DEAD DROP

Our man Jeremy Duns has published a new book! Duns has thrilled readers with a trilogy of spy adventures that follow his character Paul Dark. The first in the series, Free Agent, was praised by William Boyd (Any Human Heart, James Bond), who said it was "a wholly engrossing and sophisticated spy novel set against a forgotten corner of 20th century history. Fascinating and compelling." Free Agent was followed by Song of Treason and The Moscow Option. His curiosity and eye for detail have established him as both a prolific writer of fiction and a respected journalist. Over the past few years Duns has uncovered and clarified a number of fascinating stories about historic spy cases and about Spy Vibe favorite novelists like Ian Fleming and Len Deighton. You can find his work in the pages of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, and many other publications. His new non-fiction book Dead Drop will be released tomorrow. Amazon UK page here. Amazon Kindle page here. Author pages here (UK) and here (US). Simon and Schuster page here.

From the publisher: "In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky tried to make contact with the West. His first attempt was to approach two American students in Moscow. He handed them a bulky envelope and pleaded with them to deliver it to the American embassy. Inside was an offer to work as a 'soldier-warrior' for the free world. MI6 and the CIA ran Penkovsky jointly, in an operation that ran through the showdown over Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He provided crucial intelligence, including photographs of rocket manuals that helped Kennedy end the Cuba crisis and avert a war. Codenamed HERO, Penkovsky is widely seen as the most important spy of the Cold War, and the CIA-MI6 operation, run as the world stood on the brink of nuclear destruction, has never been bettered.

"But how exactly did the Russians detect Penkovsky, and why did they let him continue his contact with his handlers for months afterwards? Could it be that the whole Cuban Missile Crisis was part of a Soviet deception operation - and has another betrayal hidden in plain sight all these years? Thrilling, evocative and hugely controversial, Dead Drop blows apart the myths surrounding one of the Cold War's greatest spy operations." A favorite Free Agent cover design below: first edition paperback by Penguin US. 

I have a spy novel coming out. Get ready to meet MIKI ZERO, a Japanese fashion model and spy from 1965! Stay tuned and follow Spy Vibe by clicking the Follow link at top right of this page.

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JEREMY DUNS TRANSMISSIONS

Our man in Sweden, author Jeremy Duns, has been a busy agent lately. His novel, Free Agent, was released in paperback earlier this summer, and its sequel, Free Country, is coming out this month. Both novels are also now available in kindle editions for you Spy Vibers with special gadgets. With this flurry of activity, and the BBC option on his spy trilogy, Jeremy has sent a number of updates that I think Spy Vibers will want to check out. From Jeremy:


Hi everyone, some good news. Free Country is reviewed in today's Guardian, which says: 'With its subtly deployed late-60s detail, Free Country is a treat for fans of traditional Len Deighton-style spy thrillers.' The rest is here. (It's not every day you get outed in the press as a lover of Roger Moore Bond films, but I should just say that I prefer the Connery ones!)

I was interviewed at the Harrogate festival by the website Unbound, and you can read that here. The audio of the interview is here. I've also taken part in a 'virtual panel' discussing the spy thriller with authors JJ Cooper and Adrian Magson at Permission To Kill, which can be read here.

Finally, Amazon is launching its Kindle e-reader in the UK this month. Free Agent and Free Country are both available to buy for it. [also available on Kindle at Amazon US here].

Congratulations to Jeremy! Read his list of top-10 historical spy gadgets here. You can also check out his top-5 list of fave set designs on Spy Vibe here.

JEREMY DUNS: TOP 10 SPY GADGETS

JEREMY DUNS: TOP 10 SPY GADGETS
Bugged rocks and exploding rats? Our Man Jeremy Duns, author of Free Agent, has posted his top-10 list of real spy gadgets on his blog, The Debrief. Along with some rather wild inventions, Spy Vibers will recognize a few toys that showed up in the fictional tales of John Drake (Danger Man) and James Bond. If you are interested in seeing more on the illustrated history of spy gadgets, check out the book The Ultimate Spy by Keith Melton. By the way, the hardcover edition of Jeremy's novel Free Agent is currently on sale for under $3 on Amazon. Penguin is gearing up to launch the paperback edition on June 29th in the US with this fantastic design by Jonathan Gray. Don't miss it!

