“MI6 Spy Skills For Civilians: A Former British Agent Reveals How to Live Like A Spy - Smarter, Sneakier, and Ready for Anything.” by Red Riley is an interesting book that explores some espionage tradecraft. I’m not going to lie, I picked this book up at SpyScape NYC, which is a super fun augmented-reality arcade and spy museum in Manhattan (New York City). I read the book casually over a few days, mostly browsing through the various tips and tricks rather than reading it straight through. I paid roughly $17 for the book in person, and honestly, I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone. Overall, I’d give this book 3 out of 10 stars. While it does seem grounded in some real techniques, the emphasis and tone surrounding those techniques feel extremely off. There are far better books available for this type of learning. If the book took itself more seriously, it could make for a solid coffee table book or a conversation starter. As it stands, I think I’d just end up cherry-picking a few useful points rather than revisiting it as a whole. I picked this book up hoping it would be like “ OSINT Techniques “, “ Spycraft “ or “ The Craft of Intelligence “ but rather I think this book sells itself less as a serious spy skill book and more as a flashy Hollywood spy book. I think this book tries to sell itself like Clint Emerson’s “ 100 Deadly Skills “, but “MI6 Spy Skills” comes off as overly flashy whereas “100 Deadly Skills” comes off as practical in the field. The book constantly references James Bond films, both visually and in how it describes the “danger” agents supposedly face. It’s honestly a bit ludicrous to suggest that the average intelligence officer is regularly getting into life-or-death fistfights while traveling on a train in a foreign country. In reality, that would represent a worst-case scenario. The last thing any real agent wants is a physical confrontation or the attention of law enforcement or any other authority figures. In my typical style the following are the sections and chapters of the book: Chapter 1: Personal Image Chapter 2: Avoiding Surveillance Chapter 3: Mobile Surveillance Chapter 4: Travel Chapter 5: Dead Letter Boxes Chapter 6: Brush Contacts Chapter 7: Self-Defense Chapter 8: Innocuous Weapons Chapter 9: Natural Weapons Chapter 10: Weapons Defense Chapter 11: Escape & Evasion Chapter 12: Subterfuge Chapter 13: Intelligence Gathering Chapter 14: Personal First Aid Chapter 15: Basic Agent Extraction Chapter 16: Advanced Insertion & Extraction Chapter 17: Other Helpful Tips & Techniques Some of the best, and most practically useful, content for red teamers appears in the chapter on Brush Contacts , in my opinion. These sections contain genuinely useful ideas and were one of the main reasons I picked the book up after thumbing through it. Tips such as waiting near elevator banks, escalators, or bus stops can be genuinely effective locations for brush contacts or even cloning physical access badges. This chapter, along with others like the one on dead drops, really emphasizes that parts of the book are grounded in real-world experience. Unfortunately, that grounding is undermined by the nearly 50+ pages devoted to improvised weapons and hand-to-hand combat, which make the book feel unrealistic and far more like Hollywood spy fiction. Don’t get me wrong, this approach probably sells well to the uninitiated. But real intelligence work is often incredibly boring. It usually involves observation, pattern tracking, and note-taking week after week, with very little actually happening. Most agents never want to engage in physical altercations, and many would consider a mission compromised if one occurred at all. That said, there are some good or common-sense tips scattered throughout the book. The guidance on remaining inconspicuous is fairly solid: things like wearing non-distinct clothing, never running, avoiding looking over your shoulder, and minimizing unnecessary interactions. The advice to change your outfit and approach routes when revisiting a location for reconnaissance is also sound. Still, the majority of the book feels like it’s pretending to be an action-movie secret agent manual rather than providing skills actual agents would find useful. I was also surprised by the near total absence of computer skills or technical tradecraft, especially given how central cyber operations are to modern intelligence work. No video for this one, just a friendly reminder that overly flashy and embellished techniques are rarely as real or practical as the boring, non-sexy ones. You should always be wary of anyone claiming to do intelligence work while presenting it like they’re some kind of 007.