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By Mark Macias
Why would anyone want to be a government spy? The salary is modest compared to other whitecollar professions. Intelligence officers must be alert at all times, on or off-duty. Their lives may be at risk abroad, and even back home they can never regale neighbours with tales of their adventures in the field. You might steal secrets from a hostile state, dodge bullets, terminate an enemy agent in a dark alley or recruit a seductive informant – perhaps even avert a nuclear attack. But none of this can be revealed outside the clandestine world; in this profession of secrets, loquacious attention-seekers need not apply. Of course, secrecy is alluring and espionage has long been glamorized in books and films – sometimes by
avantoure | school of trickery
writers who have been spies. Ian Fleming saw wartime service in Naval Intelligence before he dreamt up the iconic James Bond. Bond was suave, sophisticated and macho, bedding beautiful women in exotic locations or sipping martinis at cocktail parties, having shucked off his wetsuit and changed into a tuxedo. Bond made espionage look sexy, cool and fun… Others painted a darker picture. John Le Carre worked for MI6 in Germany during the Cold War and described a shabby world of backstabbing colleagues, institutional deceit and personal betrayals in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. His later novels featuring George Smiley, the cuckolded, morally anguished
