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摘要
摘要
The successive heads of the CIA's disguise and technical operations department, who are married to each other, recount their work to protect and rescue a source as they struggle against the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Retired CIA disguise expert Antonio Mendez (The Master of Disguise) teams up with his wife, also a former agent, to reveal how they fell in love during a highly critical mission in the waning years of the Cold War. Antonio and Jonna shift back and forth in their account as separate assignments eventually converge in the extrication from Moscow of a high-ranking KGB mole, jeopardized by the traitorous dealings of men like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. Fans of Alan Furst's WWII espionage novels will appreciate the subdued nature of this thriller, where the stakes are always high but the individual actions are usually low-key, as well as the details the Mendezes provide on the art of eluding surveillance. The title is a red herring although "spy dust" was a real element of the KGB's operations against foreigners in Moscow, its role in this story is of a background nature. The climax hinges on a much more old-fashioned game of cat and mouse. There are a few weak spots in the narrative, where the authors (or their collaborator, true-crime scribe Henderson) try to recreate scenes at which they weren't present, but for the most part this is an entertaining thriller with the added virtue of being true. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Christy Fletcher, Carlisle & Co. (Sept. 17) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Fascinating memoir from a husband-and-wife team of spooky gamesmanship in the Cold War's deadly back alleys. Writing with the Agency's blessing, retired CIA spymaster Antonio Mendez (The Master of Disguise, 1999) and agent Jonna Mendez offer a surprisingly open account of the intelligence community's long, often deadly engagement with its counterparts in Russia, China, and Cuba. As their narrative opens, things have gone badly awry with American spying activities inside the Soviet Union; deep-cover double agents are being executed right and left, hapless Marine guards are letting secrets out of the embassy, and somehow the KGB is always a step ahead of the CIA, thanks in part to near-invisible "spy dust" that enables the Reds to track the movements of our men and women in blue. After the Mendezes learn that they're being betrayed by Aldrich Ames and other turncoats within the agency, they put that knowledge to work concocting elaborate countermeasures and devious switcheroos. Avoiding the noir cliches of the spy genre, the Mendezes offer an eye-opening look at the complex business of gathering intelligence and spreading a few lies to disrupt the opposition, recounting rules that are "dead simple, and full of common sense: Never make surveillance mad or embarrassed-they will shut you down. Never look over your shoulder or steal free looks in store windows when on the street. Make them think it was their fault that they had lost you, not vice versa, because KGB officers know better than to report their own mistakes." In the end, they argue, the CIA's work was more often successful than not, citing no less an authority than former KGB general Oleg Kalugin, who reckoned, "In the final analysis, the score would be five to one in favor of the United States on counterintelligence issues." Solid storytelling brought to bear on engaging material: a real-life pleasure for fans of John le Carre and Tom Clancy.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Readers interested in the spy game will salivate at the prospects of reading this insider account of final five years of the cold war. The authors, former CIA agents charged with developing new techniques for keeping the KGB from spying on and recruiting American intelligence personnel, fell in love as they worked to change the rules of espionage; their story is a rare combination of nuts-and-bolts tradecraft and gentle romance. But don't be misled by the love angle; the developing relationship between the spies adds a human dimension to the story, but it never gets in the way of the insider stuff: descriptions of the technology of spying; play-by-play accounts of some major operations; and a wealth of information about Soviet espionage techniques (the book gets its title from a powder used by Russian spies to track American agents without having to maintain visual contact). This is an endlessly fascinating book, one that spy buffs will return to again and again. Spy novelists take note, too: as a research tool, it's invaluable. --David Pitt
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
"Spy dust" is a chemical marking compound developed by the KGB (Soviet secret police) to help track targeted individuals. It is just one of the tools and techniques discussed by the authors, who headed up the Disguise and Documents Division of the CIA's Office of Technical Service and are now consultants for the CBS TV drama series The Agency. The authors met in the mid-1980s while helping to rebuild U.S. intelligence operations in the USSR, which had been severely crippled by American traitors selling secret information to the Soviets. Included here are fascinating tales of clandestine meetings, narrow escapes, missed clues, ingenious equipment, and various successes and failures, and the reader soon comes to realize that a lot of professional brain power goes into planning and carrying out this deadly game with the highest stakes imaginable. There is a glossary of spy terms at the end of the book, but a map of Moscow would have helped. This interesting and easy-to-read tale complements Antonio Mendez's The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA and is suitable for the espionage sections of both public and academic libraries. [Index not seen; Atria Books is the new name for the hardcover division of Pocket, a division of S. & S. Ed.] Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.