Secret agent

A secret agent is a person involved in espionage. The term is synonymous with spy and covert operative.

Real-Life Secret Agents

Real-life secret agents:

• make list here

Fictional Secret Agents

Since not much is publicly known about real-life secret agents, the popular conception of the secret agent has been formed largely by 20th and 21st literature and cinema. Similar to the character of the private eye, the secret agent is usually a loner, sometimes amoral, an existential hero operating outside the everyday constraints of society.

Mention Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

Fictional secret agents:

• Mr. Verloc in The Secret Agent
• James Bond
• Jerry Cornelius
• Harry Palmer
• John Drake in Danger Man
• Number 6 in The Prisoner
• John Steed and Emma Peel in The Avengers
• La Femme Nikita

Parodies of secrent agents:

• Austin Powers
• In Like Flint
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E
• Get Smart
• Johnny English

This is a stub article -- more to come

See also:

• espionage
• intelligence service