Two Spies in Caracas: A Novel

From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Power comes an edge-of-your-seat political thriller about rival spies, dangerous love, and one of history’s most devastating revolutions. Venezuela, 1992. Unknown colonel Hugo Chávez stages an ill-fated coup against a corrupt government, igniting the passions of Venezuela’s poor and catapulting the oil-rich country to international attention. For two rival spies hurriedly dispatched to Caracas — one from Washington, DC, and the other from Fidel Castro’s Cuba — this is a career-defining mission. Smooth-talking Iván Rincón of Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate needs a rebel ally to secure the future of his own country. His job: support Chávez and the revolution by rallying the militants and neutralizing any opposing agents. Meanwhile, the CIA’s Cristina Garza will do everything in her power to cut Chávez’s influence short. Her priority: stabilize the greatest oil reserves on the planet by ferreting out and eliminating Cuba’s principal operative. As Chávez surges to power, Iván and Cristina are caught in the fallout of a toxic political time bomb: an intrepid female reporter and unwitting informant, a drug lord and key architect in Chávez’s rise, and personal entanglements between the spies themselves. With everything at stake, the adversaries find themselves at the center of a game of espionage, seduction, murder, and shifting alliances playing out against the precarious backdrop of a nation in free fall. A thrilling fictional story based on unimaginable real-life events.

About the Author :
Moisés Naím is a Venezuelan author and prize-winning journalist whose writing on international affairs is read worldwide, appearing in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, El País, and many others. He is the author of twelve nonfiction books, including Illicit and the New York Times bestseller The End of Power. A former contributing editor to The Atlantic, Naím was also the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine for fourteen years. Two Spies in Caracas, his first work of fiction, is based on his experience as a former member of Venezuela’s economic cabinet. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family. For more information visit www.moisesnaim.com. Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor, and translator with nearly seventy books to his name. He chaired the Translators Association for two years and served four years as a director of the British Centre for Literary Translation and four years as editor of the journal In Other Words. Recent translations include Juan Pablo Villalobos’s I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me, Julián Fuks’s Resistance, and Carola Saavedra’s Blue Flowers. For more information visit www.danielhahn.co.uk.

Review :
Praise for Two Spies in Caracas A New York Times Globetrotting Pick! An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense “Naím wields his experiences as an international affairs writer and former Venezuelan economic cabinet member to provide authoritative insights into the severe economic downturns and rises in violence stemming from the power plays of external actors seeking to exploit a vulnerable nation in turmoil. This is a must for anyone who wants to explore this tumultuous and often strange period in modern Latin American history.” —Publishers Weekly “A nail-biting modern-history thriller set in 1990s Venezuela, Two Spies in Caracas: A Novel is a tale of crisscross alliances, easily betrayed…Intense, and written with the realism drawn directly from the author’s personal experience serving as a former member of Venezuela’s economic cabinet, Two Spies in Caracas is enthusiastically recommended especially for connoisseurs of the genre.” —Midwest Book Review “[A] sharp, effective indictment of Hugo Chávez and the late tyrant’s brand of authoritarian populism.” —Foreign Affairs Praise for The End of Power “A remarkable new book by the remarkable Moisés Naím.” —Richard Cohen, Washington Post “Naím is a courageous writer who seeks to dissect big subjects in new ways.” —Wall Street Journal “[A] highly original, interdisciplinary meditation on the degeneration of international power…The End of Power makes a truly important contribution.” —Washington Post “This fascinating book…should provoke a debate about how to govern the world when more and more people are in charge.” —Foreign Affairs “After you read The End of Power, you will see the world through different eyes. Moisés Naím provides a compelling and original perspective.” —Arianna Huffington “[Naím] makes his case with eloquence.” —Financial Times “A timely and timeless book.” —Booklist “Having served as editor in chief of Foreign Policy and executive director of the World Bank, Naím knows better than most what power on a global scale looks like…[A] timely, insightful, and eloquent message.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “The End of Power will change the way you read the news, the way you think about politics, and the way you look at the world.” —William Jefferson Clinton “In my own experience as president of Brazil, I observed firsthand many of the trends that Naím identifies in this book, but he describes them in a way that is as original as it is delightful to read. All those who have power—or want it—should read this book.” —Fernando Henrique Cardoso