One of these days when Hollywood needs a break from the superhero genre, they’re going to make comic book movies out of Greg Rucka’s fantastic Queen & Country books. Based on a small British MI6 team of agents, Queen & Country might be the most realistic spy series done in the last 20 years: The agents spend most of their time sitting around, waiting for something to happen. When missions do crop up, they spend most of their time observing. Often, whatever the situation is, it turns out to be a false alarm. And the biggest obstacles are almost always internal: fights between Her Majesty’s different ministers and bureaucrats. Yet somehow Rucka makes it all grippingly awesome. Don’t blame me when you wind up addicted.

—Jonathan Last