A Life Lost in the Maw of Counterterrorism

New book explores the hapless life and useless death of FBI informant Billy Reilly

Apr 22, 2023

∙ Paid

THIS MAY BE THE ONLY spy book ever written about a working-class nobody.

Billy Reilly was a truck driver’s kid from a town north of Detroit, a way-smart loner and computer nerd who lived at home until he was 28. No girlfriends, no close friends, no steady job. He got mixed up with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a freelance counter-terrorism infor…

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