Book and Film Recommendations

Eric Rochant
2015

This French espionage thriller TV series is based upon real accounts by former spies and inspired by contemporary events, and centers on the daily life and missions of agents within France's Directorate-General for External Security, its principal external security service. It focuses on the "Bureau of Legends", responsible for training and handling deep-cover agents (operating 'under legend') on long-term missions in areas with French interests, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. Living under false identities for years, these agents' missions are to identify and recruit good intelligence sources.

J. Boulter
Old Castle Books, 08 Jul 25

After the Second World War, divided Germany was saturated with spies. Among them were the 'first class comrades' of the Stasi - the East German Ministry for State Security. The early Cold War saw the Stasi establish itself as one of the world's most notorious spy and secret police agencies.

Drawing on rarely seen files from the Stasi archives, First Class Comrades tells the Stasi story from a fresh perspective: how it helped to create a new European state, how its foreign intelligence service became one of the most successful ever, and how its spy-catchers tackled vigorous attempts by the West to infiltrate East Germany - attempts that influenced the decision to build the Berlin Wall.

Full of new insights on Cold War espionage, and featuring newly discovered details of the Stasi's operational methods, First Class Comrades shines a light on this lesser-known period of Stasi history, and why its stories and lessons still matter today.

Perfect for readers interested in twentieth century European politics, military history, true crime and espionage narratives. For fans of Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer and readers of Ben Macintyre, Christopher Andrew, Alan Judd and Nigel West.

Robert S. Kim
Potomac Books, 01 Jun 25

Victory in Shanghai tells the long-hidden story of a family from Korea that struggled for three decades to become Americans and ultimately fought their way to the United States through heroic actions with the U.S. Army during World War II. Among the first families from Korea to migrate to the United States in the early twentieth century, the Kim family was forced into exile in Shanghai in the mid-1920s after a new U.S. immigration law in 1924 excluded Asians. Two decades later, the family’s four sons—raised as Americans in the expatriate community of Shanghai—voluntarily stepped forward during World War II to defend the nation they considered theirs.

From both sides of the Pacific, the Kim brothers served in uniform with the U.S. Army and in the underground U.S. intelligence network in Shanghai. At the end of the war the eldest son led the liberation of seven thousand American and Allied civilians held in Japanese internment camps in Shanghai. His actions and the support of the leading generals of the U.S. Army in China led to three special acts of Congress that granted him U.S. citizenship and admitted the entire Kim family into the United States. Four Kim brothers became some of the earliest intelligence officers of the nascent U.S. intelligence community, and three of them ascended to leadership positions in the CIA and the Army Special Forces.

Victory in Shanghai tells two intertwined American origin stories: a Korean family’s struggle to become Americans during the World War II era and the contributions of Korean Americans to the creation of modern U.S. intelligence and special operations. Withheld from the public until recently due to the secrecy surrounding their actions during World War II and the Cold War, the history of the Kim family is one of the great stories of coming to America and defending and strengthening it in the process.

Daniel W.B. Lomas (editor) and Christopher J. Murphey (editor)
Edinburgh University Press, 31 Mar 25

The modern-day UK intelligence and security community is the product of over a century of reviews going back to Edwardian spy scares, through two World Wars, and a Cold War. Written by intelligence experts, Intelligence, Security and the State provides an insight into the development of UK intelligence through a selection of the many intelligence reviews that have taken place during this period. How and why these reviews were commissioned and their impact, if any, is analysed in detail. The reviews cover the origins and early development of the community, alongside the political, operational, and financial oversight of British intelligence. Each of the declassified reviews, reproduced here for the first time, are introduced by short essays giving a wider understanding of the UK intelligence community. The book offers a detailed insight into the machinery of government in the UK and British intelligence as a whole.