Peter Quinn's Top 5 Cold War Novels

The world is still rife with armed conflicts and national rivalries but the Cold War - the head-to-head confrontation between two superpowers and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation - is over. A vast amount of fiction has been written and continues to be written about that struggle. Though much of it is forgettable pulp, some rises to the level of true literature. Certainly, there is a slew of worthy candidates for a list of the best Cold War novels. For me, the very best - and there is a long list for possible inclusion - vividly capture the endless intrigue, pervasive paranoia and nasty proxy wars that characterized a nearly half-century of this East-West high-wire act. I make no claim to final wisdom with the five novels I’ve selected. I offer them as a place to begin, not end.

Young Philby by Robert Littell
The well-known Cold War spy saga of Kim Philby is given a delicious new twist in Robert Littell’s subtly drawn portrait of Philby and his uncertain loyalties. Littell takes the story back to Philby’s recruitment by the NKVD in Vienna in 1933 and imagines the various machinations of his British and Soviet handlers as they try to make the best use of his talents. Instead of cardboard cutouts, Littell’s Philby and his father, St John Philby - Arabist and eccentric - are complex characters. This novel convincingly subverts the notion of Philby’s 1963 defection to the U.S.S.R as the predictable denouement of three decades of high treason.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
This prophetic 1956 novel lays bare the mindset that led the U.S. into a fruitless decade-long war in Vietnam. In the waning days of France’s attempt to retain its colony, Thomas Fowler, a cynical, world-weary British journalist, competes with young, attractive American economic advisor Alden Pyle (in reality, a CIA operative) for the love of Phuong, a beautiful Vietnamese girl. Fowler not only comes to see that he will lose Phuong but also recognizes the toxic mix of naiveté and arrogance that Pyle embodies. One can only wish that the architects of the Vietnam War had absorbed the lessons of Greene’s novel before acting on the fabrications of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon
It’s the summer of 1953. The Cold War is raging. A so-called Lavender Scare over the supposed infiltration of government agencies by homosexuals parallels the Red Scare gripping Washington. The atmosphere of paranoia generated by Senator Joe McCarthy from his perch as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ensnares Tim McCarthy (no relation to Joe), a young, inexperienced newspaper intern, and his lover, Hawkins Fuller, an Ivy League graduate and rising star in the State Department. Mallon skillfully turns the grand game of political intrigue, partisan bitterness and professional betrayal into an intimate drama of love, loyalty, and the price some pay for preserving their integrity.

The Prodigal Spy by Joseph Kanon
Part love story, part chronicle of a son’s struggle to find the truth about the treason and defection of his father, this riveting yarn of espionage and betrayal never flags or falters. Whether in the poisoned atmosphere of Washington, D.C., on the eve of the Korean War or in the grim streets of Prague after the Soviet invasion of 1968, Kanon is in total command of the personalities, landscapes and nuances of the East-West confrontation. His unerring eye for historical accuracy, his multi-layered characters, and his skillful plotting make for a suspenseful, thoughtful and memorable work of Cold War fiction.

A Small Town in Germany by John Le Carré
The small town in the title of Le Carré’s gripping, labyrinthine novel is Bonn, the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The year is 1968. The post-war settlement is coming apart at the seams. A new political force, hostile to NATO, is rising in Germany. Britain is a shadow of its former self. The U.S. is preoccupied by Vietnam. Leo Harting, a German-born official in the British embassy, has gone missing. Bull-headed, abrasive, relentless Alan Turner is dispatched to find Harting. In the end, the Western alliance hangs in the balance as the plot twists and spins with a velocity that dazzles from first page to last.

Dry Bones by Peter Quinn is out today from Gerald Duckworth & Co.