Scarier Than Fiction

Susan Hasler‘s perfectly titled Intelligence: A Novel of the CIA is one word: s-c-a-r-y. It also made me laugh, buried me in the sobriety of reality, horrified me, and kept me up late just to finish it. But it is, above all else, simply frightening. In fact, it’s so scary I really don’t think it’s a novel, except for maybe the last several chapters, in which–but I won’t tell you, because I highly recommend the book and don’t want to spoil it for you.

More documentary/exposé than fiction, I think, Hasler’s work is a startling warning and, although the supposedly fictitious plot is laced with actual dates and real events, cannot be placed among the annals of historical fiction: its worries and action hearken back not to yesteryear but instead to yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The bureaucracy of and political maneuvering surrounding and within the CIA are the real culprits of this novel, and the frustration and cynicism felt by Hasler’s characters are infectious. Thankfully they (and therefore readers) find moments of relief from the stresses of their work, but the undercurrent of truth is hard to shelve: cumbersome agencies of “intelligence” are no match for destructive creativity.