Plenty of juicy spycraft anecdotes here that are so bonkers they must be true. Speculation about the reasons someone choose to become a spy is fascinating even as it remains mere speculation.

The real strength of the book is revealing the mundane way that individual reactions to military intelligence and its source can impact the way a country goes to war. There were serious failures in 1973 and the book lays them at the feet of specific personalities. Harsh, but somewhat convincing also.

The final chapters are more speculative, but it's fine to leave a little mystery behind. ( )

. In this gripping account, Bar-Joseph draws on research and extensive interviews with people who experienced events firsthand and sheds new light on a crucial period in the history of modern Egypt and the Middle East. The first part of this book is a biographical portrait of Ashraf Marwan, loathed son-in-law of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and trusted advisor of Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat. As such, Marwan had access to the deepest secrets of Egypt’s government. Under the codename “The Angel,” Marwan turned Egypt into an open book for the Israeli intelligence services—and, by alerting the Mossad in advance of the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur, saved Israel from a devastating defeat.
The second part of this book is a thriller of how the Mossad recruited Marwan, used the intelligence he provided to defend Israel and Israeli interests abroad, and then released his identity as a Mossad agent to the world. Bar-Joseph successfully convinces the skeptical reader that an ambitious Egyptian national, born into a well-respected nationalistic Egyptian family, married to the daughter of the most revered Arab leader, with no known Zionist sympathies or Arab antipathies, was not a double agent for Egyptian intelligence. While living out his final years as a wealthy international businessman, Marwan’s life was ended in 2007, when his body was found in the garden of his London apartment building. Police suspected he had been thrown from his fifth-floor balcony (by business associates, the Mossad, or Egyptian intelligence?). It has all the tension, plot twists, and drama of a spy novel, only this story is real. The author, Bar-Joseph, is a former Israel Defense Forces intelligence analyst.