Half-starved English friend wrote about US spies and died (9)
I believe the answer is:
emaciated
'half-starved' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'english friend wrote about us spies and died' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'english' could be 'e' (abbreviation) and 'e' is located in the answer.
'about' could be 'c' (abbreviation for circa) and 'c' is present in the answer.
'died' could be 'd' (abbreviation next to the year of someone's death) and 'd' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for emaciated that I've seen before include "Extremely thin" , "Thin from illness or hunger" , "Very thin from starvation or illness" , "Gaunt from disease or hunger" , "Cadaverous" .)