The Increment by David Ignatius

From the Publisher

From a hidden enclave in the maze of Tehran, an Iranian scientist who calls himself "Dr. Ali" sends an encrypted message to the CIA. It falls to Harry Pappas to decide if it's for real. Dr. Ali sends more secrets of the Iranian bomb program to the agency, then panics. He's being followed, but he doesn't know who's onto him, and neither does Pappas. The White House is no help-they're looking for a pretext to attack Tehran.

To get his agent out, Pappas turns to a secret British spy team known as "The Increment," whose operatives carry the modern version of the double-O "license to kill." But the real story here is infinitely more complicated than he understands, and to get to the bottom of it he must betray his own country.

The Increment is The Spy Who Came In from the Cold set in Iran, with a dose of Graham Greene's The Human Factor to highlight the subtleties of betrayal.

The Washington Post - Art Taylor

The Increment seeks to paint a full portrait of its young scientist—charting his hopes and fears, plumbing the motivations behind his shifting allegiances and dangerous betrayals…It may lack fireworks, but [The Increment] bears the hard weight of both political and personal history and recognizes the seriousness of what might come next.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Ignatius (Body of Lies) explores America's escalating cold war with Iran in a thriller sure to draw comparisons to le Carré's The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. When Harry Pappas, the new CIA chief of the Iran Operations Division, receives an unsolicited e-mail from an alleged Tehran scientist who calls himself "Dr. Ali" that implies Iran has in fact continued with its nuclear weapons program and is "an imminent threat to global peace," he shares the information with his superiors only to find an administration bent on warmongering. Having vowed never again to play a role in a senseless conflict that could potentially kill thousands of innocents, Pappas, whose only son was killed while serving in the second Iraq War, must somehow identify Dr. Ali, get him out of Iran and mine his knowledge before the U.S. blunders into another unnecessary war. While the realistic story lines build to a somewhat predictable ending, this remains a page-turner of the highest order. (May)

Barbara Conaty - Library Journal

Can a heartsore and weary CIA veteran juice up fresh, meaty intelligence from buttoned-down Tehran? Does his trusted Secret Intelligence Service colleague have an inside track, and will he share? Who really holds the cards on the nuclear weapons story in Iran? Ignatius (Body of Lies), the Washington Post columnist whose knowledge of spydom and exotic places brilliantly illuminates his espionage novels, imagines an Iran where a young physicist is ready to turn his back on the regime. Agent Harry Pappas works out a plausible lifeline, and the adventure begins. Ignatius floods his latest book with highlights of technology while exploring the dark heart of human betrayal with menacing ambiguity. This masterful and modern-day account of a realistic nuclear threat has already been sold to movie moguls and will be heavily promoted. A sure bet for all thriller collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ1/09.]

Kirkus Reviews

Another taut, believable thriller from Washington Post columnist Ignatius (Body of Lies, 2007, etc.), who pits a world-weary CIA agent against an administration looking for any reason to go to war. The thrill of fieldwork has long left CIA veteran Harry Pappas. He's done it all, seen it all and lost a piece of himself in the process. Now stationed at headquarters in D.C., running the agency's efforts to stay on top of Iran, Pappas cloisters himself with his small staff and monitors Teheran's nuclear capabilities. It's all pretty much business as usual, until a message from an unexpected inside source sets off a rush to judgment. Harry, still reeling from a personal loss, plays on an old relationship and takes a desperate gamble that leads him to the Increment, a British team that will risk everything in this complicated story of spies, diplomacy and nuclear confrontations. Deploying his considerable storytelling skills, the author once again immerses readers in a totally believable universe. Jargon, geography and detail all ring true as his meticulously crafted, tightly woven tale moves from Washington to London and Iran. The plot grabs everything in its path like a snowball rolling down a hill. As the action unfolds, Pappas proves both a capable protagonist and a man of principal: Rumpled and analytical, he has no delusions about his colleagues at the CIA and other intelligence services, but his sense of right and wrong compels him to keep trying to make a difference. Ignatius matches dead-on dialogue to an increasingly complicated plot without sacrificing clarity. A thinking person's thriller with a timely take on recent international politics. Film rights to Disney and JerryBruckheimer

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