The Director
A Novel
Published on 20. June 2014
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-393-07814-5 (ISBN)
Description
Graham Weber has been the director of the CIA for less than a week when a Swiss kid in a dirty T-shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says the agency has been hacked, and he has a list of agents' names to prove it. This is the moment a CIA director most dreads. Weber turns to a charismatic (and unstable) young man named James Morris who runs the Internet Operations Center. He's the CIA's in-house geek. Weber launches Morris on a mole hunt unlike anything in spy fiction-one that takes the reader into the hacker underground of Europe and America and ends up in a landscape of paranoia and betrayal. Like the new world of cyber-espionage from which it's drawn, The Director is a maze of deception and double dealing, about a world where everything is written in zeroes and ones and nothing can be trusted. The CIA has belatedly discovered that this is not your father's Cold War, and Weber must play catch-up, against the clock and an unknown enemy, in a game he does not yet understand.
Reviews / Votes
"An entertaining, high-tech ride, full of theme park pyrotechnics and more substantial pleasures. As in his previous thrillers, Mr. Ignatius...injects the plot with his wide-ranging knowledge of history, geopolitics and national security issues, while giving the reader an intimate sense of the tradecraft employed by his characters." -- Michiko Kakutani - The New York Times "Another brilliant thriller from the Dean of International Intrigue. Deception, deceit, and dishonor-The Director doesn't let up and absolutely doesn't disappoint! I loved this book!" -- Brad Thor, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Hidden Order "The best part of The Director is watching Ignatius grab the history of American intelligence and use it to divine our technological future. Here's your chance to see inside the CIA. Sculpted with an insider's eye, The Director shows you real people, real espionage, and the real threats to our national security." -- Brad Meltzer, best-selling author of The Fifth Assassin "[A] frighteningly convincing spy thriller." -- Publishers Weekly, Starred review "As a writer, Ignatius doesn't know how to tell a bad story. His unparalleled understanding of the intelligence world propels his work so far above others who dabble in the field that there's little comparison." -- Kirkus Reviews "Ignatius has given readers another compelling and enlightening look at what might happen next month. Must-read twenty-first-century espionage fiction." -- Booklist, Starred Review "I'm not rolling a log or exaggerating when I call this the best spy novel I've read since John le Carre's Smily's People way back in 1979... I now intend to read everything that Ignatius has ever written." -- Philip Kerr - Washington Post "A lively read." -- Foreign Policy Magazine "David Ignatius's novels have always been a clef in the best sense: closely connected to, and very revealing and insightful about, the trends and tensions in the news... [A] page-turning read." -- James Fallows - The Atlantic "Ignatius uses all his Washington insider experience to give his story its sharp authenticity." -- Daily Mail (UK) "If you think cybercrime and potential worldwide banking meltdown is a fiction, read this sensational thriller and reconsider any investing strategy you might have." -- Bob Woodward - Politico "One of his best... Ignatius has a gift for portraying the soldiers of the CIA bureaucracy in all their ambition, heroism and pettiness, and what he suggests about the nation's cybersecurity will keep you up at night." -- Mary Ann Gwinn - Seattle TimesMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paper over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 243 mm
Width: 167 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
738 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-07814-5 (9780393078145)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
David Ignatius is a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for four decades. He has written several New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Washington, DC.