Spooks: The Haunting of America―The Private Use of Secret Agents

"Probably the most eye-opening and engrossing expos? to date of the bizarre 'power games' played by multinational corporations and tycoons." -Publishers Weekly

A classic of investigative reporting, Spooks is a treasure trove of who-shot-who research on the metastasis of the US intelligence community, whose practices and personnel have engulfed the larger society. Teeming with tales of wiremen, hitmen, and mobsters; crooked politicians and corrupt cops going about their business of regime-change, union-busting, wiretapping, money laundering, and industrial espionage, read about:

- Richard Nixon's "Mission Impossible" war on Aristotle Onassis

- Not-so-deep-fake porno films starring the CIA's enemies

- The Robert Vesco heist, targeting billions in numbered Swiss accounts

- Robert Maheu and the kidnapping of billionaire Howard Hughes

- The murder-for-hire of a Columbia University professor

- Bobby Kennedy's archipelago of private intelligence agencies-Intertel and the "Five I's"

- "The Friendly Ghost" and Nixon's secret account in the offshore Castle Bank & Trust

"One of the best non-fiction books of the year, a monument of fourth-level research and fact-searching." -Los Angeles Times

"This book will curl your hair with its revelations and the names it names. A landmark book in its field of investigative reporting." -John Barkham Reviews

"Hougan is a superb storyteller and the pages teem with unforgettable characters. Admirable." -The Washington Post

"Hougan is exhilarating on the mystique of spooks." -The New York Review of Book