The Spymaster of Baghdad

The Spymaster of Baghdad is the gripping story of the Falcons- the top-secret Iraqi intelligence unit that infiltrated the Islamic State. Against the backdrop of the most brutal conflict of recent decades, we chart the spymaster's struggle to develop the unit; follow the fraught relationship of two of his agents, the Sudani brothers - one undercover in ISIS, the other his handler - and track a disillusioned scientist as she turns bomb-maker. With unprecedented access to characters on all sides, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Margaret Coker challenges the conventional view that western coalition forces defeated ISIS and reveals a page-turning story of unlikely heroes, unbelievable courage and good old-fashioned spycraft.

Margaret Coker is an investigative journalist. She has lived and worked in Iraq and the wider Middle East since 2003. An ex-Baghdad Bureau Chief for the New York Times , she honed her reporting skills at The Wall Street Journal where she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize as part of a team chronicling Turkey's failed coup, political purges and teetering democracy. Her coverage of national security issues won the Overseas Press Club Award and the Edwin M. Hood Prize from the National Press Club, America's top prize for diplomatic reporting. This is her first book.