Science Spies

Foreign Policy Best Book of 2023 Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2023 The “riveting” (The Economist), secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China. Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the...

On February 28, 2013, after pleading guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, John Kiriakou began serving a 30 month prison sentence. His crime: blowing the whistle on the CIA's use of torture on al Qaeda prisoners. Doing Time Like a Spy is Kiriakou's memoir of his 23 months in prison. Using 20 life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. It is at once a searing journal of daily prison life and an alternately funny and heartbreaking commentary on the federal prison system.

Long before the waterboarding controversy exploded in the media, one CIA agent had already gone public. In a groundbreaking 2007 interview with ABC News, John Kiriakou called waterboarding torture - but admitted that it probably worked. This book, at once a confessional, an adventure story, and a chronicle of Kiriakou's life in the CIA, stands as an important, eloquent piece of testimony from a committed American patriot.

Former Captain Brad Mendoza and former Commander Jessica Lin would be two of the most wanted people in the galaxy, except everyone thinks they're dead. Now, they're desperately trying to find a new way to make a living before they run out of fuel, food, and hope.

As an elite spy and the Queen's Third-in-Command, Aya has dedicated herself to a life of discipline and duty, using her gods-given abilities to keep dark magic from ever returning to the realm. Her oath ensures she will always act to protect those she fights alongside—including Will, the Queen's Enforcer and Aya's bitter rival. Forced by circumstance to work together, Aya and Will struggle to come to an uneasy truce. But when tragedy strikes, Aya instinctively reacts, unleashing a power that hasn't been seen in over 500 years.

Genetically engineered to be the perfect weapon, Cooper Fox must now use those abilities to stop a shadowy cabal from rewriting the future of humanity. Cooper was created by a clandestine government program, imbued with superhuman speed, strength, and reflexes. But when the program was sold off to the highest bidder, he has found himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Consortium, a cabal of billionaires determined control of the world through any means necessary.

Thirteen-year-old Prince Kyril and Mags and Amily's 14-year-old son, Tory, "share" the Gift of Farsight - although neither of them are Chosen. They are self-trained, though currently, their shared Gift only allows them to see what is happening with their immediate family members. After much debate, the Herald's Collegium has decided to test and train them anyway. That's when the surprises start. They do not share a single Gift; they have two complementary Gifts working together in a way that the Heralds have never seen before.

In Spies, Lies, and Algorithms, Amy Zegart separates fact from fiction as she offers an engaging and enlightening account of the past, present, and future of American espionage as it faces a revolution driven by digital technology. Drawing on decades of research and hundreds of interviews with intelligence officials, Zegart provides a history of US espionage, gives an overview of intelligence basics and life inside America's intelligence agencies, and explores the vexed issues of traitors, covert action, and congressional oversight.

In 2014, American private contractor Alan Gross was rotting in a Cuban prison, convicted of undermining the Havana regime. At that same time, Cuban intelligence agent Gerardo Hernández was serving two life sentences in a US federal penitentiary on charges related to espionage. Then, it all changed. I Spy: The U.S., Cuba, and the Secret Deal That Ended the Cold War describes how secret negotiations to free the two men helped bring an end to half a century of hostilities between the United States and Cuba.

"A revealing look into the intrigue and extraordinary courage of our intelligence gatherers of World War II. A rare combination of suspense thriller and true heroism by a great American writer." (Clive Cussler, New York Times best-selling author)

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. In the present, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia....

Nia finds herself entangled in a world of lies and betrayal, where the truth is as elusive as the Dream Stalker himself. Now trapped in a perilous court, she must navigate her own web of deceit while honing her magic. Every ally may be an enemy, and every word could be her last.

In this second installment of the Family Spies series, set in the best-selling world of Valdemar, the children of Heralds Mags and Amily must follow in their parents' footsteps to protect the realm. Mags, Herald Spy of Valdemar, and his wife, Amily, the King’s Own Herald, are happily married with three kids. Their daughter, Abidela, dreams of building on her parents' legacy by joining her father's network of spies, hoping to offset her seeming lack of a Gift. But then Abi senses the imminent collapse of a bridge only moments before it happens....

In this new series, set in the bestselling world of Valdemar, Heralds Mags and Amily must continue to protect the realm of Valdemar while raising their children and preparing them to follow in their footsteps.

Mags, Herald Spy of Valdemar, and his wife, Amily, the King’s Own Herald, are happily married with three kids. The oldest, Peregrine, has the Gift of Animal Mindspeech—he can talk to animals and persuade them to act as he wishes. Perry's dream is to follow in his father's footsteps as a Herald Spy, but he has yet to be Chosen by a Companion.

When the rule of law fails, dishonest politicians get even dirtier. Shane and Julianna can’t compete with the debased dictators of Jackson County unless they are willing to bend a few rules of their own. Shane Black escaped the city by the skin of his teeth. But his well-stocked mountain retreat is now the target of a local despot who gained his power through bribes, payoffs, and shady politics. Mayor Hayes had few scruples before the collapse. Now that he’s the only law around, he’s down-right ornery. Road trips are always a bad idea in the apocalypse.

In the secret world of spies and covert operations, no other intelligence service continues to be surrounded by myth and mystery as does the Mossad. Created in 1951 to ensure the future of an embattled Israel, Mossad is responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism, and assassination. To some, Mossad is the precise and at times lethal instrument of Israel's will, a fiercely dedicated group of men and women: an elite intelligence arm.

Caught behind the lines of Hitler's Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazis themselves. Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events.

Commander Tony Romella takes a small team on what is expected to be a routine one month trip to Casablanca, Morocco. Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting. An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies.

Rudi is a cook in a Krakow restaurant, but when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the country he's trapped in, a new career - part spy, part people-smuggler - begins. Following multiple economic crises and a devastating flu pandemic, Europe has fractured into countless tiny nations, duchies, polities, and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage, but when a training mission to The Line goes wrong, he is arrested and beaten, and Coureur Central must attempt a rescue.

With knowledge of magic becoming more widespread in London, magicians find themselves highly sought after. Consumers want to buy their wares and so seek out magicians among their acquaintance. India’s rare magic is in demand from Matt’s family, the Collector’s Club, and other magicians who want her to extend their magic. But it’s wise to be wary of the attention. When the wool magician who helped India create a flying carpet spell disappears, his wife is worried for his life. India and Matt are worried for the country.