Wikipedia lists 127 notable writers of spy fiction, dead and living, and only seven of them are women. Helen MacInnes, the Scottish-born American author of 21 spy novels that have sold more than 25m copies in the US alone, will make it on to some lists, if she’s lucky. So will US writer Gayle Lynds; both receive the soubriquet of the “queen of spy fiction”. “They made my name gender neutral because somebody had said ‘nobody in Tesco will buy a spy book by a woman’,” says Scott. “Despite its richness, I have often felt alienated by spy fiction because it has often seemed so rigidly masculine, and nowhere more so than in the escapades of the evergreen Bond.

Source: The Guardian January 07, 2020 09:00 UTC