The Company: A Novel of the CIA [Hardcover]

'The American le Carre' New York Times; 'If Robert Littell didn't invent the American Spy novel, he should have' Tom Clancy

There are few good books about the CIA. . . Mr Littell has aimed magnificently high

The Company is a big, compulsive, sometimes exhausting, read--but it is also a genuine page-turner . . .unputdownable

Robert Littell does for the CIA what Mario Puzo did for the Mafia; Robert Littell's The Company is an engrossing, multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic yet utterly entertaining and candid saga bringing to life, through a host of characters --historical and imagined - the nearly 50 years of this secretive and powerful organization. In a style intelligent and ironic, Littell tells it like it was: CIA agents fighting not only 'the good fight' against foreign enemies, but sometimes the bad one as well, with the ends justifying such means as CIA-organized assassinations, covert wars, kidnappings, and toppling of legitimate governments. Behind every manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, though, one question spans the length of the book...Who is the mole within the CIA? The Company - an astonishing novel that captures the life and death struggle of an entire generation of CIA operatives during a long Cold War.

An engrossing, multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic yet utterly entertaining and candid saga, bringing to life through a host of characters – historical and imagined – nearly fifty years of this secretive and powerful organization. Intelligent and ironic, Littell tells it like it was: CIA agents fighting not only the ‘good fight’ against foreign enemies, but sometimes the bad fight too. The ends justify such means as CIA-organized assassinations, covert wars, kidnappings, and the toppling of legitimate governments. Behind every manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, however, one question remains, which spans the length of the book . . . Who is the mole within the CIA? An astonishing novel that captures the life-and-death struggle of an entire generation of CIA operatives during a long Cold War. ‘The best American spy writer currently at work’ Daily Telegraph --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Robert Littell, a former Newsweek journalist, is the author of the legendary spy thriller The Defection of Aj Lewinter. This is his 14th novel.