While some of these recruited spies are coerced, there are also many who have volunteered their services. Among these eager spies, research indicates a disproportionate number of people with psychopathic, narcissistic and immature personalities, as well as many instances of alcohol abuse and personal crises.

While there may be some similarity between the spies of fiction and the real-life intelligence officers who mingle with diplomats, the recruited spies tend to be a very different breed. Far from the glamour of spy fiction, they tend to be troubled individuals. For them the ending is not likely to be a drive into the sunset as the credits roll, but rather a lonely prison cell.