The award-winning spy and author of the New York Times bestseller Argo recounts his service with the CIA during the Cold War.On the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez was named one of the fifty all-time stars of the spy trade, and he was granted exclusive permission to tell his fascinating story—all of it.For the first time, the CIA has authorized a top-level operative to tell all in an unforgettable behind-the-scenes look at...

To America, he was a hero.To his troops, he was a soldier.Now hear his story.Each new era in American history has given rise to a military leader who defines the nation's proudest traditions—of leadership and honor, of vision and commitment and courage in the face of any challenge. From Washington and U.S. Grant to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Norman Schwarzkopf, these men have captured the nation's imagination, and entered the small pantheon of

Edgar Award Finalist: The "exciting" true story of the abduction of biathlete Kari Swenson and the five-month manhunt to bring her tormentors to justice ( The New York Times Book Review).Former rodeo cowboy Johnny France had been sheriff of Madison County, Montana, for three years when Kari Swenson, a Bozeman resident training for the World Biathlon Championship, went missing near Big Sky Resort in July 1984. Her friends feared that Kari had been attacked b...

Claudia J. Kennedy retired as the Army's first female three-star general and the highest-ranking woman ever in that branch, overseeing 45,000 soldiers worldwide. During her 32-year career she witnessed the dramatic advances made by military women, and she was a long-time champion for fairness and equality in the Army. As she recounts her experiences in a male-dominated profession, beginning as a young Women's Army Corps officer in 1969, moving through her Pentagon service as a three-star g...

The powerful unvarnished memoir of General Hugh Shelton, war hero, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 9/11, and one of the leading military figures of our time.Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, General Shelton was never afraid to speak out and tell it like it is. Shelton chronicles his incredible journey from a small farming community in North Carolina to the highest level of American military and political power at th...

A gripping account of the final American bombing mission of World War II and how it prevented a military coup that would have kept Japan in the war.How close did the Japanese come to not surrendering to Allied forces on August 15, 1945? The Last Mission explores this question through two previously neglected strands of late—World War II history, whose very interconnections could have caused a harrowing shift in the course of the postwar world. On the final night of the war...

"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING."With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the hol...

The powerful unvarnished memoir of General Hugh Shelton, war hero, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 9/11, and one of the leading military figures of our time.Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, General Shelton was never afraid to speak out and tell it like it is. Shelton chronicles his incredible journey from a small farming community in North Carolina to the highest level of American military and political power at t...

“Never shall I fail my comrades. . . . I will shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be, one hundred percent and then some.” —from the Ranger CreedIn early March 2010, General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding officer of all U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, walked with President Hamid Karzai through a small rural bazaar. As Afghan townspeople crowded around them, a Taliban rocket loudly thudded into the ground some distance away. Karzai looked t...

A Crazed KillerHe dissolved the bodies of some of his victims in acid and poured them down the sewer. He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard.La Costra NostraCharles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them.Mafia, Madness And Murder

From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he’d long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and ...

The true, declassified account of CIA operative Tony Mendez's daring rescue of American hostages from Iran that inspired the critically-acclaimed film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, and co-starring John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston.On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there is a ...