William Hood

Mole/the True Story of the First Russian Spy to Become an American Counterspy

Hood offers a chilling glimpse into the workings of post-Soviet intelligence operations, as Alan Trosper, the reluctant hero from Spy Wednesday and Cry Spy, once again takes up the tools of his craft. When a former Moscow Central agent, now freelancing for himself, offers to sell evidence of the activities of a highly placed spy, Trosper's efforts to untanglethe web of deception lead him on a dangerous misson to Eastern Europe.

The Sunday Spy

Richard Helms

A Look over My Shoulder begins with President Nixon’s attempt to embroil the Central Intelligence Agency, of which Richard Helms was then the director, in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then recalls his education in Switzerland and Germany and at Williams College; his early career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, during which he once lunched with Hitler; and his return to newspaper work in the United States. Helms served on the German desk at OSS headquarters in London; subsequently, he was assigned to Allen Dulles’s Berlin office in postwar Germany. On his return to Washington, Helms assumed responsibility for the OSS carryover operations in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He remained in this post until the Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947. At CIA, Helms served in many positions, ultimately becoming the organization’s director from 1966 to 1973. He was appointed ambassador to Iran later that year and retired from government service in January 1977. It was often thought that Richard Helms, who served longer in the Central Intelligence Agency than anyone else, would never tell his story, but here it is–revealing, news-making, and with candid assessments of the controversies and triumphs of a remarkable career.

A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency

A Look Over My Shoulder

Fra Angelico's fresco paintings at the Dominican priory of San Marco are among the best-loved works of Italian art, yet they have been oddly neglected by art historians. In this beautiful book, William Hood analyzes the newly cleaned frescoes at San Marco, setting them against the background of fifteenth-century Florentine artistic, political, cultural, and religious history. Hood discusses the ideals, daily rituals, and pictorial traditions of the Dominican order - especially the reformed or Observant branch to which Fra Angelico belonged. He presents new material on traditions of religious art, altarpiece design and imagery, and the decoration of chapter rooms and cloisters. Hood compares Fra Angelico's work at San Marco to earlier Dominican altarpieces and to his other altarpieces for Dominican buildings in Siena, Pisa, Prato, and Florence, pointing out both the traditional elements and the startling novelty of the San Marco altarpiece. Similarly, by comparing San Marco to other Florentine fresco cycles, he illuminates the originality of the cloister and chapter-house of San Marco. Hood's discussion of San Marco follows an itinerary through the church and adjoining convent buildings, beginning with the high altarpiece and ending with the corridor paintings - especially the exquisite Annunciation in the corridor of the north dormitory. Throughout, he analyzes Angelico's use of color, his technique in fresco and tempera, the way he solved specific visual problems, and how his paintings affected fifteenth-century viewers. This beautiful book will be an important addition to our understanding of fifteenth-century art and of artistic and cultural practices.

William Hood

About

Books

Join the club