I have to write a book report for class on an espionage book and was hoping someone would have a good book for me to read. I do really like WWII but if there are really good books out there that aren't WWII I would be good with that too. Something exciting would be nice.
I'm a fan of the atomic spies myself. Some favorites that focus on individuals (which often makes for better stories than big, all-encompassing books on Soviet espionage, like The Haunted Wood):
Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy. This focuses primarily on the spying of Ted Hall, a Harvard undergraduate who worked at Los Alamos. The guy is barely out of high school and he decides to spy on the atomic bomb for the USSR. Why'd he do it? How'd he do it? And why did he never go to jail, even though the FBI figured out he was a spy? The book gives interesting answers to these questions.
The Catcher was a Spy. Moe Berg was a Princeton-educated catcher for the Boston Red Sox. He was also a spy for the US during WWII. One of his jobs was to decide whether or not he should assassinate the famous German physicist Wernher Heisenberg who was thought to be working on an atomic bomb for the Nazis.
The Invisible Harry Gold. Gold was not a spy himself per se, but he was part of the Rosenberg/Greenglass/Fuchs network that got a lot of information out of Los Alamos, working as a courier. What makes him a great study is that he is not some kind of trained agent or even an ideological die-hard, but just a psychologically kind of messed up guy who falls in with "the wrong crowd" and aims to please. A much more nuanced story than you usually get with spy accounts, a great psychological portrait.
I would recommend Agent Zigzag by Ben McIntyre. It's a biography of a gangster from the east end of London who ended up serving as a m&s agent for the Germans... And then the British. McIntyre writes ridiculously well, and Eddie Chapman's life was like a thriller anyway, you'll finish it in a day or two, and wish it was longer.
Favorite example of Chapman's ridiculousness: he was parachuted by his German spymasters into England (oxfordshire, I think). He landed in a field, and walked up to an old stone farmhouse with two spinster sisters inside. He knocked on the door, and said (paraphrasing): "hello. I'm a German spy. Would you please call to police". That was how he came to work for the British.
Chapman almost single-handedly save central London from the blitz. He reported back to the Germans that all their bombs were falling on hampstead and kilburm (north-west London), so the Germans dialed down their V2 range, obliterating south-east London (and many innocent people), but leaving the seat of power in central London relatively unscathed.
"Spycatcher" by Peter Wright - Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer of British MI5 1954-1965. It contains a great mix of personal struggles, technical details, overviews of (and some nitty gritty details of) specific surveillance and counter-surveillance operations, spy-turning, detailed accounts of double-agents, and the technology employed in espionage and counter-espionage, it doesn't touch particularly heavily on any one subject, but it's generally a very fascinating read.
But most of all it was known for it's controversy in exposing just how astonishingly (and I can't emphasize this enough, you need to read the book to understand) badly infiltrated by Soviet Counter-Intelligence MI5 were (and to lesser extents MI6 and GCHQ) back in the early days of the cold war.
The book was officially banned from sale in England by the government of the time before the books first attempted publication in 1985, at the time of it's first actual publication 1987, English newspapers were banned via gag order from even mentioning the book, and it was difficult to get hold of for at least a few years untill 1988.
Also if WWII is your thing, still in the historical fiction area I'd suggest Robert Harris' Enigma.
For non-fiction:
The Defense of the Realm is a fascinating, if incredibly long, history of MI5. Bear in mind it is an "authorized" history.
The Puzzle Palace comes highly recommended by people I know in the intelligence community, though I have not read it.
Ken Follet writes some great spy stuff. The Eye of the Needle immediately comes to mind. Jackdaws is also very good.
maybe not as exciting as some other books listed here, but Steve Coll's Ghost Wars is an excellent (and Pulitzer prize winning) description of the CIA's efforts in assisting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Taliban - and the subsequent intelligence operations and failures that led up to 9/11. Fascinating depiction of how intelligence organizations work to achieve goals in very difficult fields of operations having to negotiate with tenuous allies - like communist China
Mark Lowenthal's Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy focuses more on the political science side of espionage, but also spends quite a bit of time explaining the historical background that caused certain practices to come about.
I'm reading My Secret War by Kim Philby right now and it's a fun read that shows both the successes and failures of Britain's spy agencies during WWII. Haven't gotten to the postwar era yet.
Christopher Andrew's [For The President's Eyes Only] (http://www.amazon.com/For-Presidents-Eyes-Only-Intelligence/dp/0060921781) is a very good summary of the relationship between the American presidency and the intelligence community.
The crook factory, by Dan Simmons. It's a fictionalized account of the spy ring that Hemingway organised and run in Cuba, and it's quite well documented and accurate. And really, really good.
I have to recommend "A man called Intrepid". It is a true story of WWII US-UK cooperation.
Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks is a really good recap of cryptography and field agents in WWII.
"Between Silk and Cyanide, A Codemakers War, 1941-1945. Was written by Leo Marks, who left his father's famous bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road at the age of 22 to fight WWII. He was quickly recognized as a genius cryptographer, and became Head of Communications for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which sent operatives into occupied Europe.
After the war, Marks became a well known writer of screenplays. His vivid and polished authorial style makes this a standout war autobiography, and his career as an incredibly young top cryptographer, training some of the most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe makes this one of the best books written about the espionage war.
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
For actual records and explanations:
Killer Elite by Michael Smith