Double Agent Books in Order

The Double Agent series takes readers back to the tense years just before and during the early stages of the Second World War, when it was not yet clear who would end up on which side. At its centre is Charles Cooper, a young British writer whose research trips across Europe make him an ideal recruit for the murky work of spying.

In Every Spy a Traitor Cooper moves through a continent gripped by Stalin’s purges and the tightening rule of Nazi Germany. British intelligence is convinced that a Soviet agent, codenamed Archie, has infiltrated their ranks, but they do not know who he is or how much damage he has already done. Cooper finds himself pushed into the role of double agent, trying to survive between competing services while the line between his invented cover stories and his real loyalties starts to blur.

The Second Traitor picks up in 1940 as the threat of a German invasion of Britain feels very real. The navy is gathering landing craft in Dutch ports, and at home a loose network of British and Irish Nazi sympathisers, known simply as the Group, is working to ease the way for any attack. Cooper is drawn into the Invasion Warning Sub-Committee, tasked with unpicking this home-grown conspiracy even as his superiors continue the internal hunt for Archie.

The investigation inside British intelligence only grows more complicated when evidence surfaces that there is a second Soviet mole, nicknamed Bertie, operating alongside Archie. Suspicion spreads through the service, and methods that once felt extreme are suddenly justified in the name of survival. The books follow Cooper from London to the south coast, Berlin, neutral Ireland and Dutch and German ports, always with the sense that someone is half a step ahead of him.

Where the Richard Prince novels focus on field operations and classic spy adventure, the Double Agent books dig into paranoia, divided loyalties and the psychological strain of not knowing which of your colleagues may be reporting everything you say. They suit readers who enjoy intricate plots about treachery as much as they do scenes of agents on the ground.