DwD Studios

For an inspiring read for the spy thriller gamemaster (or player, for that matter), I recommend Bridge of Spies, by Giles Whittell.

Anyone who watches spy movies is familiar with the trope of the two captured spies, passing by each other on a foggy bridge under a starless sky, as a prisoner exchange. This comes from real life, and the first time it happened was when the United States exchanged Willy Fisher (better known as Rudolph Abel in the US) to the Soviet Union, for Fred Pryor (a clueless student who fell in to the clutches of the Stasi for five months) and Francis Gary Powers, of U-2 fame, in 1961. (And it was literally the two spies walking past each other across Glienicke bridge in Berlin.)

Bridge of Spies is a very thoroughly researched look at the people and events leading up to that moment. It's a fascinating look in to the political landscape of the early Cold War, and how close Khrushchev and Eisenhower came to avoiding the worst of it, only to fail, because of the hawks on both sides. There is also a good deal of discussion of various aspects of the spy's tradecraft (of which Fisher was a master), and the infamous hollowed out nickel.

As a side note, there is a movie version of this scheduled to come out in October. I have no idea how good it will be, but is stars Tom Hanks as James Donovan, the lawyer on the US side who negotiated the trade, so I expect it to be A) fairly true to the source material, and B) compelling story telling.

Highly recommended if you're looking for inspiration for a political thriller game.