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The [[Nick Carter-Killmaster]] series of spy novels, initiated by [[Michael Avallone]] and Valerie Moolman, but authored anonymously, ran to over 260 separate books between 1964 and the early 1990s and invariably pitted American, Soviet and Chinese spies against each other. With the proliferation of male protagonists in the spy fiction genre, writers and book packagers also started bringing out spy fiction with a female as the protagonist. One notable spy series is ''[[The Baroness (novels)|The Baroness]]'', featuring a sexy female superspy, with the novels being more action-oriented, in the mould of Nick Carter-Killmaster.
Other important American authors who became active in spy fiction during this period include [[Ross Thomas (author)|Ross Thomas]], ''The Cold War Swap'' (1966). ''[[The Scarlatti Inheritance]]'' (1971) by [[Robert Ludlum]] is usually considered the first American modern (glamour and dirt) spy thriller weighing action and reflection. [[Richard Helms]], the director-general of the CIA from 1966 to 1973 loathed le Carré's morally grey spy novels, which he felt damaged the image of the CIA, and encouraged Hunt to write spy novels as a rebuttal.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337-338}} Helms had hopes that Hunt might write an "American James Bond" novel, which would be adopted by Hollywood and do for the image of the CIA what Fleming's Bond novels did for the image of MI6.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=338}} In the 1970s, former CIA man [[Charles McCarry]] began the Paul Christopher series with ''[[The Miernik Dossier]]'' (1973) and ''[[The Tears of Autumn]]'' (1978), which were well written, with believable tradecraft. McCarry was a former CIA agent who worked as an editor for ''National Geographic'' and his hero Christopher likewise is an American spy who works for a thinly disguised version of the CIA while posing as a journalist.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}} Writing under the pen name [[Trevanian]], Roger Whitaker published a series of brutal spy novels starting with ''[[The Eiger Sanction (novel)|The Eiger Sanction]]'' (1972) featuring an amoral art collector/CIA assassin who ostensibly kills for the United States, but in fact kills for money.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}} Whitaker followed up ''The Eiger Sanction'' with ''The Loo Sanction'' (1973) and [[Shibumi (novel)|''Shibumi'']] (1979).{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}} Starting in 1976 with his novel ''Saving the Queen'', the conservative American journalist and former CIA agent [[William F. Buckley]] published the first of his Blackford Oakes novels featuring a CIA agent whose politics were the same as the author's.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}} Blackford Oakes was portrayed as a "sort of an American James Bond" who ruthlessly dispatches villainous KGB agents with much aplomb.{{sfn|Polmar|Allen|1998|p=337}}
The first American techno-thriller was ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' (1984) by [[Tom Clancy]]. It introduced CIA deskman (analyst) [[Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy)|Jack Ryan]] as a field agent; he reprised the role in the sequel ''[[The Cardinal of the Kremlin]]'' (1987).
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