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The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much
New York Times ^ | January 30, 2013 | Robert F. Worth

Posted on 02/02/2013 11:11:04 AM PST by JerseyanExile

Last June, a pulp-fiction thriller was published in Paris under the title “Le Chemin de Damas.” Its lurid green-and-black cover featured a busty woman clutching a pistol, and its plot included the requisite car chases, explosions and sexual conquests. Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and Israeli intelligence agencies. And most striking of all, it described an attack on one of the Syrian regime’s command centers, near the presidential palace in Damascus, a month before an attack in the same place killed several of the regime’s top figures. “It was prophetic,” I was told by one veteran Middle East analyst who knows Syria well and preferred to remain nameless. “It really gave you a sense of the atmosphere inside the regime, of the way these people operate, in a way I hadn’t seen before.”

The book was the latest by Gérard de Villiers, an 83-year-old Frenchman who has been turning out the S.A.S. espionage series at the rate of four or five books a year for nearly 50 years. The books are strange hybrids: top-selling pulp-fiction vehicles that also serve as intelligence drop boxes for spy agencies around the world. De Villiers has spent most of his life cultivating spies and diplomats, who seem to enjoy seeing themselves and their secrets transfigured into pop fiction (with their own names carefully disguised), and his books regularly contain information about terror plots, espionage and wars that has never appeared elsewhere.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhomiddleeast; bookreview; espionage; gerarddevilliers; grarddevilliers; lechemindedamas; syria; syriawar; writing

1 posted on 02/02/2013 11:11:08 AM PST by JerseyanExile
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To: JerseyanExile

Unable to find this book in English....


2 posted on 02/02/2013 11:24:07 AM PST by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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To: JerseyanExile

Clancy books are ahead of the news too but without all the porn.


3 posted on 02/02/2013 11:51:26 AM PST by firebrand
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To: JerseyanExile

There is another writer with a French Name like Andre De Borchgrave or something who also has good sources in intelligence. he often collaborates with another writer. (Larry someone?)

Leon Uris’ book Topaz was also fiction based on fact about a real French spy in NATO who worked for the Russians. He got out of prison and recently had an interview where he professed that he regretted nothing.


4 posted on 02/02/2013 12:17:50 PM PST by wildbill (You're just jealous because the Voices talk only to me.)
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To: wildbill

Perhaps you’re thinking of American Arnaud de Borchgrave (educated in the UK and served with the Royal Navy) and Robert Moss (’The Spike’, 1980).


5 posted on 02/02/2013 12:27:35 PM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: jjotto

I think you’re right.


6 posted on 02/02/2013 12:33:38 PM PST by wildbill (You're just jealous because the Voices talk only to me.)
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To: JerseyanExile
Mmm. Busty women.


7 posted on 02/02/2013 12:42:01 PM PST by Bratch
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To: JerseyanExile
At a layover, I picked up a spy novel.....I didn't get very far through it before I cast it aside.

I get that fiction is fiction and fantasy land and all that, but when there are so many things that are patently false, it makes it hard to escape into the fantasy set by the author.....mainly because he keeps talking of SENATOR Joe McCarthy's evilness and that McCarthy dragged the protagonist's father before the HOUSE Un-American Activitees Commitee (HUAC).

8 posted on 02/02/2013 12:59:21 PM PST by Repeat Offender (What good are conservative principles if we don't stand by them?)
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To: Repeat Offender

Thrillers are about all I read anymore.


9 posted on 02/02/2013 2:58:17 PM PST by Jabba the Nutt (.Are they stupid, malicious or evil?)
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To: MestaMachine; LucyT; JerseyanExile

Benghazigate ping...

“Nearly a year ago he published a novel about the threat of Islamist groups in post-revolutionary Libya that focused on jihadis in Benghazi and on the role of the C.I.A. in fighting them. The novel, “Les Fous de Benghazi,” came out six months before the death of the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and included descriptions of the C.I.A. command center in Benghazi (a closely held secret at that time), which was to become central in the controversy over Stevens’s death.”

Boy that CIA command center in Benghazi sure was a secret six months after it was trumpeted in the most wildly popular, French spy novel series, a series well-known to reveal factual intelligence secrets and to anticipate impending operations. /s

The translated title of this book about Benghazi Islamists is “The Insane of Benghazi” if I remember my French correctly.


10 posted on 02/02/2013 7:25:25 PM PST by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)
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To: Perdogg; Cincinna; fanfan; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ...

Thanks JerseyanExile.
Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and Israeli intelligence agencies. And most striking of all, it described an attack on one of the Syrian regime’s command centers, near the presidential palace in Damascus, a month before an attack in the same place killed several of the regime’s top figures... the latest by Gérard de Villiers, an 83-year-old Frenchman who has been turning out the S.A.S. espionage series at the rate of four or five books a year for nearly 50 years...
Enough Primates with Enough Typewriters ping.


11 posted on 02/03/2013 8:51:56 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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