A Firing Offense

At its face value, "A Firing Offense" is a first-rate action-adventure yarn, with description and character development by a real craftsman. At a more satisfying level, Ignatius uses the device of a reporter being drawn incrementally into cooperating with the CIA as an allegory for how our numerous "little decisions" in our lives put us on paths that make the "big decisions" foregone conclusions when we reach them.

This is a terrific book. Ignatius writes for the Beltway insider as well as those on the outside looking in. Has a good moral for young journalists about the corruption of power and information and the difficult choices that senior reporters make everyday.

I had just completed Katharine Graham's "Personal History", which taught me a lot about the newspaper business. Now along comes David Ignatius to describe the 'conscience' of a newpaper. About the only superflous role in the plot was the part of Annie Baron--she didn't add or subtract anything. Her blinding ambition didn't quite fit any niche, nor were her romantic moments of any consequence to the otherwise plausible story. As for me, in the September of my years,while daydreaming, I'm now wondering what might have been, if I had gone into the newspaper business after having served as editor-in-chief of my high school paper. Sigh

David Ignatius and I worked together as reporters in the Middle East when we were very young, although for different newspapers. Even then, as a newcomer to foreign correspondence, he impressed us all by his sharp eye for detail, his energy and his ability to make connections between people and events. His knowing, insightful "A Firing Offense," to me at least, represents an extension of Ignatius' marvelous journalism in foreign-affairs which began almost two decades ago. This is a novel of truths--sad truths about the journalism business, sordid truths about the world at large, sorry truths about the way we often treat the perceived losers in life. The plot is tight, the language spare. This is a must-read for lovers of spy-fiction, but I highly recommend "A Firing Offense" to general readers as well. David Ignatius has already proven that he's a master of the game in journalism (his career at The Washington Post is testimony to that); now he's shown that in fiction, too, he's at the top of his craft

It's hard to capture what journalists do for a living. Much of it seems dull and a lot of it is also silly--and yet journalism is fascinating to people inside and outside the business. Not since Tony Hillerman's A Fly on the Wall has a reporter written a book that so authentically captures the texture of reporting--the thrills, the pain, and, most of all, the moral ambiguity. My favorite moment in the book is when the reporter-protagonist, having gotten admission to a fancy restaurant where diners are being held hostage by terrorists, thinks to ask one of the diners what he had been eating when the gunmen burst in. I used to be a reporter and I can imagine myself asking that question, knowing it seems silly--and knowing also that small details like that one make or break a piece of reporting. At the same time, Ignatius has created a completely believable spy story, with genetic engineering, Chinese disinformation, and CIA incompetence blended into an original and exciting brew. Even the obligatory sex scenes are good!