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The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed
Hanover Square Press
January 2023
On Sale: January 3, 2023
Featuring: Robert Hanssen; Aldrich Ames; Ana Montes
352 pages ISBN: 1335449884 EAN: 9781335449887 Kindle: B09XBGYWSR Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
The incredible true story of Ana Montes, the most
damaging female spy in US history, drawing upon never-
before-seen material and to be published upon her release
from prison.
Just days after the 9/11 attacks, a
senior Pentagon analyst eased her red Toyota Echo into
traffic and headed to work. She never saw the undercover
cars tracking her every turn. As she settled into her
cubicle on the sixth floor of the Defense Intelligence
Agency in Washington, FBI agents and twitchy DIA officers
were hiding in nearby offices. For this was the day that Ana
Montes—the US Intelligence Community superstar who had
just won a prestigious fellowship at the CIA—was to be
arrested and publicly exposed as a secret agent for Cuba.
Like spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen before
her, Ana Montes blindsided her colleagues with brazen acts
of treason. For nearly seventeen years, Montes succeeded in
two high-stress jobs. By day, she was one of the
government’s top Cuba experts, a buttoned-down GS-14
with shockingly easy access to classified documents. By
night, she was on the clock for Fidel Castro, listening to
coded messages over shortwave radio, passing US secrets to
handlers in local restaurants, and slipping into Havana
wearing a wig.
Montes didn’t just deceive
her country. Her betrayal was intensely personal. Her
mercurial father was a former US Army colonel. Her brother
and sister-in-law were FBI special agents. And her only
sister, Lucy, also worked her entire career for the Bureau.
The highlight of Lucy’s distinguished thirty-one years
as a Miami-based language specialist: helping the FBI flush
Cuban spies out of the United States. But little did Lucy or
her family know that the greatest Cuban spy of all was
sitting right next to them at Thanksgivings, baptisms, and
weddings.
In Code Name Blue Wren,
investigative journalist Jim Popkin weaves the
tale of two sisters who chose two very different paths, plus
the unsung heroes who had to fight to bring Ana to justice.
With exclusive access to a “secret” CIA
behavioral profile of Ana, family memoirs, and Ana’s
incriminating letters from prison, Popkin reveals the making
of a traitor—a woman labeled “one of the most
damaging spies in US history” by America’s top
counterintelligence official.
After more than two
decades in federal prison, Montes will be freed in January
2023. Code Name Blue Wren is a thrilling detective
tale, an insider’s look at the clandestine world of
espionage, and an intimate exploration of the dark side of
betrayal.
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