The spy who knew too much An ex-CIA officer's quest through a legacy of betrayal

Tennent "Pete" Bagley was serving in the CIA's Soviet Division, specializing in counterintelligence, when the search for a mole that may have penetrated the upper echelons of the CIA cast a spotlight on him. After a lengthy and intrusive investigation, Bagley was cleared, though the search continued. Bagley retired and moved to Brussels. Years later, in the late 1970s, events brought him back into the fold: a high-level intelligence asset went missing, presumed dead, and a former CIA employee was found dead in an apparent suicide. Bagley suspected that these two events were connected, and that the still-elusive mole figured into both. The hunt was back on, and Bagley was ready to walk through the wilderness of mirrors once more. With the paranoia of Cold War--era spy games, this latest gripping true-crime thriller from Blum (Night of the Assassins, 2020) pulse-poundingly relates the pursuit for the mole that haunted Pete Bagley and the intelligence community at large.

Did the KGB have a mole with access to some of the CIA's most sensitive information who was never caught? That tantalizing question is at the heart of this nail-biting account from former New York Times investigative reporter Blum (Night of the Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin). Starting in 1950, Pete Bagley was the deputy head of the CIA's Soviet Bloc division and came to suspect that Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected to the U.S. soon after President Kennedy's assassination, was a plant, but was unable to persuade his superiors of that conclusion. Instead, Bagley himself came under suspicion of providing intelligence to the Soviets. Bagley searched for the real mole and continued his hunt even after leaving the CIA in 1972. The suspicious death of John Paisley, a CIA analyst whose body was found in Chesapeake Bay in 1978, ruled a suicide despite contrary evidence, led Bagley to pursue clues that Paisley was the mole--and that Nosenko had "defected" to help conceal Paisley's treachery. Blum's access to Bagley's writings and a myriad of other sources enables him to craft a page-turning narrative. This reads like a John le Carré novel come to life. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)

Cold War--era CIA intrigue, dramatic and brutal. Prolific author and reporter Blum tells a striking story, though his breezy narrative may put off readers familiar with more judicious CIA--related books, Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes foremost among them. Blum's central character is Tennent Bagley of the CIA's elite Soviet Bloc division. He was working in Switzerland in 1962 when KGB agent Yuri Nosenko offered his services. After interviewing him, Bagley was convinced that Nosenko was precisely who he claimed to be. Promising to deliver secrets, Nosenko returned to Moscow and Bagley to Washington, D.C., where James Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence, suggested that he read the file of Anatoly Golitsyn, another KGB agent who had defected in 1961. To Bagley's amazement, Golitsyn had recounted incidents and operations identical to Nosenko's. He concluded that Nosenko was a bogus agent sent to impugn Golitsyn but also that this indicated the presence of a highly placed mole inside the CIA. The plot thickened when Nosenko defected. Flown to the U.S., he responded to Bagley's questioning with a mixture of boasting, self-promotion, contradictions, and lies, but he insisted that his defection was genuine. Nosenko was locked alone in a small, dark room for more than three years, taken out only for interrogation. Still maintaining his innocence, he received his freedom, an apology, compensation, and permission to remain in the U.S. Unconvinced and certain he was the victim of self-serving CIA politics, Bagley retired only to be galvanized years later by the apparent death of a CIA official, unconvincingly described as a suicide. Although he was barred from CIA archives, he launched an exhaustive search and ultimately concluded that the purported victim, John Paisley, was the mole. Blum admits that nearly everyone involved, Bagley included, was dead when he began his research. While many passages are pure speculation, tolerant readers will enjoy a largely entertaining spy story full of cutthroat CIA infighting and the occasional cut throat. Novelistic, fast-paced history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.