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  • Published: 4 April 2023
  • ISBN: 9780552175548
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $26.00

Yesterday's Spy

The fast-paced new suspense thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Secret Service




Against the backdrop of one of the defining events of the Cold War, the coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh, Tom Bradby's new standalone showcases the fast paced plotting and global settings that his readers have come to love.

Nothing good ever comes from a midnight phone call. For washed-up spy Harry Tower, it is the worst news at the worst possible time. His son, Sean, has gone missing in troubled Iran after writing an exposé about government corruption.

Their relationship has never recovered since Harry's wife's suicide, for which Sean holds his father responsible. And Harry, with his career on the verge of disintegration, needs to find him and put things right.

When Harry arrives in Tehran, he finds a city on the cusp of revolution. Foreign powers are jockeying for influence, money and, most importantly, oil. The CIA are conspiring to undermine the government with an impending coup, and there are dark mutterings about opium smuggling. But the reasons for Sean's disappearance may be even more sinister than Harry first suspected.

Before long, he is on the run - not only from a faceless enemy, but from his own past. Which will catch up with him first?

Yesterday's Spy is Tom Bradby at his very best, delivering a cunning espionage novel rich in intrigue and history that will keep you guessing until the final pages.

  • Published: 4 April 2023
  • ISBN: 9780552175548
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Tom Bradby

Tom Bradby is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist. As a broadcaster, he is best known as the current Anchor of ITV’s News at Ten. In his first year in the job, he was named Network Presenter of the Year by the Royal Television Society.


He has been with ITN for thirty years and was successively Ireland Correspondent, Political Correspondent, Asia Correspondent (during which time he was shot and seriously injured whilst covering a riot in Jakarta), Royal Correspondent, UK Editor and Political Editor – a job he held for a decade – before being made the Anchor of News at Ten in 2015.

He has written seven previous novels, the most recent of which, Secret Service, was a top ten bestseller. The Master of Rain was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Steel Dagger for Thriller of the Year, and both The White Russian and The God of Chaos for the CWA Historical Crime Novel of the Year. He adapted his first novel, Shadow Dancer, into a film, the script for which was nominated for Screenplay of the Year in the Evening Standard Film Awards.

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Praise for Yesterday's Spy

Bradby makes the complicated history and politics of the region admirably clear

Literary Review

A cracking thriller! Totally recommended

Simon Mayo

A superb thriller...exhilarating

Shots Magazine, Book of the Month

Riveting...with style and energy, evocative scene-setting and strong characterisation

Financial Times

Atmospheric, informative and flawlessly plotted

The Sunday Times

'A fascinating and powerful thriller of the highest order'

Irish Independent