Ten top comic war novels

Jesse Armstrong is the co-creator and writer of the BAFTA Award-winning Peep Show, as well as co-writer of The Thick of It and the Oscar-nominated In the Loop. Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals is his first novel.

At the Guardian, Armstrong tagged his top ten comic war novels, including:

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

After publication in the early 60s Greene’s novel was seen as having predicted elements of the Cuban missile crisis. But reading it today, the central role of unreliable agents and the preparation of intelligence reports where vacuum cleaner parts are presented as military equipment will amuse anyone who remembers the Iraq war and the intelligence assessments made public before invasion.

Read about another entry on the list.

Our Man in Havana also made Allegra Frazier's top five list of books to remind you of warmer climes, Pico Iyer's list of four essential novels by Graham Greene and Alan Furst's five best list of spy books; it is one of Stella Rimington's six favorite secret agent novels.

--Marshal Zeringue