By Jennet Conant (Simon & Schuster, 390 pages, $27.95)

Spies are not all romantic figures out of airport thrillers or James Bond movies. Julia Child was once employed by the Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's forerunner. The eccentric ex-baseball player Moe Berg was another OSS veteran. But sometimes spies do live up to the stereotype, as Jennet Conant demonstrates in "The Irregulars."

Ms....