Matt Lynn selects his choice of great British thrillers

Up on the excellent The Browser website, in its Five Books selection - which invites authors to select the best reading in their field of interest - thriller and military action novelist and ghost-writer Matt Lynn selects his choice of the five best thrillers.

His choices would correspond to many a top five list from readers with a keen interest in British spy and political thrillers. He cites Eric Ambler, Frederick Forsyth and Hammond Innes in his top five books.

Also there is Len Deighton's Berlin Game, which Lynn says is the best Cold War thriller he's read. He also makes an interesting observation about the espionage thriller as the extension of the 'politics' of the office:

"All spy fiction is really an extended metaphor for the office. No character captures that better than Bernard Samson, a middle-ranking intelligence executive, who can’t trust anyone."

I haven't come across The Browser before but it's an excellent news aggregation website packed full of the best writing from around the world selected by its editorial team. Well worth a look.