Bloodmoney

Bloodmoney by the Washington Post journalist David Ignatius is, as the subtitle says, a novel of espionage. Even though I personally think espionage as an occupation is just one step above games grown-up boys play, this book works very well for its genre. The plot - a rogue CIA operation under attack by a disillusioned Pakistani math wonder - it tight and moves at a fast clip. The characters are not wonders of deep psychological insights, but that's to be expected in this kind of a book. True to his journalistic background, Ignatius did a required amount of research to get the locales - the tribal world of Waziristan and the world of high finance in London - right to the smallest detail. To that effect, all of his Pakistani protagonists talk like oracles, with their most trite utterances sprinkled with Pashtun and Urdu proverbs, all saying things like "your friends are your enemies, your enemies are snakes, and your friends are snakes, and you have be beware of snakes...". (We Must give the author two thumbs up for the enthusiastic use of folklore here.) All in all, not a bad book. Makes you wonder if spies are really like people in Ignatius's book. Because if they are... well, make your own conclusions.