Backchannel chatter: Spymasters surface nearby

Of course, they slipped into town quietly. And only slowly will people wake up to what happened.

James Grady (“Six Days of the Condor”), Charles McCarry (“Tears of Autumn”), John Weisman ("Jack in the Box") and The Washington Post’s own Stephen Hunter (“Point of Impact,” etc, etc.), are well-known locals. But in "Agents of Treachery,” a new collection of never-before-published short stories, they show again what world-rank masters of the espionage genre they are.

The Vintage paperback original also includes new stories by Lee Child, Joseph Finder and David Morrell, no strangers here either.

But McCarry's “The End of the String,” about a CIA officer's unintended role in a backwater African coup, is worth a stack of dog-eared Graham Greenes and John le Carrés alone.

You can catch them under cover nearby.