Helen MacInnes was the author of twenty-one spy novels, which have sold more than twenty-three million copies in the United States alone. Her work has been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and four of her novels have been made into films. She has been called the "queen" or "the doyenne" of international suspense, "a grand old professional," "one of the most topical of all spy novelists": "her name ... synonymous with superior thrillers." Her novels are riveting, lively, informative, literate, and entertaining. She ranks among the most successful of modern women writers and made the best-seller lists with every novel. Her books, political analyses of contemporary world events, pit believable, ordinary men and women of decency and fortitude against the faceless agents of totalitarian regimes: the Nazis in the 1940s, the Communists and their terrorist compatriots thereafter. In so doing, MacInnes was strongly influenced by George Orwell, whose...