A Pulse-Pounding Novel of Treachery Within the CIA

"The Traitor’s Tale," by veteran CIA officer James Lawler, builds off the true story of a colleague and friend wrongly accused of being a mole.

If books could circulate in Technicolor, the cover of James C. Lawler’s new spy thriller, The Traitor’s Tale, would be flashing vivid and bright. Even before the opening chapter, two dozen prominent former agency officials and lifelong students of espionage offer glowing endorsements that go beyond what a single reviewer can say. Their verdict: Read this Book.

James Lawler served for 25 years as a CIA operations officer in various international posts and as Chief of the Counterproliferation Division's Special Activities Unit. He was a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2005. (YouTube)

Lawler, who proudly embraces his nickname in the spy trade, “Mad Dog,” is a celebrated former CIA operations officer who once specialized in recruiting foreign spies and is largely credited with bringing down A.Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling network. His novel is a sometimes brutal love letter to spycraft. It is also red meat for spy story junkies, an homage to denizens of the intelligence agencies and an x-ray of the business and people who work there—so much so that a brace of his former colleagues is gushing with praise and nostalgia. They want to join in and go back there with him to one of the most painful episodes in his long CIA career. For the rest of us, it is a signal that The Traitor's Tale is as real as it can get.