“A well-crafted page-turner that addresses the most important issue of our time. It will keep you reading well into the night.”–Vince Flynn 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 … 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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I’m new to Alex Berenson, but the legions who aren’t already know that he’s a superb thriller writer, and his main character, John Wells, stays in your mind as vividly as Jack Reacher–though he’s completely original. His intimate knowledge of the Middle East and global war issues from his time at the New York Times is remarkable, and his handling of complex issues and story pacing leaves no doubt about why he received the Edgar for this first book. I’ve read 5 of his books now and am not stopping anytime soon!
WHY IS “THE FAITHFUL SPY” MORE THAN A SIMPLE THRILLER? – In the first novel in Alex Berenson’s John Wells series, one of the characters quotes Orwell. “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
John Wells, a CIA embed in Afghanistan, is that “rough man.” And he is no stranger to doing violence. But what separates “The Faithful Spy” from other espionage thrillers is how Berenson handles the underlying theme of “them versus us.” He does not create one-dimensional stereotypes of the Al Qaeda Muslim. He instead explores through character development the idea stated by John Wells CIA minder and true love, Jen Exley. Jen said simply, “I wish we knew them better.”
Through Berenson’s novels we get to do precisely that: get to know the terrorists’ humanity, as well as their obsessive drive to kill Americans.
Berenson’s handling of the “us versus them,” or conversely, the “them versus us,” theme, is masterful, and it makes the most interesting antagonists in any espionage thrillers I’ve read.
THE MISSION – What do you do with a spy who can’t come in from the cold for ten years? Er, not the cold of old Soviet Russia, as in LeCarre’s novels, but the cold of Afghanistan’s frigid mountains?
You give him the most impossible mission imaginable, of course. That is, stopping the exploding of a dirty bomb in Times Square, New York.
Deep under cover with Al Qaeda, John gets the call from UBL himself, from a lynch pin named Omar Khalid.
But John isn’t in like Flynn just like . . . that. No, he must be tested over and over before they share all of the mission to destroy Times Square with Wells. And it’s gruesome.
THE CIA MINDERS – There is the usual array of bureaucrats, and then there is the love of John’s life, Jen Exley, a CIA analyst. I love Berenson’s characters, especially Omar Khalid, but I find that Jen is somehow . . . kind of flat. I never truly connect with her, except through Wells perception of her. Yet Berenson carries off Exley’s role in bringing Wells home to the U.S. from the Middle East , and helping him as he goes about doing Khalid’s bidding–in order to achieve his mission.
THE CLIMAX – Would I spoil it for you? Seriously? No. But believe me, the payoff is huge. I enjoyed the balanced way Berenson developed his plot in “The Faithful Spy,” and I patiently absorbed his delightful description, stopping many times to analyze his superb use of literary tropes, especially irony (he is the master), and description that feeds my curiosity about spy life. Again, the payoff is huge.
I am a Berenson uber fan, but I can spot a plot hole faster than you can say “cat’s eye.” There are none. This novel is superbly written. Mary McFarland The Faithful Spy
What drew me to this book was the exciting premise of a CIA officer in Afghanistan under deep cover within al Qaeda being dispatched to the US to perform a terrorist act. Berenson gives us a largely believable hero in John Wells. A little less convincing was Wells’ lapsed romantic entanglement with his colleague. (I know the hero always has to have a significant other and having been undercover in hostile territory for many years puts a damper on dating opportunities.) As for the terrorists and their evil designs, Berenson anticipated the same bio-terrorist approach so often used in later works, so that aspect of the book reads as familiar territory through no fault of the author. The tension builds steadily and the climax is satisfactory, if not wholly credible.
I enjoyed the book (as did my wife and teenage son) and will read more by this author.
This is the single best spy/action thriller I’ve ever read. And I’ve read a lot – pretty much all of S Hunter, B Taylor, V Flynn, T Clancy, B Thor, D Fury, M Cameron, R Ludlum, J Gilstrap, M Connolly, R Crais, R Ferrigno, J Macdonald, T Patterson, some Le Carre and G Greene and a bunch of others. I’ve read all of the Wells series, and it’s terrific, but this one is head and shoulders above the rest, and by rest I mean all of the above, not just A Berenson’s work.
Very well written and kept me turning the pages!!
This book was very entertaining
All of these John Wells novels are excellent. Characters are colorful, intense, introspective. The plots are current and topical, with good action. All Reacher and Mitch Rapp fans will love these books.
I’ve read a lot of books over the years and this one is at the top of my favorites list.The best spy novel ever wrote.