The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Double Agent Robert Hanssen
While the termdouble agentimplies contradiction, Adrian Havill's portrait of spymaster Robert Hanssen reveals a man truly driven by opposing demons. Hanssen was a consummate loner, "Walter Mitty squared," yet he approached the Soviets himself in quest of the thrill-filled life of a double agent. A staunch conservative and strict Catholic, he took money from communists--to give diamonds and Mercedes to strippers on one hand, and to send his six children to expensive Catholic schools on the other. Havill, a seasoned chronicler of criminals and celebrities, creates a taut and troubling portrait of a disturbed man who compromised the security of a nation. He also gives an inside look into the oft-inept FBI, the National Security Agency's futuristic surveillance systems, and the spy-versus-spy world of Russian intelligence.--Lesley Reed