A CIA veteran scours sources as diverse as The Bible, James Bond movies, and presidential speeches to examine the mysterious world of intelligence and espionage The Literary Spy provides a unique view of the intelligence world through the words of its own major figures (and those fascinated with them) from ancient times to the present. CIA speechwriter and analyst Charles E. Lathrop has compiled and annotated more than 3,000 quotations from such disparate sources as the Bible, spy novels and movies, Shakespeare's plays, declassified CIA documents, memoirs, TV talk shows, and speeches from U.S. and foreign leaders and officials. Arranged in thematic categories with opening commentary for each section, the quotations speak for themselves. Together they serve both to illuminate a world famous for its secrets and deceptions and to show the extent to which intelligence has manifested itself in literature and in life. Engaging, informative, and often irreverent, The Literary Spy is an exceedingly satisfying book - one that meets the needs of the serious researcher just as ably as those of the armchair spy in pursuit of an evening's entertainment.

Charles E. Lathrop, a former U.S. military officer, has served in the CIA as an analyst, a diplomat under cover, a speechwriter for the Director of Central Intelligence, a CIA spokesman and lecturer, an editor for the President's Daily Brief, and a manager of intelligence analysis. He writes under a pseudonym.

'...the book is more fun than a straight cut'n'paste job: the author editorialises with sly humer, often bewailing the fact that a spy's average day does not include many women and Martini's' - The Guardian