by Howard Blum
First published 2022
Pete Bagley was destined for the top of the CIA until accusations of being a mole destroyed his career. Though eventually cleared, the damage was done. His reputation lay in ruins, and when his daughter Christina married the son of the man who had orchestrated his investigation, their relationship shattered too. Then in September 1978, a boat drifts empty across the Chesapeake Bay. Inside, investigators find classified documents, ammunition, and a secret communications device. The owner, former CIA officer John Paisley, has vanished without a trace. Was it murder, suicide, or something more sinister? Bagley launches his own investigation into Paisley's fate, diving back into the shadowy world that cast him out. His search becomes both a hunt for answers about a missing spy and a quest to restore his name and rebuild his fractured family. The deeper Bagley digs, the more the case connects to his own past and his relentless pursuit of the mole who nearly destroyed him.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, thriller, espionage
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, redemption
Setting: Chesapeake Bay, CIA
Period: 1978
384 pages · Hardcover · Harper