Robert Littell does for the CIA what Mario Puzo did for the Mafia. The Company is an engrossing, multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic yet utterly entertaining and candid saga, bringing to life, through a host of characters—both historical and imagined—the nearly 50 years of this secretive and powerful organization.

In a style both intelligent and ironic, Littell tells it like it was: CIA agents fighting not only 'the good fight' against foreign enemies, but sometimes the bad one as well, with the ends justifying such means as CIA-organized assassinations, covert wars, kidnappings, and toppling of legitimate governments.

Behind every manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, though, one question spans the length of the book: Who is the mole within the CIA? This astonishing novel captures the life and death struggle of an entire generation of CIA operatives during a long Cold War.