Description
From Booklist When Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove was having its run, service people left the theater muttering, “That wasn’t a satire. That’s what they’re like.” So it is with Eisler’s fine thriller. His power-mad loons, who pull the levers of supersecret government organizations, aren’t exaggerated for dramatic effect. We know that because Eisler has appended an eighteen-page guide to all the nasty stuff governments do in the name of national security. His achievement, though, is to make this cybersnoop world not just a backdrop but instead a vital—and wonderfully vile—character on its own. Evelyn Gallagher, head of the NSA’s camera network and facial-recognition program, observes a meeting between a reporter and a would-be whistle-blower. She reports it to her boss, who decides the two must be killed and Evelyn spied upon because now she knows too much. The agent sent to monitor her is not quite what the boss thinks, and the personal and cyberfink stories are blended beautifully. Tension and action spice the plot, but that’s all that can be revealed here. Someone might be watching. —Don Crinklaw, Starred Review An Amazon.com Best Books of the Month Selection: Mystery & Thriller “Eisler’s expert knowledge of spycraft and hand-to-hand combat combine with his ultra-deep distrust of government intelligence to propel this suspenseful yarn into the front ranks of paranoid thrillers.” — Publishers Weekly , Starred Review “A timely thriller that will make readers wonder how much the government really knows about them...An engaging tale about a serious issue. Read it and squirm.” — Kirkus Reviews "Award-winning author Eisler craftily incorporates his CIA background and detailed research in this electrifying thriller. Numerous hand-to-hand combat scenes and espionage galore are sure to captivate fans of Lee Child or Daniel Silva." — Library Journal “Eisler has managed to evoke a half-hidden global conflict that is still largely misunderstood even by many of its own participants. In documenting the parts and making accessible the whole, he has done the public a profound service that goes well beyond entertainment.” —Barrett Brown, activist and journalist “Read this book because it’s wildly entertaining. Respect it because it paints a portrait of America that is more timely, terrifying, and relevant than anything gracing the bestseller lists. This is fiction that thrills, makes you think, and makes you consider the surveillance state that is fast becoming our daily lives. What more can a novel aspire to do? The God’s Eye View is one of the most important books that will be published this year.” —Blake Crouch, author of The Wayward Pines Series “Barry Eisler writes terrific political thrillers, but they have a deeper message. He wants us to think about the surveillance state we’re creating, a world of pervasive spying on everything we say and do. This book will entertain, as all good thrillers do, but it'll also ask you to consider the price we'll all pay if unaccountable governments know everything about us while we know little or nothing about what they do with our money and in our names.” —Dan Gillmor, teacher of digital media literacy at Arizona State University, journalist, and author “Barry Eisler takes us into the most forbidding—and forbidden—places, programs, and conversations in the Intelligence Community. We’re in the room as the generals and bureaucrats charged with protecting us instead plot to deny Americans our constitutional liberties. It’s not pretty, and blood is going to be spilled. The only way I can sleep after reading this book is by trying to convince myself it’s fiction.” —John Kiriakou, whistleblower, former CIA “Creepy. This story is much more plausible than I expected—or care to admit.” —Chelsea Manning, former army intelligence analyst and transparency advocate “An absolute page-turner I couldn't put down—complete with real world details and references. If you want to learn why we should fear the NSA, while being tremendously entertained, this is the book for you.” —Mike Masnick, founder and CEO of Techdirt “Barry Eisler has done it again. The God’s Eye View is a character-driven action tale grounded in real-life events. With the knowledge of an intelligence community insider, Eisler explores the slippery slope of authoritarian impulses that are unleashed when fear and power combine in unaccountable government agencies, and the destruction—of lives and ideals—that inevitably follows.” —Elisa Massimino, president and CEO of Human Rights First “ The God’s Eye View is a delicious, thrilling read about a deep state surveillance program that even Edward Snowden did not unearth…This page-turner is replete with references to real-life voices of truth and transparency, and shows how easily and quickly democracy can be subverted by government secrecy and unchecked power.” —Jesselyn Radack, lawyer for Edward Snowden “There are few authors alive who can weave real-life headlines and state-of-the-art technology into riveting storytelling as convincingly as Eisler. The God's Eye View is a prescient and page-turning tale about just how powerful secretive government spy agencies like the NSA have become...and how quickly they can spin out of control.” —Trevor Timm, executive director, Freedom of the Press Foundation “This is the nightmare scenario: when the director of our national surveillance machine goes out of control. But there are certainly hints in both leaked and released documents that such a scenario might be possible, as well as in the ease with which intelligence officials can contract out specific tasks. The God’s Eye View is a compelling picture of why we need to rein in our surveillance state. Plus, it's an awesome read.” —Marcy Wheeler, Emptywheel Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler’s award-winning thrillers have been included in numerous “Best Of” lists, have been translated into nearly twenty languages, and include the #1 bestseller The Detachment . Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Learn more at www.barryeisler.com. Read more
Features & Highlights
- Knowledge is power…and they know everything.
- NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. He knows unlimited surveillance is the only way to keep America safe.
- Evelyn Gallagher doesn’t care much about any of that. She just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA’s camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash.
- But when Evelyn discovers the existence of an NSA program code-named God’s Eye, and connects it with the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins: Delgado, a sadistic bomb maker and hacker; and Manus, a damaged giant of a man who until now has cared for nothing beyond protecting the director.
- Within an elaborate game of political blackmail, terrorist provocations, and White House scheming, a global war is being fought―a war between those desperate to keep the state’s darkest secrets and those intent on revealing them. A war that Evelyn will need all her espionage training and savvy to survive. A war in which the director has the ultimate informational advantage: The God’s Eye View.
