The Quiet Americans chronicles the exploits of four spies — Michael Burke, a charming former football star fallen on hard times, Frank Wisner, the scion of a wealthy family, Peter Sichel, a sophisticated German Jew, and Edward Lansdale, a brilliant ad executive.

The intertwined lives of these men began in a common purpose of defending freedom, but the ravages of the Cold War led them to different fates.

Scott Anderson, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of several books, including Lawrence in Arabia, follows the story of the four CIA operatives from their heady early exploits through their government’s ultimate betrayal of its own idealism.

Anderson is a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador, and many other strife-torn countries.

“Anderson, whose own father once helped create foreign paramilitary squads as an adviser to the Agency for International Development, casts his characters’ narrative as a tragedy, both personal and national,” Kevin Peraino said in a review for The New York Times.