Bøger af Fred Burton

"The Old Songs" takes place in Queens, N.Y. during the 1950s and 1960s. The members of the extended family you meet have been shaped by The Depression and World War II. They respond to these traumatic events with resilience and defiance, which is captured in their fun-loving and raucous gatherings. It's not long before a tragic event occurs, taking two of the main characters from them. Those left behind struggle to maintain the things that keep them bound to each other, and shun contrary attitudes and ideas. But what they didn't realize was how elusive the control they desired would be. The title captures an essential theme of the book. The first chapter occurs at a family party. The petty conflicts are undone by the singing of songs and you sense the rich heritage this represents. Later, they sing in a restaurant and it becomes painfully clear how the world has passed them by. The concluding chapter has the larger group reassembled for perhaps the final time. The singing begins and feelings of hurt and alienation are met with a counterforce that suggests that beauty can be found even in difficult situations. There are no heroes in this book but truth can be found in the fabric of their shared experience, each strand of which struggles for connection. Their love for each other battles against the crises that have shaped their lives. They are poorly equipped for looking inside themselves because of a morality that scorns analysis of this kind. Despite these obstacles each is given a chance to learn how to forgive, both themselves and each other, and those who grow in this way secure some measure of peace in their lives.

On a warm Saturday night in July 1973 in Bethesda, Maryland, a gunman stepped out from behind a tree and fired five point-blank shots into Joe Alon, an unassuming Israeli Air Force pilot and family man. Alon's sixteen-year-old neighbor, Fred Burton, was deeply shocked by this crime that rocked his sleepy suburban neighborhood. As it turned out, Alon wasn't just a pilot-he was a high-ranking military official with intelligence ties. The assassin was never found and the case was closed. In 2007, Fred Burton-who had since become a State Department counterterrorism special agent-reopened the case. Published to widespread praise, Chasing Shadows spins a gripping tale of the secret agents, double dealings, terrorists, and heroes he encounters as he chases leads around the globe in an effort to solve this decades-old murder.

In this hard-hitting memoir, Fred Burton, a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spycraft, emerges from the shadows to reveal who he is, what he has accomplished, and the threats that lurk unseen except by an experienced, worldly-wise few. Plunging readers into the murky world of violent religious extremism that spans the streets of Middle Eastern cities and the informant-filled alleys of American slums, Burton takes us behind the scenes to reveal how the United States tracked Libya-linked master terrorist Abu Nidal; captured Ramzi Yusef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and pursued the assassins of major figures including Yitzhak Rabin, Meir Kahane, and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan-classic cases that have sobering new meaning in the treacherous years since 9/11. Here, too, is Burton's advice on personal safety for today's most powerful CEOs, gleaned from his experience at Stratfor, the private firm Barron's calls "the shadow CIA.”Told in a no-holds-barred, gripping, nuanced style that illuminates a complex and driven man, Ghost is both a riveting read and an illuminating look into the shadows of the most important struggle of our time.

Benghazi, Libya. 9/11/2012. Just over a year after the fall of Gaddafi, and on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a group of heavily armed Islamic terrorists had their sights set on the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence presence in the city. In the prolonged attack, four Americans died, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency. Based on confidential eyewitness sources within the intelligence, diplomatic, and military communities, Under Fire is the terrifying account of that night, and of a desperate last stand amid the chaos of rebellion.