by Ric Prado
First published 2022
Enrique Prado opens his memoir with a seven-year-old boy caught in gunfire during the Castro Revolution. His Cuban family escapes to America, where the refugee child grows up to become one of the CIA's highest-ranking covert operatives. Prado traces his career through Cold War missions across Central and South America and the Philippines, then into the terrorism age at CIA headquarters in Langley. In 1995, he helped create the Bin Laden Task Force as Deputy Chief of Station. After leading Korean Operations, he accepted a perilous assignment to rebuild an abandoned CIA station in hostile territory on the front lines against Islamic extremism. His team developed crucial assets and executed operations that shaped the War on Terror. Prado reveals the hidden conflicts that kept America secure, offering readers an insider's view of the shadow warriors who operated beyond public knowledge.
Genres: historical-fiction, military-fiction, adventure, action, biography-memoir, espionage
Vibes: fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, Central America, Cuba, Langley, Philippines, South America
Period: Cold War, 1995, War on Terror
400 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: violence