Everybody Lies in Wartime

About the Book

Everybody lies—especially in wartime. Individuals do it for personal advantage. Governments do it for political and strategic reasons. General Donovan, the director of the US military’s Office of Strategic Services sends officer Charles Worthington in early 1944 to open a direct liaison relationship between the OSS and the Soviet’s civilian intelligence service, the NKVD. The exchange program turns out to be a waste of time, but then Charles receives a discreet offer from an NKVD official. He claims to have information about NKVD penetrations within a secret American weapons program called the Manhattan Project, which is supposedly developing something called an atomic bomb. In return, the Russian wants to be smuggled to America to begin a new life. His life is also complicated by his growing fondness for an attractive female employee at the British embassy in Moscow, efforts by various Russian informants around him, and the harsh Russian winter. In the end, he must decide whether he will do what is best for himself or best for America.

About the Author

Mr. Coyle spent 30 years as a field operations officer for the CIA, almost half of that time abroad, working undercover in a variety of countries, including in Moscow in the mid-1980s during the Soviet Union era. He is a recipient of the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit for one of his Russian operations. After retiring in 2006, he taught courses on national security issues until 2017 at Indiana University, while writing fictional spy novels as a hobby. Having been a student of history and himself an intelligence officer, he is able to weave together an intriguing and realistic tale of historical espionage. He shows in this, his seventh spy novel, that he understands well the great game of espionage and human emotions.