THE TRIPLE AGENT The Al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA

Books like Warrick's are always scarier than the easily dismissed spy novel for one reason: They’re real. It's disconcerting to hear how close we came to disaster and that only dumb luck saved us. The book is about Humam al-Balawi, a Jordanian physician who convinced the CIA he was spying on Al Qaeda for the U.S. but is revealed to have been working for the terrorists all along. Sunil Malhotra has a gentle Middle Eastern accent that makes the complicated names of people and towns flow easily, helping the listener keep them straight. His soft pronunciation of Pakistan and Afghanistan makes them sound like unfamiliar places. The book illuminates a half-dozen CIA and military people who work in the shadows and makes them real. M.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2012]