444 Thrillers on the Eve of War - Spy Novels in the 1930s (with Juliette Bretan)

The British spy novel was well established long before Ian Fleming's creation of James Bond in the 1950s. And while it came to be identified with the Cold War, thanks to Fleming and subsequent writers like John le Carré, thriller aficionados continued to look back to earlier authors for novels with a different set of stakes. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar and journalist Juliette Bretan about the issues at work in the spy novels of the 1930s. With Europe in flux, what were the protagonist spies busy doing? And how did those reflect the passions and fears of their creators? Authors discussed include Graham Greene, Christopher Isherwood, Rex Warner (The Wild Goose Chase, The Professor), Eric Ambler (The Dark Frontier, Uncommon Danger, A Coffin for Dimitrios) and Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male).

Additional listening suggestions:

• 114 Christopher Marlowe: What Happened and What If?
• 39 Graham Greene
• 380 Ian Fleming | PLUS The Black James Bond

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