Product Description

“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 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96855 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Released on: 2006-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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. (Apr. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Two years after U.S. secret agent John Wells infiltrates al-Qaeda, the events of 9/11 call into question his usefulness, if not his loyalty, but he keeps his cover and bides his time, burrowing closer to Osama while sincerely converting to the one true faith of Islam as the years slip by. When al-Zawahiri sends him home at last, it is to serve some undetermined role in a major, multiphase offensive cleverly designed to strike terror in the American heart by unleashing conventional, biological, and nuclear attacks from coast to coast. Berenson works against the inherent sensationalism of his story with a diversity of viewpoints and deft character sketches that avoid oversimplifying the complex beliefs and strategies of his combatants. The plotting is superlative, baffling readers and characters alike as the mastermind behind al-Qaeda's sleeper network wages covert war against a vigilant and resourceful enemy. As with Thomas Harris' Black Sunday (1975) or Joseph Finder's Zero Hour (1996), one could hardly ask for a more skillful, timely, and well-rounded translation of our worst fears into satisfying thrills; a sure bet for fans of Jack Higgins and Vince Flynn. David Wright
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"An intriguing thriller studded with alarming possibilities."
-NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"A thriller worthy of Le Carré"
Kirkus Reviews

Customer Reviews

I Wouldn't Say It's Well-Written
Phenomenal, addictive, heart-pounding, exciting, interest-grabbing, but not well-writ--okay, it's incredibly well-written too.
VERY well-written.

I won't go into the plot, because all that is written up above.

What I will say though, is that spy novels are not my usual reading. But this one I took a chance on. It was written the way books should be written. It grabs the reader by the throat on page one and steams along at a steady, confident, pace.

Vince Flynn didn't lie when he said this book will have you reading into the night. I've lost a lot of sleep reading this book that refused to let me put it down. Sleep I'll never get back.

And with this book, I didn't mind at all.

If you like the fast-past, constant plot-twisting of 24, then I strongly suggest you pick up this book.

Mr. Berenson's writing is incredible, and the insights of the main character John Wells of the country he left so long ago are all at once biting, and hard to argue with.

The terrorist network is well thought out, the way they operate is utterly believable, and their cunning is horrifying.

This book is the definition of money well-spent. As you're reading this, you'll feel like the third person in the room. You'll feel like you're living all of it. This book is amazing.

For an author's first book this is nothing short of impressive. Hell, for an author's fifth book it would be nothing short of impressive. It's fast, furious, and what any good book should be--a thrill ride.

TOTALLY ENGROSSING NARRATION
How's this for a scenario? A man, John Wells has given up all he loved - his wife, child, and his parents to become the only American CIA agent to infiltrate Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. He did this before 9/11 and has endured years of privation, living on a dreary, cold plateau in Pakistan. Constantly on guard, he has continually convinced other followers of bin Laden that he is, indeed, a traitor and has become a Muslim.

This sacrifice has been made in an effort to destroy the terrorist network. To date that has not been accomplished. Now, he learns there are plans for more attacks on the United States, assaults even more terrifying than the carnage at the World Trade Center. So, Wells must return home. However, when he appears at Langley, CIA officials have doubts. Can he really be trusted or has he become a turncoat in the intervening years?

One person believes in him and that is Jennifer Exley. It soon becomes clear that they alone must stop al Qaeda from carrying out 2 heinous plan.

Terrifying? Yes. Far too close to what might be the truth for comfort as Berenson, a reporter for The New York Times well knows.

John Heffernan, known as the official voice of the NHL and NFL network, gives a compact, deliberate, totally engrossing reading. His avoidance of any dramatics renders his narrative all the more powerful.

- Gail Cooke

4.5 stars, actually....
September 11, 2001 woke America up to facing perils we had previously consigned to other parts of the world and to fiction. Now, a novel like "The Faithful Spy" isn't merely a diversion, a beach thriller to quicken adrenaline for fun. Now, the situations that author Alex Berenson sets in motion and "detonates" one way or another don't float above us in dispassionate entertainment mode only. No, reading about the passengers on a transatlantic flight who suddenly sight military fighters pacing their airliner makes our stomachs clench with sympathetic anxiety and a "but for the grace of God, it might be my flight" thought. As least that was my reaction. And shadowing the title character to his cliffhanger meetings with al Queda members, high-level and low, filled me with cold dread because I don't imagine the real men who follow Bin Laden being much different. John Wells, "The Faithful Spy," and his one-time handler, Jennifer Exley, are people who must balance on a very narrow moral ledge (about matters such as when to "justify" torture and killing) in the name of national security and survival. Their dilemmas are ones that are not and should not be solely fictional. Berenson's reporting experience in Iraq and his understanding of the strategic struggle between the U.S. government and Islamic extremists lends this novel authenticity and valuable insight into our actual geopolitical situation.

"The Faithful Spy" isn't a perfect pulse-pounding novel; it contains certain intervals where the action lags or the plot doesn't coalesce as convincingly as a seasoned reader of this genre might prefer. However, the relatively minor flaws of pacing and storytelling don't diminish the clawing feeling that this book of "fiction" could portend tomorrow's real headlines. God (by any Name) forbid.

This is a remarkable first novel, and I will not miss whatever Berenson decides to write next.