2025 Reading Challenge 18 The Spy who came in from the Cold
Whilst I had the title The Spy Who Loved Me (cheesy 70s Roger Moore Bond flick) dancing around in my head, this is almost the antithesis of a Bond film. No glamour. No gadgets. No single villain. This is about paperwork, desperate figures, unclear objectives, impossible moral situations and where death is almost a blessed release from the constant stress and jeopardy of their position.
The book features Alec Leamas, a burnt-out spy chief who’s seen his Berlin cell systematically exterminated by his opposite number in the Stasi, Hans-Dieter Mundt. This culminates in the death of Karl Riemeck as he tries to make his way across the no-man’s land between the Wall, and Alec swears vengeance on Mundt. Alec is recalled to London and expects to be retired as he is “brought in from the Cold”, but Control has one last job for him.
The rest of the book sees Leamas fall from grace, reaching rock bottom in his work and personal life, with the only bright spot a brief liaison with a librarian communist(!) Liz Gold.
Eventually, Stasi agents reach out to him, but is this all real or manufactured? There is an excellent series of light to heavy interrogations as they try to get information and the truth out of him and for me, this is where the book is lifted a level as Alec tries to play a risky game of bluff, whilst trying to interpret who on both sides are there to help him or hang him. You hang on every word.
The end brings us back to the Berlin Wall, a fitting finale. Will Alec make it out of the cold and back home to Blighty? Will he protect Liz? Who is the spy that Alec needs to protect or terminate?
I rated it 8.5 out of 10.
TTRPG Thoughts:
There is an excellent Night’s Black Agents scenario that raises its head whilst reading this. The players are seasoned intelligence officers sent "off the books" to Berlin to orchestrate a disinformation campaign. Their mission: discredit an enemy agent within the Eastern bloc. But as events unfold, they realise their handlers may be sacrificing them to protect an even more dangerous double agent.
Vampires are thrown into the mix, so perhaps the enemy agent is a vampire or the Stasi section is all vampires, turning agents and double agents into vampire agents, and this is where the threat and goal become clear.
Following on from scenario ideas, there are a number of mechanics that I think work well for a Cold War spy thriller.
Clock-based escalation: (à la Blades in the Dark) to track heat, exposure, or mission collapse. Most Cold War stories focus on keeping in the shadows, as soon as you’re exposed, you’re finished. So firing off Uzi 9mm and setting off explosives is more for Bond style spy games.
Interrogation minigames: using social mechanics and secret motivations. Think Alien, the RPG, where everyone has their own, changing motivations as the “game” is played out.
Cross-faction play: Players can be part of opposing agencies with overlapping missions. Again, a TTRPG like Paranoia was first in this, highlighting Mutant Powers, Secret Societies, all banned and punishable by death by Friend Computer, but also they push you to fulfil the secret objectives during a mission, which has its own objectives. Can you keep things clear and compartmentalised in your head?
Flashback system: to reveal hidden agendas or past betrayals mid-game. Again, BitD has this ingrained, and I’m surprised there is not a Cold War or Spy-themed Blades Hack (or there is and I’ve not come across it). But perhaps each player can use up a single Flashback throughout the game, each Flashback has to be built on the last, giving great creativity but also a certain amount of limited scope to stop completely outrageous or unbelievable situations to occur.