10 Must-Read David Ignatius Books from the Author of Body of Lies 

David Ignatius’s most well-known novel follows a soldier named Roger Ferris who is working for the CIA to bring down a mysterious master terrorist known only as “Suleiman”. To do so, he has created an expansive network of lies and subterfuge, and must rely on contacts within the Jordanian intelligence services. However, all of these intrigues threaten to close in on him as he pursues his deadly prey in a “fast-paced and psychologically deep” (Washington Post) thriller that is “hard to put down” (Wall Street Journal), adapted into the 2008 movie of the same name.

Two decades before Body of Lies, David Ignatius made his fiction debut with this “superlative spy novel” (New York Times), which follows an idealistic CIA agent in Beirut who attempts to recruit a high-level operative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Originally published in 1987, Agents of Innocence was hailed by legendary journalist Bob Woodward as “an unparalleled and hauntingly accurate portrait of how the intelligence game is really played” and helped to secure a place for Ignatius as a leading voice in American spy novels.

When CIA chief Harry Pappas receives vital intelligence about the Iranian bomb program, he must enlist the help of a top-secret British organization known as “The Increment” in this New York Times-bestselling “page-turner of the highest order” (Publishers Weekly). The result? “A meticulously crafted, tightly woven tale … a thinking person’s thriller” (Kirkus Reviews), which sees Harry forced to confront dangerous and unpredictable choices – and maybe even betray his own country, in order to save it.

“You emerge from its pages as if from a top-level security briefing,” raves the Washington Post of David Ignatius’s Bloodmoney, “confident that you have been let in on the deepest secrets.” A CIA unit in Pakistan is trying to buy peace with America’s enemies – but not all enemies can be bought, as agent Sophie Marx discovers to her own peril in this “terrific, believable novel about the intersection of politics, ethics and finance” (Kirkus Reviews) that represents “Ignatius at his best” (Washington Times). 

Many of David Ignatius’ fictional protagonists work for the CIA – an area that Ignatius knows well – but for A Firing Offense, he sticks even closer to home, writing about “the coolest, smartest journalist that fiction ever produced” (Washington Post). Eric Truell is a rising star in the world of journalism, and he’s hit the scoop of a lifetime when he is contacted by a maverick CIA agent. However, when his sources tell him that there is a spy in his very newsroom, the stories may suddenly be leaping off the headlines in this “crisply written, fast-paced espionage thriller” (Library Journal).

An Iraqi billionaire has passed away, but what became of his money? Dangerous men believe that the answers may lie with computer analyst Liz Alwen and financial investigator Sam Hoffman – and they’re willing to kill to find out in this “wholly convincing” (New York Times Book Review) thriller that is “engrossing all the way” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Read it to see why the Chicago Sun-Times raved that “there has not been as good an espionage writer in god knows how long,” while Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said, “This is the book of choice for your next airplane ride.”

David Ignatius takes aim at cyber-espionage in this “sensational thriller” (Politico) which follows Graham Weber, who has been director of the CIA for only a few weeks when a kid in a dirty shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says that the agency has been hacked. What follows is a maze of double-dealing, where the operations of the CIA are threatened by exposure at every turn, with the lives of agents, assets, and contacts hanging on the brink even as battle is waged on a new front—one composed of ones and zeros.

As World War II raged, countries around the world raced to be the first to complete an atomic bomb. Today, a similar arms race exists to see who will be the first to develop a quantum computer, capable of tearing its way through any encryption in seconds. Into this potentially world-changing race comes CIA officer Harris Chang, who is trying to track down a potential Chinese spy within a United States quantum research facility in this book filled with “complex intrigue [that] will please thriller fans” (Kirkus Reviews) and show why Ignatius is “at the top of the thriller pack” (Publishers Weekly).

“Tension, suspense, betrayal, and revenge … David Ignatius is the best in the world at this stuff” raves bestselling author Lee Child about this “chilling story of the way the internet has been weaponized” (Washington Post). When CIA operative Michael Dunne is caught in a tangled web by a news organization that is a front for dangerous international intrigue, the CIA leaves him to take the fall. A year later, Dunne is out of jail and out for revenge in “one of those rare novels that you will want to read twice – the first time for the enjoyment, and the second time to take note of how Ignatius does what he does so well” (Bookreporter).

An early novel from David Ignatius, Siro is set against the backdrop of the Cold War, as restless CIA agent Alan Taylor goes beyond the bounds of duty and the law in his efforts to destabilize the Soviet Union. In this “spy thriller that succeeds as both stunning entertainment and searching probe of the contemporary political chessboard” (Publishers Weekly), David Ignatius displays an early grasp of the political acumen that would lead Brad Thor, author of The Last Patriot, to refer to him as the “dean of international intrigue.”