Since the days of John le Carre, it’s been hard to find a good spy in crime thrillers – The Canberra Times

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I still blame Alec Guinness. Before becoming a Jedi knight and a knight of the realm to boot, Guinness starred as John le Carre's master spy, George Smiley, in two BBC television series. He inhabited that character with such guile and finesse as to appropriate Smiley from his rather vexed creator. In my view, Guinness as Smiley did more besides. He was the forerunner of Netflix noir, starting the transfer of high-quality, long-form, morally ambiguous thrillers from print to small screen. Spy novels have never been the same. Guinness' posthumously pernicious impact is evident throughout Alan Furst's 15 nuanced and atmospheric stories about Europe in the 30s and 40s, but nowhere more so than in the last volume, Under Occupation (Weidenfeld and Nicholson). Although only one of Furst's books has been adapted for television (tritely and tediously), all his work is distinctly cinematic. Furst's palette is shades of grey. Grey dominates his repeated scenes of drizzle, fog, rain and shadows. Grey also catches the flaws, hesitations and betrayals which entrap his characters. Any spy story set in the Nazi era must be a morality tale. Good must battle evil, decent people remain brave enough to hope for a better world, and the machinations of the Gestapo - however dastardly and deft - be thwarted. Furst's dilemma is that he cannot adequately depict evil. Take this last book. Characters walk out of prison after a murder charge,and blithely board a ship for Sweden to escape pursuing Nazis. A purloined torpedo miraculously appears, to be hidden on a tugboat which turns up just as providentially. The cartoon cast includes "a Falstaff with a black eye patch" and an author who muses at inordinate length about writing spy novels set during the 1930s. Furst used to display a Zen-like gift for building up both seedy atmosphere and emotional intensity. He continues to do that, but at the expense of suspense and surprise. Odd though this sounds, as mortal enemies of civilisation the Nazis deserve better. They were utterly committed, implacably ruthless, and rather smart as well. Blundering buffoons would not have lasted in Gestapo ranks. At the other end of the spectrum, le Carre always respected the "principal adversary", to borrow a Russian term. Guinness never played Karla, Smiley's KGB adversary in a deadly espionage duel. Karla is commended for precisely those attributes which Furst's Nazis lack. He is a step ahead, deploying any tool to hand, utterly determined to win. Hidden within the State security apparatus in Beijing must be lots more Karlas. For spy novelists, however, those Chinese espiocrats remain indecipherable. One exception to that judgement is the excellent Night Heron by Adam Brookes, a tense, tough-minded tale of Beijing conspiracies which benefits from first-hand knowledge of China. For others, the new espionage adversary might well resemble a leering Bond villain or Dr Fu Manchu in a Mao suit - inscrutable, foreign in every way, acknowledging no scruples. If our adversaries are now unintelligible, our own side has become distinctly boring. Where le Carre argued that spying was watching and waiting, the craft now entails watching - a screen. Imagine creating a novel around a figure like Edward Snowden, hunched down behind his computer, lost in algorithms. Hacking and phishing only come to life if the computer techo also has a hidden life, as does Lisbeth Salander with her dragon tattoo and zippy motorbike. Again, television shows how to make technology intriguing; the heavily-armed hacker with an odd past in Unit 42 is the star on Belgium's police payroll. Those spy novels which still work recognise the truth of Pogo's maxim: "we have met the enemy and he is us". Here, Stella Rimington, who once ran the domestic intelligence service in London (her most recent is The Moscow Sleepers), lets the side down by making her hunters and gatherers twee, homely, as if they paused for afternoon tea or a stroll in Green Park. Despite all her actual experience, Rimington's narratives read like old-fashioned country house whodunnits. By contrast, Mick Herron has now published eight stories (up to Joe Country) about misanthropic losers exiled from Ms Rimington's old agency, derisorily named the Slow Horses. Their eccentric gifts are used most to fend off treachery from their erstwhile colleagues. Mainstream spies want the Slow Horses expelled, forgotten and, if possible, erased. Post-Smiley and therefore post-Cold War, John le Carre has had the same Pogo'esque intuition about perfidy at home. His new novel, Agent Running in the Field, assumes that British espionage agencies still harbour spies (nave and silly ones, in this case), that spy hunters fall into love with their prey, and that adroit use of a marriage registry can foil all the surveillance techniques of MI5, MI6 and MI whatever. A simple yearning is evident, not unlike Furst's, for good to be given a fair go.

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I still blame Alec Guinness.

