Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A former Newsweek foreign correspondent reviews his often perplexing experiences as the son of a CIA operative. Now a freelance journalist, Johnson begins in 1973, his birth year, with a story about a snake charmer in India, where his father was stationed. The snake charmer proves an apt metaphor for the mysterious elder Johnson, a sophisticated persuader whose ability to charm was his deadliest arrow as he sought to flip other agents and foreign nationals. The author does not obey a strict chronology. After 10 chapters that deliver us to 2001, Johnson returns to Mexico City in 1968, wondering if or how his father was involved in the deadly violence that occurred there just before the Olympics. Rendering the question even more wrenching is his realization that Johnson pre could have been involved in the arrest of the father of a woman Johnson fils was dating. About halfway through, the narrative arrives near the present with a summary of the author's sometimes-harrowing experiences covering the war in Iraq; he survived an IED explosion while riding in a Marine vehicle and had other brushes with death. We also hear about Sarajevo in 2004 and, in later chapters, about visits with his uneasily retired father in Spokane. They took some road trips, and en route, we learn about some of the missions and adventures of Johnson pre, though he says he resents interrogations. Nonetheless, the author kept pushing him to impart as much family and professional history as possible, trying to understand a man with such a deadly past who nonetheless both professes and demonstrates a profound love for his son. Gripping, emotional depictions of the conflicts that rage in the interior and exterior worlds of a spy--and of a journalist.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

When Johnson was a teenager living in suburban Detroit after years of living in exotic places around the world, his father revealed the secret that had guided their lives: he was a CIA agent. That revelation gave Johnson license to deceive and cover up as well, joining his father in a double life. Feelings of fear and isolation never left him, even later as he pursued a career as a journalist. As a foreign correspondent, he found astounding parallels between his father's work and his own, including source development and the sometimes clandestine nature of the work. Johnson traces his life as son and journalist from the U.S. to Mexico to the Middle East and Europe, tracking secrets and wondering about the morality and authenticity of his and his father's lives together and apart. He ponders the impact of secretiveness on his father's marriages and on his own failed relationships. An enthralling look at a complicated father-son relationship and a painful investigation of the messiness of truth in journalism, intelligence ops, and life.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist