Synopses & Reviews
Based on access to never-before-seen task forces and FBI bases from Budapest, Hungary, to Quantico, Virginia, this book profiles the visionary agents who risked their lives to bring down criminals and terrorists both here in the U.S. and thousands of miles away long before the rest of the country was paying attention to terrorism. Given unprecedented access, thousands of pages of once secret documents, and hundreds of interviews, Garrett M. Graff takes us inside the FBI and its attempt to protect America from the Munich Olympics in 1972 to the attempted Times Square bombing in 2010. It also tells the inside story of the FBI's behind-the-scenes fights with the CIA, the Department of Justice, and five White Houses over how to combat terrorism, balance civil liberties, and preserve security. The book also offers a never-before-seen intimate look at FBI Director Robert Mueller, the only U.S. national security leader still in office from 9/11, and the most important director since Hoover himself.
Covering more than 30 years of history and coming right up until the present day of the Obama administration's response to terrorist attacks like that on Christmas Day 2009 in Detroit, the book explores the transformation of the FBI from a domestic law enforcement agency, handling bank robberies and local crimes, into an international intelligence agency--with more than 500 agents operating in more than 60 countries overseas today--fighting extremist terrorism, cyber crimes, and, for the first time, American suicide bombers.
Brilliantly reported and suspensefully told, The Threat Matrix peers into the darkest corners of this secret war and will change your view of the FBI forever.
Review
Kirkus Reviews: One of the best nonfiction books of 2011.
"Action-filled, richly detailed portrait of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its new guise--charged not just with solving crimes already committed, but now with preventing at least some of them...There's solid storytelling at work here--and quite a story to tell, too."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Review
"The Threat Matrix is...a well-told story and a reading pleasure."--The CIA journal Studies in Intelligence (September 2011)
Synopsis
The Threat Matrix is the story of a small group of FBI agents who believed that they could confront a new generation of international terrorists like al Qaeda without sacrificing America's moral high ground. At the heart of this classic good versus evil battle are decades of tensions between the FBI and the CIA, which repeatedly fell short as America's eyes overseas.
Given unprecedented access, thousands of pages of once secret documents, and hundreds of interviews, Garrett M. Graff takes us inside the FBI and its attempt to protect America. From the corridors of the Hoover Building to the cells of Gitmo and the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Graff tells the true story of how a generation of FBI agents taught themselves to confront threats no one had ever seen before.
Brilliantly reported and suspensefully told, The Threat Matrix peers into the darkest corners of this secret war and will change your view of the FBI forever.
Synopsis
In this brilliantly reported account, Graff tells the story of a small group of FBI agents who believed that they could confront a new generation of international terrorists like al Qaeda without sacrificing America's moral high ground.
About the Author
Garrett Graff is the editor-in-chief of The Washingtonian. He is the author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House (FSG, 2007) and the founding editor of the FishbowlDC.com, the first blog to cover the White House press briefings.