marrenreads's review
3.0
Intriguing glimpse into the world of private intel business. Readers need some prior knowledge of events Meier describes in this book. 3.5 stars
cb1984's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
2.5
Eh. There's certainly a lot of information, but by the nature of it (the relationship between private spies and journalists) none of it seemed particularly exciting - the most interesting stuff (the Steele dossier) is very much public domain. The book basically asserts its theory (private spies and journalists have a relationship that is bad for the public) it doesn't go any further than just repeating that over and over again through examples. There's a brief afterword about how to address it that was more interesting than about half the book.
rmotti's review against another edition
2.0
Weird book to read on holidays in Cyprus where 9 out of 10 people are Russian.
gotossmycausticsalad's review against another edition
informative
4.0
Easy to read and very compelling. I don't feel like it was in depth enough to have answered all my questions on the intersection between private spying and journalism, but it's definitely given me a broad enough look to want to read deeper on the subject.
One small nitpick is that sometimes he'll throw in a random personal detail about someone he's talking negatively about in a professional light, which seems a bit unnecessary. I get that they're doing something shitty, I don't need the extra layer of character assassination too.
One small nitpick is that sometimes he'll throw in a random personal detail about someone he's talking negatively about in a professional light, which seems a bit unnecessary. I get that they're doing something shitty, I don't need the extra layer of character assassination too.
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