I received a PRC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review... I was hooked to this book upon starting it, but as I went through I started losing interest due to the shifting of the stories and the long list of unconnected characters (I couldn't remember who was who?!). I thought it might've just been me that had a hard time keeping up, but I realize other readers have also felt the same way. So overall, the topic is definitely interesting and there's plenty to learn from this book, it just has some flow issues.

This is book is a heavy on the details look at private spies for hire both in the United States and the United Kingdom. The book details how some prominent journalists moved over into private investigative work. It details how investigations are conducted and who hires private spies. It brings up some legitimate concerns about how privates spies operate.

Incredibly well-researched and important book about the new private spying industry. But it felt like too much of a takedown on a single company / individual (Fusion GPS / Glenn Simpson), but there was no overarching narrative, other than “this is bad and possibly illegal”. Lots and lots of fun and interesting vignettes about sleazy ex-journalists and ex-intel guys for hire - each story is interesting, but felt more like a reporters from following lots of old stories. It didn’t feel like a cohesive larger story. It’s an important story and I wish it were told better.

Thank you Harper and Netgalley for providing this ARC. I thought this nonfiction book about spies for hire and the Steele dossier was fair to average. It was very confusing in parts, whether because of the number of characters in it or because some parts seemed to end abruptly and not be further discussed. I didn’t feel I learned that much of interest beyond “don’t be a sucker.” It also needs additional proofreading and editing (even for an advance copy) as it had a fair amount of missing words or extraneous words.