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A New York Times reporter has drawn upon his experience covering the occupation in Iraq to write the most gripping and chillingly plausible thriller of the post-9/11 era. Alex Berenson’s debut novel of suspense, The Faithful Spy, is a sharp, explosive story that takes readers inside the war on terror as fiction has never done before.
John Wells is the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. Since before the attacks in 2001, Wells has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, biding his time, building his cover.
Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri–the malicious mastermind plotting more al Qaeda strikes on America–Wells is coming home. Neither Khadri nor Jennifer Exley, Wells’s superior at Langley, knows quite what to expect.
For Wells has changed during his years in the mountains. He has become a Muslim. He finds the United States decadent and shallow. Yet he hates al Qaeda and the way it uses Islam to justify its murderous assaults on innocents. He is a man alone, and the CIA–still reeling from its failure to predict 9/11 or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq–does not know whether to trust him. Among his handlers at Langley, only Exley believes in him, and even she sometimes wonders. And so the agency freezes Wells out, preferring to rely on high-tech means for gathering intelligence.
But as that strategy fails and Khadri moves closer to unleashing the most devastating terrorist attack in history, Wells and Exley must somehow find a way to stop him, with or without the government’s consent.
From secret American military bases where suspects are held and “interrogated” to basement laboratories where al Qaeda’s scientists grow the deadliest of biological weapons, The Faithful Spy is a riveting and cautionary tale, as affecting in its personal stories as it is sophisticated in its political details. The first spy thriller to grapple squarely with the complexities and terrors of today’s world, this is a uniquely exciting and unnerving novel by an author who truly knows his territory.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
May 2, 2006 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780739305065
- File size: 349043 KB
- Duration: 12:07:10
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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John Wells, the only CIA agent to ever infiltrate Al Qaeda, returns to the United States after a decade undercover and must thwart a devastating terrorist attack. As a character he is entirely believable, as are the story's other main characters, particularly Jennifer Exley, his CIA handler. This production is so good because the story is plausible and because of the excellent performance of Robertson Dean, who sounds almost breathless. Dean's voice is authoritative, and he reads as though he's simply trying to keep pace with the action. Dean captures Wells's personality and changing emotions, including the feelings that overwhelm him when he finds that much more has changed in the U.S. than he ever imagined. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine -
February 13, 2006
After proving his loyalty in Afghanistan and elsewhere, CIA agent John Wells, the first Western intelligence officer to penetrate the upper levels of al-Qaeda, is assigned a mission on American soil by bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. On his return to the U.S., Wells, now a devout Muslim (for real), finds his years spent in deep cover have left him conflicted. The agency itself seems wary of him—other than Jennifer Exley, the agency analyst who debriefs Wells (aka Jalal) on his return. The scrutiny intensifies when two bombs go off in L.A., killing 300. Berenson, a New York Times
correspondent since 1999 who covered the occupation of Iraq, deftly employs the classic staples of spy fiction in his debut novel—self-serving bureaucrats, a beautiful co-worker love interest and an on-the-run hero suspected of being a traitor—then mixes in current terror tropes: car bombs, smuggled nuclear material, and bio-weapons. There's too much introspection from friend and foe alike, but mounting suspense, a believable scenario and a final twist add up to a compelling tale of frightening possibilities. It's not for the squeamish, though: the torture sequences and bombing descriptions are graphic and chillingly real. -
June 5, 2006
Debut novelist Berenson is given fine representation in this intriguing audio book. John Wells, an American CIA agent, has spent the last decade of his life successfully infiltrating the inner sanctums of al-Qaeda. Guilt-ridden over not having been able to stop the actions on September 11, he readily accepts the chance to return to the U.S. when he's recruited as one of the primary participants for an act of terrorism designed to bring the country to its knees. After being taken into custody by a suspicious CIA, Wells escapes and goes undercover on his own with the fervent hope that he can prevent whatever terrorism al-Qaeda is looking to unleash. Narrator Heffernan provides a rich, melodic voice for Berenson's novel. Helped by Tony Daniel's expert abridgment, Heffernan keeps the complicated story's expositional narrative moving with a clean journalistic detachment that enhances the growing suspense. Although he may stumble some when it comes to accents, Heffernan manages to make each character a distinct individual. Genre fans should relish this thinking man's thriller. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 13).
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