Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf
Reviewed in this issue:
Current Topics
Authoritarianism: A Very Short Introduction
By James Loxton (Oxford University Press, 2024), 89 pages, index. Reviewed by Anthony Sutton, an analyst in the Strategic Futures Group of the National Intelligence Council.
The Academic-Practitioner Divide in Intelligence Studies
Edited by Rubén Arcos, Nicole K. Drumhiller, and Mark Phythian (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), 318 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake, who has been compiling and reviewing "Bookshelf" since 2002.
History
Anti-American Terrorism: From Eisenhower to Trump—A Chronicle of the Threat and Response, Volume III The Clinton Administration
By Dennis A. Pluchinsky (World Scientific, 2025) 984 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
By Elyse Graham (Ecco, 2024), 376 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War II
By Thomas Maier (Hanover Square Press, 2025), 479 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
An O.S.S. Secret Agent Behind Enemy Lines: The Second World War Exploits of Lieutenant Leif Bangsbøll
By Brook G. Bangsbøll (Frontline Books, 2024), 308 pages. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
The Umbrella Murder: The Hunt for the Cold War’s Most Notorious Killer
By Ulrik Skotte (WH Allen, 2024), 323 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
Fiction
Counterfeit Spies: How World War II Intelligence Operations Shape Cold War Spy Fiction
By Oliver Buckton (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), 267 pages, index. Reviewed by Hayden Peake.
The Snares: A Novel
By Rav Grewal-Kök (Random House, 2025) 320 pages. Reviewed by John Ehrman, a retired CIA analyst.
The Spy Coast
By Tess Gerritsen (Thomas & Mercer, 2023), 347 pages. Reviewed by Resolute Lee, an officer in the ODNI.
Download PDF to read this June 2025 edition of IO Bookshelf (8 pages).