The book consists of alphabetical biographies of over 200 famous
names in espionage, each varying in length from two paragraphs to a page
or more. The scope is broadly international, and the time frame is the
Cold War period through 1982. Thus, in the first pages we see Rudolph Abel
(a Russian spy), one page, Nahum Admoni (Mossad head in 1982), a half page,
Mehmet Agca (who shot the Pope), a half page, and Philip Agee, slightly
more than one page. High-level desk officers of various intelligence
services are as likely to appear as those who have been caught and shot,
or defectors who were briefly in the news and faded into obscurity. The
descriptions are concise, well-written, and well-informed. The back of
the book has 24 pages that describe the intelligence services of 17
countries.
ISBN 0-312-87432-4