Angel

A gripping feat of reportage that exposesfor the first time in Englishthe sensational life and mysterious death of Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian senior official who spied for Israel, offering new insight into the turbulent modern history of the Middle East.As the son-in-law of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and a close advisor to his successor, Anwar Sadat, Ashraf Marwan had access to the deepest secrets of the countrys government. But Marwan himself had a secret: He was a spy for the Mossad, Israels intelligence service. Under the codename The Angel, Marwan turned Egypt into an open book for the Israeli intelligence servicesand, by alerting the Mossad in advance of the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur, saved Israel from a devastating defeat.Drawing on meticulous research and interviews with many key participants, Uri Bar Joseph pieces together Marwans story. In the process, he sheds new light on this volatile time in modern Egyptian and Middle Eastern history, culminating in 2011s Arab Spring. The Angel also chronicles the discord within the Israeli government that brought down Prime Minister Golda Meir.However, this nail-biting narrative doesnt end with Israels victory in the Yom Kippur War. Marwan eluded Egypts ruthless secret services for many years, but then somebody talked. Five years later, in 2007, his body was found in the garden of his London apartment building. Police suspected he had been thrown from his fifth-floor balcony, and thanks to explosive new evidence, Bar-Joseph can finally reveal who, how, and why.