An Ordinary Spy
by Joseph Weisberg
288 pages
(2008, Bloomsbury USA)

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An Ordinary Spy is the thrilling story of two CIA Case Officers whose lives are permanently changed by the agents they recruit and run.

Mark Ruttenberg is a young, slightly naïve new officer who is about to go on his first international assignment. Before he leaves for , however, he learns about a former operative, Bobby Goldstein, whose relationship with his informant LXMALIBU led to his termination. Mark is able to determine that something went seriously wrong with the operation, but that's as far as he gets before he has to leave.

While abroad, Mark tries to forget about LXMALIBU and focus on his job at the CIA Station. It's a life of hobnobbing, high security, and courting potential informants like , high-ranking dignitaries, and powerful generals. But when he falls for the wrong woman, Mark finds himself sent back to the United States. Not sure how to integrate into his old life, Mark is in limbo until he receives a postcard with just an address on it. Who sent the postcard, and where is it supposed to lead him? Could this all be an ops test, with Mark's future hanging in the balance?

When he gets a call from Bobby Goldstein, Mark agrees to meet him and finds himself in , and in the middle of a still very active operation. Soon, he'll have to decide if righting an old wrong is worth taking a terrible and very personal risk.

"Most so-called spy fiction out there today is so far from reality that we pros don't read it. Joe Weisberg is a notable exception. He nails it. An Ordinary Spy captures perfectly the spy world I lived in my whole career, how we talk, how we think, and how we operate." —James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence and the author of Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying

"I have never read an espionage novel with quite the sense of authenticity Joe Weisberg achieves in An Ordinary Spy. He has crafted not only an engrossing and highly original work, but a fascinating journey into a world most of us will never encounter. Chances are you'll never think about the CIA in quite the same way again." — Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha

"In a world where everyone is always promising to reinvent genres and subgenres, Joseph Weisberg hijacks the espionage thriller and finds the grave beauty in the quotidian—and dares to write about one of the most dangerous topics of all, the search for a meaningful yet moral life." — New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman