Book and Film Recommendations

Dani de la Torre | 2026

A Spanish spy must track down a former spy involved in an undercover mission decades ago, while a Colombian agent is also after him. Secrets from the past are uncovered.

Nigel Perrin | Pen and Sword Military | 9 April 2026

Clever, charismatic and daring, Mathilde Carré lived up to the image of the intrepid female spy. Codenamed “The Cat”, she co-founded the largest intelligence network in Occupied France and inspired her recruits to fight a secret war against the Germans. Carré delivered priceless information to the Allies, and her commitment to their cause seemed beyond question. But the reputation of The Cat hid a flawed and volatile personality, driven by a deadly combination of personal ambition, vanity and jealousy.

When she finally fell into enemy hands, Carré chose to save herself rather than her comrades, betraying dozens of her own agents. Becoming her captor’s mistress, she enjoyed a life of luxury in Paris and earned the respect of her new German masters. But when a secret affair with a British agent led her to escape to London, Carré’s true intentions raised serious questions. How far could she be trusted, and where did her allegiances really lie? At her trial The Cat’s extraordinary exploits were finally revealed to the public, transforming a resistance hero into a figure of public hatred. Condemned to death, she remained fiercely unrepentant to the end, presenting herself as a victim of circumstance rather than a willing traitor.

Mathilde Carré was a fascinatingly complex and enigmatic character who worked for the French, British, Polish and German secret services and double crossed them all. The result of more than ten years’ research, She Was The Cat is a story that poses questions about the boundaries between resistance and collaboration, and the power of myth and self-delusion.

Bard Warmdol | Independent | 06 March 2026

Listening stations camouflaged as boatsheds in secluded coastline locations, spying missions probing far into Russian territory, strictly guarded radar installations, aircraft and seagoing vessels that collect information covertly. All of this has been part of a secret intelligence collaboration between the USA and Norway that also includes wiretapping on the Russian border and the covert tapping of civilian satellites.

Espionage has ensnared individuals in a high stakes game being played out between the great powers, which both during and after the Cold War has turned secluded villages and hamlets in northern Norway into potential targets for Russian bombs or missiles. Yet, the agreement with the USA has never been brought up for discussion in the Norwegian Parliament (Storting).

However, with the aid of new sources, including conversations with former operators and leaked documents, Bård Wormdal sheds new light on how Norwegian intelligence is capable of monitoring both hostile activity and ordinary Norwegian citizens. The practical operation is carried out under the auspices of Norway, but is largely financed by the USA and serves American interests, allegedly more so than Norwegian concerns. The scope and methodology involved are not known to the general public.

Until now.

Margaret Whitesmith | Edinburgh University Press | 15 September 2020

Reveals that a key element of current training provided to the UK and US intelligence communities (and likely all 5-EYES and several European agencies) does not have a proven ability to mitigate cognitive biasesDemonstrates that judging the credibility of information from human sources means that intelligence analysis faces greater complexity and cognitive strain than non-intelligence analysisExplains the underlying causes cognitive biases, based on meta-analyses of existing researchShows that identifying the ideal conditions for intelligence analysis is a more effective way of reducing the risk of cognitive bias than the use of ACH.

Recent high-profile intelligence failures – from 9/11 to the 2003 Iraq war – prove that cognitive bias in intelligence analysis can have catastrophic consequences. This book critiques the reliance of Western intelligence agencies on the use of a method for intelligence analysis developed by the CIA in the 1990s, the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH). The author puts ACH to the test in an experimental setting against two key cognitive biases with unique empirical research facilitated by UK’s Professional Heads of Intelligence Analysis unit at the Cabinet Office, and finds that the theoretical basis of the ACH method is significantly flawed. Combining the insight of a practitioner with over 11 years of experience in intelligence with both philosophical theory and experimental research, the author proposes an alternative approach to mitigating cognitive bias that focuses on creating the optimum environment for analysis, challenging current leading theories.