For spy book lovers and collectors, you may also want to check out the auction catalog for the Otto Penzler Collection. From The Debrief: On April 8, the famed bookseller, publisher and friend to many thriller-writers Otto Penzler is selling off part of his massive collection at the Swann Auction Galleries in New York - specifically, his British espionage and thrillers. This must be the finest collection of its kind in the world, and offers both a deep insight into the history of the genre, and is part of that history. It includes rare correspondence between Ian Fleming and Richard Chopping about the jacket art for the James Bond novels, signed first editions by Eric Ambler, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, John le Carré, Adam Hall and Dennis Wheatley, scarce editions by William le Queux and E Phillips Oppenheim... and much more besides. The asking prices are a little too high for me, but what a gorgeous, gorgeous catalogue. You could read it for hours. -Jeremy Duns

JEREMY DUNS: OUR MAN IN SWEDEN

GUEST SET LISTS
Spy Vibe continues its series on Spy TV/film production design and the influence of Art and design movements, Playboy, Hugh Hefner, adventure story conventions, and the Space Race.

Guest Set Lists: Lee Pfeiffer, Jeremy Duns, Armstrong Sabian, Steve Bissette, Roger Langley, Matthew Bradford, Wesley Britton, David Foster, Matt Kindt.

Spy Vibe's Set For Adventure here, Set Countdown #10, #9, #8 ,#7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2, #1.

JEREMY DUNS: OUR MAN IN SWEDEN

agent JEREMY was born in 1973 and lives in Sweden with his wife, kids, and massive collection of vintage spy thrillers. His first novel, Free Agent, set in Nigeria in 1969, will be published by Simon & Schuster in the UK on May 5 and by Viking Penguin in the US on June 25. It's the first in a trilogy featuring British double agent Paul Dark and has been praised by David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Eric Van Lustbader, Christopher Reich and Jeff Abbott. Jeremy's picks from #1-5:


1. DR NO (1962). Ursula Andress' bikini-clad introduction is the most iconic moment in the film - perhaps in the whole of the Bond series, perhaps in the whole of spy cinema - but Ken Adam's sets, from the low-ceilinged ante-rooms of No's lair to the oriental elegance of Miss Taro's bachelorette pad to the strangely-angled cell Bond must escape from, gave the film a sleek claustrophobic sheen.


2. THE IPCRESS FILE (1965). Ken Adam again, and more peculiar angles. But despite Palmer's own bachelor pad tendencies, the effect here is less glamorous than in the Bond films - and the disused warehouse would never be the same again.


3. BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN (1967). This was probably the weakest of the Harry Palmer films (the originals, I mean – not the later ones!), but it had great Syd Cain sets, from the banks of computers of the title to the swinging furniture in Finland.


4. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969). Syd Cain again, and almost as snowy as Billion Dollar Brain. The sets are less extravagant, and perhaps less obviously ‘Bond’ than even Billion Dollar Brain, but they are nevertheless rich, atmospheric and perfectly suited to the story, from Blofeld’s groovy mountain clinic-cum-fortress Piz Gloria to the magnificent casino that James Bond (George Lazenby) walks through early in the film. It helps that the film itself is terrific.


5. A DANDY IN ASPIC (1966). Another of the lesser known British Sixties spy flicks, starring Laurence Harvey as double agent Alexander Eberlin – both this and Derek Marlowe’s novel, from which it was adapted, were major influences for me. The film has its problems but I find the look and atmosphere of it compelling, from a firing range to a military airfield. There’s a haunting scene as Eberlin walks around the tiny London flat of his burned-out, drug-addicted handler Pavel (Per Oscarsson): as he squeezes past lampshades and picks up a photograph of Pavel’s wife back in Russia, the bleak life of a spy hits home.