Purchase

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Indie BookShop

Ripped Bodice

Add to Wish List

Also by John Kiriakou:

The Reluctant Spy, March 2010
Hardcover

THE RELUCTANT SPY
By: John Kiriakou

My Secret Life In The Cia's War On Terror

Bantam
March 2010
On Sale: March 16, 2010
Featuring: John Kiriakou
224 pages
ISBN: 0553807374
EAN: 9780553807370
Hardcover
Add to Wish List

Non-Fiction Memoir

Long before the waterboarding controversy exploded in the media, one CIA agent had already gone public. In a groundbreaking 2007 interview with ABC News, John Kiriakou called waterboarding torture—but admitted that it probably worked. This book, at once a confessional, an adventure story, and a chronicle of Kiriakou’s life in the CIA, stands as an important, eloquent piece of testimony from a committed American patriot.

In February 2002 Kiriakou was the head of counterterrorism in Pakistan. Under his command, in a spectacular raid coordinated with Pakistani agents and the CIA’s best intelligence analyst, Kiriakou’s field officers took down the infamous terrorist Abu Zubaydah. For days, Kiriakou became the wounded terrorist’s personal “bodyguard.” In circumstances stranger than fiction, as al-Qaeda agents scoured the streets for their captured leader, the best trauma surgeon in America was flown to Pakistan to make sure that Zubaydah did not die. In The Reluctant Spy, Kiriakou takes us into the fight against an enemy fueled by fanaticism. He chillingly describes what it was like inside the CIA headquarters on the morning of 9/11, the agency leaders who stepped up and those who protected their careers. And in what may be the book’s most shocking revelation, he describes how the White House made plans to invade Iraq a full year before the CIA knew about it—or could attempt to stop it. 

Chronicling both mind-boggling mistakes and heroic acts of individual courage, The Reluctant Spy is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the inner workings of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the truth behind the torture debate, and the incredible dedication of ordinary men and women doing one of the most extraordinary jobs on earth. 

Media Buzz

CBS This Morning - January 24, 2012
Colbert Report - February 4, 2010