The Director: A Novel

by David Ignatius

Overview

A New York Times Bestseller. “If you think cybercrime and potential worldwide banking meltdown is a fiction, read this sensational thriller.”—Bob Woodward, Politico

Graham Weber has been the director of the CIA for less than a week when a Swiss kid in a dirty T-shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says the agency has been hacked, and he has a list of agents' names to prove it. This is the moment a CIA director most dreads. Like the new world of cyber-espionage from which it's drawn, The Director is a maze of double dealing, about a world where everything is written in zeroes and ones—and nothing can be trusted.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393244175
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/27/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	389,283
File size:	940 KB

About the Author

David Ignatius is a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for four decades. He has written several New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Washington, DC.

Editorial Reviews

…an entertaining, high-tech ride, full of theme park pyrotechnics and more substantial pleasures. As in his previous thrillers, Mr. Ignatius…injects the plot with his wide-ranging knowledge of history, geopolitics and national security issues, while giving the reader an intimate sense of the tradecraft employed by his characters…The Director leaves the reader with a keenly observed portrait of the C.I.A. as a "Rubik's Cube of interlocking" intrigue in a world in which both the watchers and the watched are always under surveillance.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

★ 03/31/2014
In this frighteningly convincing spy thriller from Ignatius (Bloodmoney), former entrepreneur Graham Weber has a new job: director of the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization suffering in “the post-Snowden era” of whistle-blowers and cyberterrorism. During Weber’s first week on the job, Rudolf Biel walks into the U.S. consulate in Hamburg, Germany, and tells base chief K.J. “Kitten” Sandoval that “your messages can be read.” Weber sends his brilliant technologist, James Morris, director of the agency’s Information Operations Center, to Germany to meet with Biel, but Biel is shot and killed before he can be interviewed. The action revolves around the source of the leak Biel identified, which turns into a plot to hack and destroy the Bank of International Settlements. Why this bank? “Because it’s a symbol of everything that has gone wrong since 1945.” Ignatius builds palpable momentum and creates engaging, fully human characters, notably the fallible and conscientious Weber. Moreover, he writes with great authority on hackers’ technologies and motivations, as well as the history and culture of the CIA. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, Sagalyn/ICM. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"David Ignatius’s novels have always been a clef in the best sense: closely connected to, and very revealing and insightful about, the trends and tensions in the news…[A] page-turning read."

Atlantic - James Fallows

"If you think cybercrime and potential worldwide banking meltdown is a fiction, read this sensational thriller and reconsider any investing strategy you might have."

Politico - Bob Woodward

"Ignatius uses all his Washington insider experience to give his story its sharp authenticity."

Daily Mail (UK)

"One of his best…Ignatius has a gift for portraying the soldiers of the CIA bureaucracy in all their ambition, heroism and pettiness, and what he suggests about the nation's cybersecurity will keep you up at night."

Seattle Times - Mary Ann Gwinn

"A lively read."

Foreign Policy Magazine

"Another brilliant thriller from the Dean of International Intrigue. Deception, deceit, and dishonor—The Director doesn't let up and absolutely doesn't disappoint! I loved this book!"

Brad Thor

"Ignatius has given readers another compelling and enlightening look at what might happen next month. Must-read twenty-first-century espionage fiction."

Starred Review Booklist

"I’m not rolling a log or exaggerating when I call this the best spy novel I’ve read since John le Carré’s Smily’s People way back in 1979… I now intend to read everything that Ignatius has ever written."

Philip Kerr

"A savvy, engaging tale in which the technology and tradecraft are as interesting as the characters."

Wall Street Journal

"The best part of The Director is watching Ignatius grab the history of American intelligence and use it to divine our technological future. Here's your chance to see inside the CIA. Sculpted with an insider's eye, The Director shows you real people, real espionage, and the real threats to our national security."

Brad Meltzer

10/01/2015
The longtime columnist for the Washington Post wrings suspense from the growing threat of cyberespionage with this tale of a reform-minded CIA director who learns that the agency has been hacked. It isn't long before he begins to suspect the computing whiz kid he hired to fight the hack, who may be running a nefarious cyberoperation of his own. (LJ 4/15/14)

Library Journal

2014-04-03
Washington Post columnist and best-selling novelist Ignatius, whose deep knowledge of the intelligence field gives his fiction unique credibility, once again turns to the CIA in a story inspired by the recent exploits of leaker Edward Snowden. New CIA director Graham Weber meets James Morris at a Las Vegas convention. Morris, the head of the CIA's Information Operations, isn't the usual company man; he's a mysterious loner who colors outside the lines. When a young hacker shows up at the U. S. consulate in Hamburg offering to turn over valuable information, Weber dispatches Morris to find him. Soon, however, the new director is enmeshed in an operation that has gone south. Not only does the hacker end up dead, his claims that the CIA's been hacked ring perilously true. But that's not the only challenge facing Weber: His own operative, Morris, appears to be involved in some shadowy Black Ops with other intelligence agencies, as well as a hidden friendship with someone hellbent on destroying the intelligence community. As a writer, Ignatius doesn't know how to tell a bad story. His unparalleled understanding of the intelligence world propels his work so far above others who dabble in the field that there's little comparison. But in this case, he leans much too heavily on the technical side of the story, turning even his usual deft plotting and sharply drawn characters into afterthoughts mired in an ocean of technical computer-speak. Instead of high-stakes excitement, the intricate explanations of how hackers work, replete with step-by-step instructions, overtake and, eventually, overwhelm the simmer of danger that usually lingers just beneath the surface of his work. Although the subject is timely, Ignatius wades too far into the mechanics of malicious computer use to make this a compelling tale; he turns an exciting idea into a story that fails under the weight of dull and irrelevant detail.

Kirkus Reviews