Charles Beaumont was a spy. Now he’s writing spy novels.

Charles Beaumont is not this author’s real name; it’s the nom de plume of a former MI6 operative who now writes novels. And “A Spy Alone” and “A Spy at War,” which are part of his Oxford Spy Ring series, are terrific, very contemporary tales that are best-sellers in the U.K. Here, he dead-dropped his responses to the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell readers about your new books, “A Spy Alone” and “A Spy at War.”

“A Spy Alone” is the first book in the Oxford Spy Ring trilogy. These are contemporary espionage thrillers that draw heavily on real events to tell stories about the world we live in. In “A Spy Alone,” Simon Sharman, a British former intelligence officer eking out a living in the private sector, is commissioned to investigate a Russian oligarch who wants to make a major donation to