Joseph Hone is a writer of the Spy Novel. His most famous novels featured a British spy called Peter Marlow. The first of the series was The Private Sector (1971), set in the Six Day War. Marlow's story continues in The Sixth Directorate (1975), The Flowers of the Forest (a.k.a. The Oxford Gambit) (1980), and The Valley of the Fox (1982). Today, Hone's novels are out of print. During his heyday, in the 1970s, however, he was favourably compared with writers such as Len Deighton

Len Deighton

Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....

, Eric Ambler

Eric Ambler

Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an influential British author of spy novels who introduced a new realism to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.-Life:...

 and John le Carré

John le Carré

David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...

. Whilst some spy novels, such as those of le Carré are often set mainly inside the offices of the spy department, and attract praise for the depth of their characterization and plotting, others (such as the James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

series) are set in the field, and provide explosive action. The stories of Joseph Hone, by contrast, have a foot in both these camps, and he has become renowned amongst aficionados of the spy genre for both the quality of his writing, and the excitement of his plots. He is currently a teacher at Wroxton College.

Novels

• The Private Sector [1971]

• The Sixth Directorate [1975]

• The Paris Trap [1977]

• The Flowers of the Forest [1980] published in the U.S. as The Oxford Gambit

• The Valley of the Fox [1982]

• Summer Hill [1990]

• Return to Summer Hill [1990]

• Firesong [1997]

Non-Fiction

• The Dancing Waiters [1975]

• Gone Tomorrow [1981]

• Children of the Country: Coast to Coast Across Africa [1986]

• Duck Soup in the Black Sea [1988]

External links