I love a breezy airport novel, you know, action hero/heroine saves the world/country or what have you. But I was looking for a MC who isn’t Jack Reacher, someone who never served in the military or works for the CIA. Right now the closest thing I’ve found is Caught Stealing
Edit: doesn’t have to be spy. Could be political or psychological-ish
by CranhamorBlakely
17 Comments
*Recursion* by Blake Crouch
Not spy, but average Joe dragged into an assassination/murder mystery.
Corpsing by Toby Litt.
I just finished Our Man in Havana by (former Mi6 spy) Graham Greene.
It is exactly this. An owner of a struggling vacuum cleaner shop gets recruited by the British secret service and agrees in order to buy his daughter horse riding lessons.
The only other Graham Greene I’d read was The Quiet American, so this was very different to what I was expecting but I enjoyed it very much. Not too long either so well worth taking a punt on it.
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
**The 39 Steps** by John Buchan. Stranger dies in MC’s house and then gets hunted by unknown spies.
Illuminatus Trilogy.
Written in the 50s and takes place in the lead-up to WWI. But it has aged well and reads like a modern-ish spy thriller. It’s really good.
John Scalzi’s sci-fi **The Kaiju Preservation Society** is ‘a common man put into uncommon circumstances’.
A lot of David Morrell’s (author of Rambo) books have this premise.
Pretty much anything by Eric Ambler. He’s well known for this exact trope.
Joh Le Carre, The Russia House. It is a spy novel but not breezy action.
John LeCarré has several books like this. I suggest Our Kind of Traitor or A Most Wanted Man.
Ethan of Arthos by Lois Bujold. A OB from an all male planet gets dragged into a spy game while trying to get more ovarian tissue so his planet can keep having sons.
Shanghai by Joseph Kanon
Reamde sounds about right. Great book!
This is the premise of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels
Robert Ludlum books follow this exact formula most of the time. He wrote in the 70’s and 80’s.