Vote for favourite British Secret Agent

Who are our favourite British Secret Agents? Ian Fleming's James Bond, Len Deighton's Harry Palmer, or someone even more secretive? At its peak, the British Spy Novel genre sold several million books across the world, and was watched by even greater numbers on the Big Screen, due to the immense popularity of James Bond, as incarnated by the incomparable Sean Connery. Preceding the now legendary 007 was Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora, "the thinking man's James Bond".

In this blog, I hope to introduce to the outside world the glory that is the 20th Century British Spy Novel, covering many of the great authors that contributed to it.

I start by listing the most successful fictional British Secret Agents. If there are others I have missed out, please let me know.

Below I list the candidates in alphabetical order, and their creators/authors:

Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Boysie Oakes - John Gardner
General Besserley - E. Phillips Oppenheim
Harry Palmer - Len Deighton
James Bond - Ian Fleming
John Brock - Desmond Skirrow
John Craig - James Munro
Johnny Fedora - Desmond Cory
Mr.Calder & Mr.Behrens - Michael Gilbert
Quiller - Adam Hall
Roger Brook - Dennis Wheatley
Tommy Hambledon - Manning Coles

To vote: send the name of your favourite secret agent to me, janhart1@planet.nl

In the following months I hope to comment on some of their works, especially those not covered by other web sites. Soon after, I will pool a team of reviewers known to be interested in this genre, and vote for Britain’s most popular fictional secret agent.

Welcome to Beyond Bond

Like many others, I find the topic of “spy fiction” fascinating. Fuelled by the spy fiction novels of the 60s and 70s, James Bond in the cinema, and even the Avengers on TV, I spent many an hour enwrapped in this exciting world of the secret agent.

Unfortunately, its popularity lapsed in the late 1980s following the end of the Cold War, but now the fictional secret agent seems to be as popular as before. Today we have films such as Mission Impossible, the Bourne Supremacy and Spy Kids being made into sequels, while the younger generation can watch popular secret agent cartoons such as Totally Spies.

Since little is publicly known about the real-life secret agent, my blog will focus on the secret agent as portrayed in 20th and 21st century literature and cinema. The Secret agent is generally regarded as a recluse, sometimes immoral, an existential hero operating outside the confines of our society. Ian Fleming’s James Bond is the most famous fictional secret agent of all.

Yet there are many others.

The intention of this blog is to show that there is life BEYOND BOND. New and young secret agents such as Alex Rider, created by Anthony Horowitz, are emerging both in novels and in the cinema. There are also equally glorious fictional secret agents such as Johnny Fedora and Harry Palmer.

This site will solely focus on the British secret agent- an important subject in its own right. For a number of reasons, Britain has been blessed with a wealth of successful writers in this genre (from John le Carre and Len Deighton, to Desmond Cory and Frederick Forsyth). These novelists and their works truly represent what is “Best of British”.
I encourage you to read on!