Book and Film Recommendations

Jiang Liu
2025

When a foreign spy organization sabotages China-U.S. peace talks through assassination and tech theft, National Security officer Yang Guang launches a covert investigation. As he closes in on the culprits, a mysterious woman frames him, forcing Yang to fight for both justice and his innocence in a deadly game of espionage.

Alan Fewster
Australian Scholarly Publishing, 20 Nov 25

Intelligencer tells the extraordinary story of Australia’s greatest spymaster, Walter Cawthorn. Trained as a teacher in Melbourne, he served at Gallipoli before joining the British Indian Army on the Western Front. From the Middle East to Vietnam, Cawthorn spied for four countries: Britain, India, Pakistan and Australia. In a career that took him from private soldier to Major General, Cawthorn created Pakistan’s ruthless Inter-Services Intelligence bureau; was appointed twice as a High Commissioner; and spent eight years as Director of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, (ASIS).

Patrick Spero 
University of Virginia Press, 17 Sep 24

André Michaux was the most accomplished scientific explorer of North America before Lewis and Clark. His work took him from the Bahamas to Hudson Bay, and it is likely that no contemporary of his had seen as much of the continent. But there is more to his story.

During his decade-long American sojourn, Michaux found himself thrust into the middle of a vast international conspiracy. In 1793, the revolutionary French government conscripted him into its service as a secret agent and tasked him with organizing American frontiersmen to attack Spanish-controlled New Orleans, seize control of Louisiana, and establish an independent republic in the American West. New evidence also strongly implicates Thomas Jefferson in this plot. Drawing on sources buried in the vault of the American Philosophical Society, Patrick Spero offers a bona fide page-turner that sheds new light on an incipient American political climate that fostered reckless diplomatic ventures under the guise of scientific exploration, revealing the air of uncertainty and opportunity that pervaded the early republic.

Baard Wormdal
Independently Published, 06 Nov 2022

“As one of the two principal partners for United States’ technical intelligence, Norway is THE dream partner. This emerged from a document from the National Security Agency, NSA, made public by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. But why is Norway so important?

For over 70 years, the Norwegian military intelligence service has maintained a secret, formal, direct collaboration with the NSA and the CIA, outside the scope of NATO. The general public were also kept unaware of this cooperation. This book is the first uncensored book on the development of this cooperation aimed at the Soviet Union and later Russia.

To what extent does the collaboration serve American interests? To what extent does it serve Norwegian interests? Then it must be asked; To what degree is the collaboration subject to democratic, Norwegian control?

This book tells the stories of the Norwegian Intelligence Service’s intelligence stations located in northern Norway, close to the border of the superpower in the east – Russia. It lays bare the more or less successful endeavours to keep these stations’ purposes secret, the importance of these facilities for the military, and the relationship with local communities where stations were located. Through personal interviews, a number of former employees of the Norwegian military intelligence provide unique insight into one of the world's foremost intelligence alliances.”