被作者強大的敘事能力所粉碎。由馬特·達蒙主演的相關電影以及後兩部續集都演得恰到好處，但一定要謹防那些陸德倫去世後還打著他的名義所推出的小說。

Berlin Game by Len Deighton (1983)

Fleming made spy fiction globally popular, but it took Deighton in the Sixties with novels such as The IPCRESS File to make it hip. His finest work, though, came later, in the Eighties, with this trilogy (completed by Mexico Set and London Match) about the disillusioned SIS agent Bernard Samson. Less exuberant than his early books but more subtle, Berlin Game is a terrific feat of plotting that out-le-Carrés le Carré in its sardonic portrait of Secret Service office politics. Tarantino (who had Max Cherry read a copy in Jackie Brown) should hurry up and film it, like he said he would.

《柏林遊戲》連·戴頓（1983）

弗萊明讓間諜小說在全球範圍內流行起來，但在上世紀六十年代，戴頓則以《伊普克雷檔案》這樣的小說讓間諜小說變得時髦。然而，他最出色的作品是完成於上世紀八十年代、講述覺悟的軍情六處特工伯納德·薩姆森的三部曲（由《柏林遊戲》《墨西哥陷阱》（Mexico Set）《倫敦比賽》（London Match）組成）。

《柏林遊戲》不如他的早期作品那般精彩，但卻更為微妙。《柏林遊戲》在情節設計上是一個了不起的壯舉，其對情報局權術的諷刺刻畫甚至連勒卡雷筆下的作品都有所不及。塔倫蒂諾·昆汀得像他曾說過的那樣，趕快把它拍成電影。

Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon (1997)

The best spy novels used to play on their readers』 concerns about contemporary events. In the past couple of decades, however, the boom in historical fiction has brought a proliferation of faux-period pieces in the espionage genre. Alan Furst, William Boyd and Robert Harris have all written fine examples, but none of them quite beats Kanon. This, his first novel, is set in 1945, when intelligence officer Michael Connolly is dispatched to the officially non-existent Los Alamos to investigate whether the murder of a Manhattan Project security officer is just a crime of passion or has something to do with a leak.

《洛斯阿拉莫斯》約瑟夫·卡儂（1997）

曾經，最優秀的間諜小說都是基於他們的讀者對當代事件的關注的基礎上進行創作和發揮的。然而，在過去的幾十年里，歷史小說的興起使得間諜題材領域湧現了大量架空歷史的作品。

艾倫·福斯特（William Furst），威廉·博伊德（William Boyd）和羅伯特·哈里斯（Robert Harris）的作品都是很好的例子，但無一能與卡儂的創作相媲美。這本書是卡儂的第一部小說，講述的是1945年的故事。當時，情報官員康納利被派往現實中並不存在、名為洛斯阿拉莫斯的地方，去那裡調查對曼哈頓項目安全人員的謀殺是否只是情殺，還是與泄密有關。

The Company by Robert Littell (2002)

Spanning 45 years in 900 pages, Littell』s behemoth manages to do everything that Norman Mailer』s Harlot』s Ghost attempted, but it』s a lot more reader-friendly. The Company tells the story of four CIA spies who encounter everybody from Kim Philby and the Kennedy brothers to Reagan, Putin and eventually a Bin Laden-esque villain in Afghanistan (presciently, as Little wrote it before 9/11). Littell lacks le Carré』s moral ambiguity (one character repudiates that famous 「cowboys and Indians」 passage), but he is the closest thing to an American equivalent.

