Book and Film Recommendations

Jon Bokenkamp and Richard D’Ovido 
2025
AppleTV

Follows Frank Remnick, a U.S. Marshal in charge of the quiet and weathered barrens of Alaska, as deals with a prison transport plane crash full of violent inmates inside his jurisdiction. He is partnered with CIA officer Sidney Scofield to address one particular escapee, an Agency asset codenamed “Havlock,” who turned against his handlers and is now considered a threat. 

Loch K. Johnson
Oxford University Press, 10 Oct 25<

The second edition of The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence is a thoroughly updated state-of-the-art work on the role of secret agencies in defending the democracies and intelligence activities in authoritarian regimes. Edited by Loch Johnson, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, the handbook examines the topic in full, beginning with an examination of the major theories of intelligence. It then shifts its focus to how intelligence agencies operate, how they collect information from around the world, and the difficulties in disseminating intelligence to policymakers. It also considers the balance between secrecy and public accountability, and the ethical dilemmas that covert and counterintelligence operations routinely present to intelligence agencies. Throughout, contributors factor in broader historical and political contexts that are integral to understanding how intelligence agencies function in our information-dominated age.

Alexander Rose
Independent, 23 Oct 25

In this collection, Alexander Rose, author of Washington's Spies, present six essays covering the two World Wars. In Part 1, we accompany a team of American soldiers as they embark upon an unsanctioned mission to kidnap Kaiser Wilhelm II in the aftermath of World War One; then we meet Imperial Germany's most obscure spy, the woman who trained Mata Hari in tradecraft; and finally, we investigate the so-called "Greatest Spy of World War One" to separate myth from reality.

In Part 2, we're introduced to Louis de Wohl, a colorful British agent who employed "Astrological Intelligence" to foretell Hitler's death; and then visit the Polish Underground and its asset, Agent Knopf, a mole burrowed deep within Hitler's High Command; and afterwards relate the unpalatable story of a Nazi intelligence-peddler, fake spy, and congenital liar.

Jack O’Conner
Acumensa Solutions, 16 Sep 15

This is a history of a little-known CIA office that discovered most of the Cold War Strategic secrets of the Soviet Union. It also produced more future leaders than any other office in the intelligence community. The book explains how two leaders at NPIC created and reinvigorated the culture that led to both of these outcomes.