Blackford Oakes Series

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A series of Cold War spy novels by William F. Buckley centered around the CIA agent Blackford Oakes. While there is some moral ambiguity, the author had a conscious intention to assume the Soviets were the bad guys and the books reflect that.

Tropes used in Blackford Oakes Series include:

• Born in the Wrong Century: Count Wintergrin in the novel Stained Glass
• CIA
• Commie Land: the whole premise of the series.
• Dead Little Sister: Clemanta Tod who is dead as far as her brother Henri knows
• Did Not Do the Research: A letter-to-the-editor from a friend of Buckley's accused him of being sloppy about Central European culture in a couple of novels.)
• Black and Grey Morality (good guys are grey but more or less ok. Communists are Black though sometimes have likable enough traits to make them dark grey .)
• Historical Domain Character
• Intellectually-Supported Tyranny: Sir Alastir Fleetwood, a scientist that uses a supertelescope he invented to read American diplomatic messages in Hi Jinx, and then gives them to the Russians.
• Insufferable Genius(Fleetwood)
• La Résistance: The title character of the novel The Story of Henri Tod is leader of an underground group in East Berlin.
• The Spymaster: Rufus.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Count Wintergrin
• Worthy Opponent: Bolgin, the Russian Chief of Station in London in the novel High Jinx.