On Spy Fiction. The spy novel departs from its social-realist cousins, even the police procedural: crime gathers a large web of social interactions; espionage remains sealed off from the world at large. Cause and effect do not ramify outward, in horizontal networks; they move from big, those cold brains in a small room, to little, in a vertical cascade. The answer is inside, but it is also obvious, a purloined letter too large for any other genre’s frame. By Nicholas Dames.

The story of Tom Corbally, a private investigator whose career crisscrossed continents and spanned decades, is its own secret history of the 20th century. By Eamon Javers.

How the economic boom and deep gender inequality have created a new industry. By Jiayang Fan.