David Ignatius, Body of Lies

Body of Lies

David Ignatius

Norton, May 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0793065070

While working in Iraq, CIA agent Roger Ferris is hit; his leg is filled with shrapnel, but he knows he is lucky as his driver is dead. He is sent to Amman, Jordan to recover and to begin a new effort along with the Jordanian "Heart" Intel operatives led by Hani Salaam to uncover the identity of the brilliant al-Qaeda mastermind Suleiman, who has taken the war to the West via bombs in Milan and Berlin.

Ferris' new plan is to use the British World War II concept of the "Man Who Never Was" to divide the Suleiman team. He selects thirty-something James Borden, found in a Florida morgue, and gives the dead Caucasian male a new identity as the "legendary" Harry Meeker of the US Agency for International Development; he even gives Harry a beautiful blond as expected by those who think James Bond is the modern day western operative. Ferris "becomes" a Middle East architect seemingly not involved, but able to observe. The divide and conquer scheme has begun to make it look like some of Suleiman's lieutenants are talking to the west as truth and honesty are not important in the Global War Against terrorism.

BODY OF LIES will be one of the top five espionage thrillers of the year as the suspense keeps growing until the incredible climax that will stun the audience. The storyline is fast-paced from the opening sequence of creating Meeker until the final altercation. The support cast is strong from James's boss to the chief of the Jordan Intelligence Agency to a woman working a refugee camp and others. However, this predominately cat and mouse encounter that modernizes Hitchcock into a post 9/11 world belongs to the obsessed Borden who will do anything to destroy his enemy and his shadowy adversary who will do anything to destroy the west.

Harriet Klausner