"great espionage thriller"

The CIA knows the best way to insure that North Korea's nuclear weapons aspirations is slowed down considerably is to abduct leading scientist Dr. Sung Kwan from the rogue state. The snatch plan is perfect and the team succeeds in a grabbing Kwan; however, the CIA unit and the Korean scientist are killed during the escape. Someone from within the intelligence community sold out the mission. Agent Jennifer Exley is assigned to find out whom.

As she works the impossible task of uncovering the mole her lover CIA Agent John Wells returns to Afghanistan where he previously uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to destroy Times Square (see THE FAITHFUL SPY). This time his assignment is to determine who are the outsiders abetting the Taliban return to power as the political answer of blaming Iran makes no logical sense after being brutal enemies for years.

Uncovering a mole has been used many times, but Alex Berenson keeps it fresh due to the plausibility of the North Korean gambit; the Afghan subplot also feels possible. Thus readers obtain a great espionage thriller as Mr. Berenson uses international headlines to write an exciting action-packed novel focusing on two CIA operations.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted February 1, 2008

Summary

CIA agent John Wells returns, in a novel that reaches beyond today's headlines to foretell dangers yet to come, from the author of The Faithful Spy — "one of the best spy stories ever told" (The Wall Street Journal).

Alex Berenson's 2006 debut was one of the most acclaimed suspense novels of the year, "the best spy thriller in a long, long while" (The Kansas City Star). The Ghost War proves that he is no longer a brilliant newcomer but a master of the art.

In The Faithful Spy, John Wells became the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al-Qaeda, but his handlers became distrustful of him, and he of them. He had to stop a devastating terrorist attack nearly alone.

Now Wells is back in Washington. His wounds have healed, but his mind is far from clear. He is restless, uneasy in his skin, and careless with his safety. When the CIA finds evidence of a surge in Taliban activity, backed by an unknown foreign power, it takes little to convince Wells to return to Afghanistan to investigate. But what he discovers there is far from what he expected.

A deadly power play in China, a mission to North Korea gone terribly wrong, an Iran determined to go nuclear, a mole within the ranks of the CIA who is about to light a fuse, the consequences of which he cannot possibly understand-the world is hurtling toward confrontation. And, this time, there may be nothing John Wells can do to stop it. Real-world threats, authentic details, a scenario as dramatic as it is plausible—The Ghost War is another "timely reminder of the extremely precarious way we live now" (The Washington Post).