Tag Archives: espionage and commandos

Code Girls

Posted on July 31, 2019 by smellincoffee

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Codebreakers of World War 2 © 2017 Liza Mundy 640 pages At the outset of World War 2, the United States’ military intelligence apparatus, much like its military, was minimal.  Following … Continue reading →

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Disavowed

Posted on November 30, 2018 by smellincoffee

ST Section 31: Disavowed© 2014 David Mack304 pages “Murder is murder, regardless of whether it is committed by an individual, a group of persons, or the state.” – Disavowed, David Mack Disavowed is the brilliant result of multiple spy plots intersecting … Continue reading →

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Church of Spies

Posted on October 6, 2018 by smellincoffee

Church of Spies: The Vatican’s Secret War Against Hitler© 2015 Mark Riebling384 pages The Catholic Church was one of Hitler’s earliest enemies, barring its members from participating in the Nazi party and publicly condemning Hitler’s early actions once he had … Continue reading →

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From Russia with Love

Posted on July 19, 2018 by smellincoffee

From Russia with Love© 1957 Ian Fleming253 pages I’ve tried three times to read any of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, because he was an actual intelligence officer writing spy novels. Bond in the abstract is an interesting character, a posh … Continue reading →

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Rifleman Dodd and The Gun

Posted on April 6, 2018 by smellincoffee

The Gun, and Rifleman Dodd© 1933 C.S. Forester311 pages “There was sorrow in Dodd’s heart as he looked down on the pitiful scene, but it did not prevent him from turning away and setting himself to survey the next adventurous … Continue reading →

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Confront and Conceal

Posted on May 13, 2017 by smellincoffee

Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of Power 496 pages © 2012 David E. Sanger Barack Obama may have been the only Nobel Peace Prize winner in history to order lethal force used on a regular basis, … Continue reading →

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Los Alamos

Posted on September 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

Los Alamos© 1997 Joseph Kanon416 pages A man lies dead in Santa Fe, but the answer to ‘whodunit’ lies in the hills above the city — or on The Hill, the site of the Los Alamos Laboratory, where something very … Continue reading →

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Playing to the Edge

Posted on August 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror© Michael Hayden 2016464 pages As someone who became a civil libertarian in response to the increasingly sweeping powers of the surveillance state during the Bush administration, I began reading … Continue reading →

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The Director

Posted on August 5, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Director© 2014 David Ignatius384 pages The first week at a new job is rough for anyone, but what if you’re the new director of the CIA and a German kid off the street just informed you that every agent … Continue reading →

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Memorial Day

Posted on May 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

Memorial Day© 2004 Vince Flynn407 pages “And if they manage to get this thing into Washington and end up killing the leaders of America, Great Britain, and Russia?”Rapp shrugged. “At least there won’t be any more ambivalence about the war … Continue reading →

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