Reading has been one of my great enjoyments in life and books have been, and are, constant companions.

My literary plate has been filled with historical novels, legal thrillers, dog stories, books that I was sorry I started reading, and everything in between. But my favorite genre, never changing, is espionage novels from the likes of Jack Higgins, Ken Follett, Alan Furst, John le Carre, and a half-dozen or so others.

So when the spies-next-door drama (rest easy folks, it's not your neighbors in Anna, Melissa or Van Alstyne), of uncovered "sleeper" Russian agents up the East Coast hit the media, following daily developments was like reading one of my favorite novels.

The Russians were accused of spooky (no pun intended) tradecraft, stashing money under broken bottles in remote fields, transmitting coded messages, and even, one of the oldest spycraft tricks, writing messages in invisible ink, exchanging identical bags in "brush by" passes in subway trains, and much more.

The murky mission of the 10 Russian agents, some who have spent more than 10 years here, was to cozy up to and schmooze American academics and policy makers, not pluck secrets. That's why, in the words of U.S. officials, they garnered little more than "what is available through Google."

On the other hand, our side got much more. American agents spied on the spies using physical surveillance, wiretaps and bugs, turning up names and locations of operatives, details on how they encoded messages, and clues to the goals of Russian espionage here in the States.

John le Carre, master of the Cold War espionage novels, author of such classic works as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", wrote in London's The Guardian newspaper that he can't comprehend what the 10 Russian spies thought they were doing.

"Who did they think they were protecting in their distorted, programmed minds, as they tried to slither up the slippery pole of Western society?"

"There was a time," said le Carre, "when spies had motives, and took their place in a great struggle between capitalism and communism. What was there to choose now, between Mother Russia and Mother America, two huge continents drowning in capitalism?"

The ending to all this was pragmatic, boiling down, after negotiations, to "we'll return your 10 and we want our four."

The exchange was last Friday in choreographed script of spy novel intrigue. Two planes, one from New York, the other from Moscow, arrived within minutes on a remote stretch of Vienna airport tarmac. Parked nose to tail, 10 Russian agents arrested in the U.S. and four prisoners convicted by Russia of spying for the West were ferried to opposite planes, and the planes departed.

Real-life drama, better than any spy novel.

Ken Gaidziunas is a staff writer for The Anna-Melissa Tribune and the Van Alstyne Leader. He can be reached at kgaidziunas@yahoo.com.