SpyTalk

In the fall comes Berntsen's sober, nonfiction critique of CIA secret ops, Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership. Here Berntsen, highly decorated during a 23-year undercover career that took him from the Balkins to Bolivia and East Africa to the Middle East and South Asia, has written a strong prescription for the agency's Clandestine Service that he hopes will get the next President's attention.  

Elsewhere on the spook-book front, Washington author James Bamford is drilling into the National Security Agency once again. This time it's The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, due out in October, the third leg of a unmatched trilogy that began almost 30 years ago with The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization. 

Until Bamford (full disclosure: a friend) came along, the NSA had proved an impregnable target to the few experienced national security reporters who even contemplated writing about it. (Local wags said NSA stood for "No Such Agency.") But Bamford, a recent law school grad with no journalism experience, didn't know any better: Using an NSA employees newsletter, he found people to talk to him. Three books later, they're still talking to him, much to the consternation of top intelligence officials. Expect headlines.

Also from the shadows, The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China's Penetration of the CIA, an old story with possibly current ramifications, considering the stepped-up pace of Chinese hacking and industrial espionage here. Author Tod Hoffman is an eight-year veteran of the  Canadian Security Intelligence Service, according to his publisher Steerforth Press, "and served on the Counterintelligence: China desk."

Chin was the top Chinese linguist for the CIA, and for 30 years China's top spy, until he was arrested by the FBI in 1985.