The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China's Penetration of the CIA Hardcover - 2008

Excerpt

Alexandria, Virginia, November 22, 1985
The interview was at a critical juncture, the agents knew. Control of the situation still eluded them, but they could taste it. They had successfully leveraged what little hard information they had to where he was leaning from seeking legal advice to confessing. The momentum was moving in the agents’ direction, and they weren’t about to allow it to shift . . .
Larry Chin faced a conundrum. If he hoped to convince the agents of his value, he’d have to accentuate his importance. The alternative was to maintain his innocence and run the risk of learning too late that the case against him was incontrovertible. There seemed no in-between option . . .
“Well, it’s a very long story.” Chin sighed. He looked Roth right in the eye as he said this.
Roth, who had been mostly silent to this point, preoccupied with taking notes of the proceedings so that the flow of the interview would be accurately preserved for the use of the US attorney, looked directly back at him.
Softly, he said, “Mr. Chin, we’ve got all night . . .”
“In 1948 . . .”
The agents were dumbfounded.

Media reviews

"Suspenseful cloak-and-dagger reenectmentment of the FBI sting that exposed a Chinese-American double agent in 1985.... Hoffman possesses a solid command of his material and conveys the secretive nature of espionage agencies with a novelist's panache."
— Kirkus Reviews

"Hoffman is a skilled writer and definitely succeeds in producing a page-turner. It is written much like a screenplay, with a lot of attention paid to describing characters, their thoughts, and their surroundings. He lets you live inside the mind of a Chinese spy, an American traitor, or a stressed and sleep-deprived FBI agent. Hoffman allows you to experience the isolation, the fear, the adrenaline, the disappointment, and the huge responsibility weighing on the shoulders of all of his characters. This book was born to be made into a great spy thriller movie."
— The McGill Daily