Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas

David Wise has written three spy novels and a number of nonfiction books about U.S. intelligence and espionage, and in Cassidy's Run he vividly merges both genres to create a true story that reads like a thriller. In 1959, Joseph Cassidy was an ordinary army sergeant with no training in intelligence or espionage when he was handpicked by the FBI to operate as a double agent. He spent the next 20 years passing U.S.-approved information to the Soviets about chemical and biological weapons and U.S. troop movements. Dubbed Operation Shocker, some of the information he passed involved an experimental, unstable nerve gas that U.S. scientists believed could not be used. This assumption proved to be a high-stakes gamble since much accurate information was mixed with the false in order to lend credence to the charade. U.S. intelligence may never know whether the information they gave the Soviets actually spurred on Russian chemical weapons development. Part of the objective of the operation was to uncover the Soviets' spy network, and in this respect it was successful, eventually flushing out 10 agents living in the United States. Throughout his time as a double agent, only Cassidy's wife knew of his activities--even his children were unaware--allowing him to retire quietly in Florida with his friends and relatives none the wiser. Cassidy's Run is a fascinating tale of cold-war intrigue publicly unknown until now. --Linda Killian