Before becoming a Jedi knight and a knight of the realm to boot, Guinness starred as John le Carre's master spy, George Smiley, in two BBC television series. He inhabited that character with such guile and finesse as to appropriate Smiley from his rather vexed creator.

Modern spies are often hackers. Picture: Shutterstock

In my view, Guinness as Smiley did more besides. He was the forerunner of Netflix noir, starting the transfer of high-quality, long-form, morally ambiguous thrillers from print to small screen. Spy novels have never been the same.

Guinness' posthumously pernicious impact is evident throughout Alan Furst's 15 nuanced and atmospheric stories about Europe in the 30s and 40s, but nowhere more so than in the last volume, Under Occupation (Weidenfeld and Nicholson).

Although only one of Furst's books has been adapted for television (tritely and tediously), all his work is distinctly cinematic. Furst's palette is shades of grey. Grey dominates his repeated scenes of drizzle, fog, rain and shadows. Grey also catches the flaws, hesitations and betrayals which entrap his characters.

Any spy story set in the Nazi era must be a morality tale. Good must battle evil, decent people remain brave enough to hope for a better world, and the machinations of the Gestapo - however dastardly and deft - be thwarted.

Furst's dilemma is that he cannot adequately depict evil. Take this last book. Characters walk out of prison after a murder charge,and blithely board a ship for Sweden to escape pursuing Nazis. A purloined torpedo miraculously appears, to be hidden on a tugboat which turns up just as providentially.

The cartoon cast includes "a Falstaff with a black eye patch" and an author who muses at inordinate length about writing spy novels set during the 1930s.

Furst used to display a Zen-like gift for building up both seedy atmosphere and emotional intensity. He continues to do that, but at the expense of suspense and surprise.

Odd though this sounds, as mortal enemies of civilisation the Nazis deserve better. They were utterly committed, implacably ruthless, and rather smart as well.

Blundering buffoons would not have lasted in Gestapo ranks.

At the other end of the spectrum, le Carre always respected the "principal adversary", to borrow a Russian term.

Guinness never played Karla, Smiley's KGB adversary in a deadly espionage duel. Karla is commended for precisely those attributes which Furst's Nazis lack.

He is a step ahead, deploying any tool to hand, utterly determined to win.

Imagine creating a novel around a figure like Edward Snowden, hunched down behind his computer, lost in algorithms. Hacking and phishing only come to life if the computer techo also has a hidden life.

Hidden within the State security apparatus in Beijing must be lots more Karlas. For spy novelists, however, those Chinese espiocrats remain indecipherable.

One exception to that judgement is the excellent Night Heron by Adam Brookes, a tense, tough-minded tale of Beijing conspiracies which benefits from first-hand knowledge of China.

For others, the new espionage adversary might well resemble a leering Bond villain or Dr Fu Manchu in a Mao suit - inscrutable, foreign in every way, acknowledging no scruples.

If our adversaries are now unintelligible, our own side has become distinctly boring.

Where le Carre argued that spying was watching and waiting, the craft now entails watching - a screen.

Imagine creating a novel around a figure like Edward Snowden, hunched down behind his computer, lost in algorithms. Hacking and phishing only come to life if the computer techo also has a hidden life, as does Lisbeth Salander with her dragon tattoo and zippy motorbike.

Again, television shows how to make technology intriguing; the heavily-armed hacker with an odd past in Unit 42 is the star on Belgium's police payroll. Those spy novels which still work recognise the truth of Pogo's maxim: "we have met the enemy and he is us".

Here, Stella Rimington, who once ran the domestic intelligence service in London (her most recent is The Moscow Sleepers), lets the side down by making her hunters and gatherers twee, homely, as if they paused for afternoon tea or a stroll in Green Park. Despite all her actual experience, Rimington's narratives read like old-fashioned country house whodunnits.

By contrast, Mick Herron has now published eight stories (up to Joe Country) about misanthropic losers exiled from Ms Rimington's old agency, derisorily named the Slow Horses. Their eccentric gifts are used most to fend off treachery from their erstwhile colleagues. Mainstream spies want the Slow Horses expelled, forgotten and, if possible, erased.

Post-Smiley and therefore post-Cold War, John le Carre has had the same Pogo'esque intuition about perfidy at home. His new novel, Agent Running in the Field, assumes that British espionage agencies still harbour spies (nave and silly ones, in this case), that spy hunters fall into love with their prey, and that adroit use of a marriage registry can foil all the surveillance techniques of MI5, MI6 and MI whatever.

A simple yearning is evident, not unlike Furst's, for good to be given a fair go.

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Since the days of John le Carre, it's been hard to find a good spy in crime thrillers - The Canberra Times