《合伙人》 羅伯特·利特爾（2002）

時間跨越45年，篇幅長達900頁，利特爾創作的這本大部頭設法完成諾曼·梅勒在《妓女的鬼魂》中做到的所有事，但前者對讀者更為友好。《合伙人》講述了四名中情局特工的故事。故事中他們遇到了許多人，從金·菲爾比和肯尼迪兄弟到里根和普京，最終成為了阿富汗的一個本·拉登式的惡棍（這真是具有預見性，因為利特爾是在9·11事件之前完成這部作品的）。

儘管利特爾這本書不具有勒卡雷作品中的道德模糊性（書中有一個角色就拒絕了勒卡雷作品中那段著名的「牛仔和印第安人」言論），但是它無疑是最接近美國人價值觀的。

Decoded by Mai Jia (2002)

A literary superstar in China, Mai Jia』s multi-million-selling novels draw on his past in the Chinese security services. Decoded is the tale of an autistic genius who becomes a brilliant codebreaker. Readers expecting constant thrills and spills or Imitation Game-style sentimentalisation of a troubled savant』s life will be disappointed. Decoded is riddling, dreamlike and digressive, in the manner of classical Chinese fiction, but you end up wanting to decipher its mysteries as fervently as its protagonist tackles his codes.

《解密》麥家（2002）

作為中國的文學巨星，麥家那些暢銷數百萬冊的小說借鑒了他過往在中國安全部門的經歷，而這本《解密》則是一個關於孤僻天才成長為傑出破譯家的故事。

如果讀者們期待從中讀到持續不斷的刺激和爆發情節，或《模仿遊戲》中那種天才學者的困惑和感傷，那將會失望而歸。相反，《解密》延續了中國古典小說的敘事傳統，它撲朔迷離，如夢似幻，卻又枝節繁生，但最終你會迫不及待渴望去破解它的奧秘，就像書中的主角對待他的密碼一樣。

Fever and Spear by Javier Marías (2002)

Marías, perhaps Spain』s greatest living novelist, began his career as a translator, and most of his novels still centre on translators: 「people who are renouncing their own voices」. The same might be said of spies, and the parallels have preoccupied Marías in his great Your Face Tomorrow trilogy. This, the first volume, introduces Deza, a Spanish translator employed by a mysterious offshoot of MI6 that analyses people』s faces and mannerisms for clues about what they might do next. Vicious violence unfolds with mesmerising, Proustian slowness.

《狂熱與矛槍》哈維爾·馬里亞斯（2002）

馬里亞斯也許是最偉大的西班牙當代小說家。他以翻譯開始了他的文學生涯，因此他的許多小說也聚焦所謂的翻譯者們，即「放棄自己聲音的人」，這和間諜的處境如出一轍。兩者之間的相似性讓馬里亞斯神魂顛倒，集中的反映在他偉大的三部曲《你明日的容顏》中。

此書是三部曲中的第一部，它介紹了受雇于軍情六處機密部門的西班牙語翻譯者德扎通過分析人們的面部和行為方式來獲知對方接下來的行動。這本書以一種令人入迷、普魯斯特式的緩慢節奏，徐徐展開邪惡的暴行。

Slow Horses by Mick Herron (2010)

This is the first volume of what I hope will become a long series set in Slough House, a sort of Siberia-on-Thames to which MI6 workers who have blotted their copybooks – for being alcoholic, sleeping with the wrong person or leaving secret files on the Tube – are exiled to do donkey work. The disgraced spies trade acidulous put-downs – each topped by their monstrous bully of a boss, Jackson Lamb – as they try to redeem their reputations. A useful corrective in the era of television』s superheroic Spooks, Herron』s superb novels suggest that the most important secret spies are hiding is that they』re really just like us.

《慢馬》米克·赫倫（2010）

這是「絕望屋」（Slough House）小說系列的首卷，而我個人極為希望此系列發展得足夠長。絕望屋是英國版的西伯利亞，它為那些搞砸了的軍情六處特工們而設，後者們往往會因為酗酒、濫交或上傳機密文件到YouTube而被懲罰去做苦工。在惡霸上級傑克遜·蘭布的統治下，這些臭名昭著的特工們一邊試圖挽回名譽，一邊又在肆無忌憚互相貶低。

針對這個推崇戰電視劇《軍情五處》的超級英雄時代，赫倫的這本優秀小說做出了一次有效的矯正，它告訴我們，間諜們最重要的秘密就是他們和我們一樣都是常人。