Reviews, Forthcoming, New Releases, Overlooked
Charles McDougall
2016
Based on Joseph Conrad’s classic, this BBC TV miniseries brings to life Verloc, owner of a seedy shop in Victorian Soho, who plays a dangerous game spying on an agitating anarchist group that will prove useful to the foreign power he is secretly working for.
James E. Gaylord
Prometheus, 02 Dec 25
It began as furtive tip, grew to fevered investigation, and climaxed with midnight airport arrests to prevent US military secrets from being lost forever, and it all centered around a diminutive, bespectacled engineer from Kwang-Tung, China.
Who was Chi Mak? A brilliant immigrant engineer eager to live in the West and enjoy the fruits of his labor? Or Mao’s Marxist soldier, itching to steal US Navy secrets to leapfrog China’s navy to parity with, and eventual supremacy over, America’s Seventh Fleet?
Chasing Chi is a compelling read and first-person account of the trailblazing investigation and prosecution of Chi Mak and his family and friends. For decades, they stole sensitive US military and commercial technologies for the Peoples’ Republic of China. FBI Special Agent James Gaylord, who directed the investigation, recounts this mesmerizing tale by drawing upon his eyewitness experiences and notes, case evidence, investigative files, and court records to weave a fascinating spy thriller detailing Chi Mak’s betrayal. This incredible true-life story highlights behind-the-curtain intrigues, obstacles, betrayals, and hard-won victories, while pointing out the heroes and villains along the way.
Overcoming bureaucratic friction, cowardice, and sabotage jeopardizing their efforts at every turn, Special Agent Gaylord and his squad, call sign “SARA-4,” persevered, breaking the FBI’s historic string of failures, producing the most successful prosecution of China’s spies ever, and re-writing the manual for convicting foreign agents.
Jeff Kisselhoff
University Press of Kansas, 15 Apr 25
A revelatory political history that uncovers the innocence of alleged Communist spy Alger Hiss and points a finger at who was really behind one of the most sensational and divisive accusations of the twentieth century.
When Alger Hiss was accused by Whittaker Chambers in 1948 of being a secret Communist spy in the 1930s, the subsequent perjury trials were some of the most sensational and politically significant trials of the century. Although Hiss was convicted, he maintained his innocence until his death, and historians have taken sides ever since. In this groundbreaking and revelatory book, Jeff Kisseloff brings new perspective, evidence, and accusations to this historical controversy.
Rewriting Hisstory is a firsthand account of how over fifty years, beginning when he worked for Hiss as a college student in the mid-1970s, Kisseloff was eventually able to determine the truth about Alger Hiss. With the skills of a veteran reporter and the analytical mind of a scholar, he brings to light a wealth of original material, including 150,000 pages of mostly unredacted previously unreleased FBI files—which he sued the FBI to obtain—and other documents from government and library collections around the country. Kisseloff also acquired a key piece of evidence: Woodstock 230099, the machine that the government claimed was used to type the copies of State Department documents placed in evidence against Hiss.
Taken together, Kisseloff has pieced together the truth, showing that Hiss was neither a Communist nor a spy and that the government knew it. But if Hiss didn’t produce the documents that were placed in evidence against him, who did? After careful research and by applying a process of elimination used in classic crime novels—who had the means, motive, and opportunity to do the job—Kisseloff points his finger at the only people who fit all three qualifications.
An act of vindication for one of the most divisive figures in the twentieth century, Rewriting Hisstory is a thrilling political page-turner about an accused spy that is itself a work of scholarly espionage, built on decades of painstaking research. This is an iconoclastic work that should rewrite history books
Ann E. Butler
Aeb Associates, 25 December 2024
Many mothers shuttle their kids to dance lessons and sports practice, coordinate playdates, read bedtime stories, and struggle to get dinner on the table after a long day at the office. Very few do all this while secretly meeting with spies, carrying a purse retrofitted to conceal a Glock, and tasked with protecting the security of the United States. For several decades, this was the life of Ann Butler - wife, mother of five, and operations operative for the CIA.
From New York to Paris to Sarajevo, from Northern Africa to Central Europe, Wife, Mother, Spy provides a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the rewarding, chaotic, exhausting, often challenging, but always exciting life of a CIA spy who also happens to be a wife and mother.
Juggling parenthood, aliases, transatlantic moves every few years with five children and a dog, and going into labor during a clandestine meeting isn't for the faint of heart. But with determination, a sense of humor, and unflappable optimism, Butler takes readers along on an inspiring journey that knits together a life full of the dailiness, hopes, and fears all parents share with an exhilarating career few can imagine.