The company : a novel of the CIA

SUMMARY: This critically acclaimed blockbuster from internationally renowned novelist Robert Littell seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic saga of the CIA-known as "the Company" to insiders. Racing across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of the '50s, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, Afghanistan, and the Gorbachev putsch, The Company tells the thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy-and each other-in an internecine battle within the Company itself. A brilliant, stunningly conceived epic thriller, The Company confirms Littell's place among the genre's elite. For readers enthralled by the phrase walking back the cat (also the title of one of Littell's previous thrillers), this hefty tome will be nirvana. Littell, whose spy thrillers have ensnared readers since 1973's The Defection of A.J. Lewinter, here turns his literary eye and rapier-sharp mind on the Central Intelligence Agency. Starting during the Berlin years in the deep freeze of the Cold War, Littell follows two generations of agents and administrators right up through the 1995 mole episode. He devotes one gut-wrenching segment to the CIA's efforts in Afghanistan in 1983, which will have heightened significance for today's readers. Using historic figures amplified by artfully drawn figments of his abundant imagination, Littell also dramatizes the internal feuds and cutbacks that left the CIA, already vulnerable on the moral knife edge of espionage, barely able to meet the challenges of a changing world. Gathering its power slowly, the novel accelerates as events become more and more familiar and current. This is a work of fiction, yet its scholarship and analysis are outstanding. Littell avoids the didactic in favor of wit, irony, and ambiguity. A sure winner for libraries of all types

this Critically Acclaimed Blockbuster Seamlessly Weaves Together History And Fiction To Create A Multigenerational, Wickedly Nostalgic Saga Of The Cold War And Cia, And Is The Basis For The Recent Tnt Original Miniseries, Starring Michael Keaton, Chris Odonnell, And Alfred Molina. Abridged 1 Cd.

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if Le Carre Is The Joyce Of Spy Novelists Littell Is The Dickens. Le Carre's Focus Has Always Been Internal--spying As A Metaphorical Search For Identity. Littell, On The Other Hand, Wants To Represent The Entire Espionage, A Landscape On His Canvas The Social And Political Aspects, As Well As The Psychological. He's Done That Superbly, From The Defection Of A.j. Lewinter Through walking Back The Cat (1997), But Never In As Much Detail As In This Nearly 1,000-page Spy Novel As Epic. Seamlessly Mixing Real Events And Real People With The Story Of Four Fictional Spies, Littell Presents The History Of The Cia, From Post-war Berlin To The Present. As Littell Tells It, The Story Of The Cold War Is An Alice In Wonderland-like Saga Of Multiple U.s. Fiascoes Leading Inexplicably To A Most Peculiar Victory.

From the back cover: Welcome to the Company - better known as the CIA to outsiders. With a sharp eye for the pathos and absurdity of the spy game, internationally renowned novelist Robert Littell seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic saga that races across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of the 1950s, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, Afghanistan, and the Gorbachev putsch. *The Company* tells the thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy -- and each other -- in an internecine battle within the Company itself. A brilliant, stunningly conceived epic thriller, *The Company* confirms Littell's place among the genre's elite. This brings nearly fifty years of postwar espionage, offering perspectives on alarums and excursions as varied as the Rosenberg trial, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the alleged "assassination' of Pope John Paul 1 in 1978 and the great winding down of perestroika,How the CIA waged, and helped win, the Cold War. It ends with brave, noble heroes saving the day