Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets that Destroyed Two of the Cold War’s Most Important Agents

Here is the true story of how the American James Bond—the colorful, foulmouthed, pistol-packing, alcoholic ex-FBI agent William “King” Harvey—put the finger on Philby; how James Jesus Angleton, the chain-smoking poet of Yale University and the CIA’s supposed “master spy” in charge of counterintelligence, began his descent into a paranoid wilderness of mirrors upon learning of family friend Kim Philby’s ultimate betrayal; and the devastating consequences of the loss of MI6 prestige and the CIA’s subsequent self-defeating witch hunts.

Every revelation, every stranger-than-fiction twist and turn is all the more intriguing as truths become lies and unlikely scenarios are revealed as reality. With impeccable sourcing and the use of thousands of pages of declassified research, David C. Martin’s Wilderness of Mirrors is widely recognized as a masterpiece of intelligence literature.