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(Starred review.) [E]xciting...Bird recreates the life of C.I.A. superspy Robert Ames, an operative with a skill for appreciating the turns and twists of Mideast politics.... Bird’s meticulous account of Ames’s career amid an ongoing Mideast climate of caution and suspicion is one of the best books on American intelligence community.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) This is a moving biography within a balanced presentation of the complex diplomacy over the Palestinian quest for statehood and the Israeli need for security, complicated by a disintegrating Lebanon and a revolutionary Iran. Bird's view of a CIA committed to analysis and policy development contrasts with the agency depicted in Hugh Wilford's recent America's Great Game.  —Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL
Library Journal


A poignant tribute to a CIA Middle East operative who helped get the Palestinians and Israelis to talk to each other—and died for it. Accomplished, wide-ranging author Bird...has great sympathy for Philadelphia native Robert Ames (1934-1983).... A low-key, respectful life of a decent American officer whose quietly significant work helped lead to the Oslo Accords.
Kirkus Reviews