Missing Man
The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran
ISBN10: 0374536937
ISBN13: 9780374536930
Trade Paperback
288 Pages
$21.00
CA$28.50
In late 2013, Americans were shocked to learn that a former FBI agent turned private investigator who disappeared in Iran in 2007 was there on a mission for the CIA. The missing man, Robert Levinson, appeared in pictures dressed like a Guantánamo prisoner and pleaded in a video for help from the United States.
Barry Meier, an award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, draws on years of interviews and never-before-disclosed CIA files to weave together a riveting narrative of the ex-agent's journey to Iran and the hunt to rescue him. The result is an extraordinary tale about the shadowlands between crime, business, espionage, and the law, where secrets are currency and betrayal is commonplace. Its colorful cast includes CIA operatives, Russian oligarchs, arms dealers, White House officials, gangsters, private eyes, FBI agents, journalists, and a fugitive American terrorist and assassin.
Missing Man is a fast-paced story that moves through exotic locales and is set against the backdrop of the twilight war between the United States and Iran, one in which hostages are used as political pawns. Filled with stunning revelations, it chronicles a family's ongoing search for answers and one man's desperate struggle to keep his hand in the game.
Reviews
Praise for Missing Man
"Barry Meier provides a fine-grained chronology of the so-far fruitless efforts to persuade Iran to release Levinson, efforts that take in arms dealers, the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast, Russian oligarchs and an angry Kurd . . . Constructed as a nonfiction thriller, Missing Man is at its core a tragedy, Death of a Salesman in the Persian Gulf."—Karl Vick, Time
"Barry Meier’s new book, Missing Man, catalogues how Iranian and U.S. officials knew far more about Levinson’s disappearance than previously acknowledged . . . Meier is a prize-winning, thoughtful journalist who has followed this story closely and written about it extensively in the New York Times. Which is a good thing, because the cast of shadowy characters and cameo appearances (including, bizarrely, one by 1990s actress Linda Fiorentino) makes the convoluted story tough to follow. Questionable players with questionable agendas create such a sordid tale that the only people you feel for are Levinson’s heartbroken family."—Valerie Plame, The Washington Post
"[An] important and troubling new book . . . Judging by Meier’s account. if ever there was a case for blowing up the CIA and starting over, as many agency oldtimers have argued, the Levinson affair is it."—Jeff Stein, Newsweek
"The CIA’s side of this story remains classified. Barry Meier’s book, Missing Man, provides more than enough information to make sense of Mr. Levinson’s tragic trip to Kish, a freewheeling entrepôt where Americans may visit without visas and where Iranian security forces seized the American, imprisoned him, and taunted his family and former colleagues with pictures of him disheveled and wasting away. Mr. Meier, a New York Times reporter who has covered this story for years, limns a depressing picture of the amateurish, voracious intelligence appetites of some in the CIA."—Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Wall Street Journal
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
1
The House on Ninety-Second Street
When they were teenagers, Bob Levinson’s oldest sons thought the greatest way to spend a Sunday afternoon was to sprawl out on the living...