The Paladin marks the 11th novel by David Ignatius and, like his previous works, has a very suspenseful, made-up plot grounded in a very plausible national security challenge. For several decades now, Ignatius has managed to succeed at two careers at once—in the journalistic world he’s an accomplished columnist for the Washington Post, and in the literary world he’s a popular writer of spy thrillers. His books are rooted in the same expert reporting that has distinguished his journalism. In The Paladin he concocts a story about a CIA operations officer who chases a group of hackers and software designers intent on using fake news to trigger global financial chaos. It’s a great read and, in characteristic Ignatius fashion, leaves you wondering whether what you’ve just read is a thinly-disguised version of something that has actually happened, is currently happening, or may happen soon.
In 2013, Bart Gellman, after receiving an astonishing trove of intelligence documents from Edward Snowden, anchored a team of Washington Post reporters who wrote a Pulitzer-winning series that exposed widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency. In Dark Mirror, Gellman recounts his own story engaging with Snowden and explores the full nature and impact of a government surveillance system that expanded after the 9/11 attacks and sought to collect vast amounts of data on people in great secrecy and without previous constraints. The book is illuminating, engrossing, and balanced—a revealing narrative that not only examines intelligence gathering and government overreach in the digital age but provides a thrilling account of investigative journalism in a time of pervasive surveillance.
Elliott Maraniss was a talented newspaperman when, in 1952, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his communist affi liations. He lost his job and was blacklisted for five years, yet retained his faith in the United States and went on eventually to a successful career in journalism. In A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father (Simon & Schuster, $28), David Maraniss tells his dad’s story along with the stories of others who were in the Committee hearing room—members of the Committee, his dad’s lawyer, and the FBI informant who named him. Through these individual histories, Maraniss explores what it means to be an American. On one level, the book is a touching family tale about a son’s search for his father’s past, but on a larger level it’s a resonant story with enduring universal significance, a tale of courage, conviction, betrayal, political opportunism, reckoning, and ultimately American identity.
