In April of 1983, CIA operative Robert Ames was killed outside the American Embassy in Beirut, along with another sixty-three people, when a bomb there exploded.

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird knew Ames; they were neighbors when Bird was living in the Beirut Embassy as a child. This connection was the springboard for hours and hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, as well as research into private letters and many other interviews, all of whom were central to the spy life of Robert Ames.

The Good Spy is more than a typical biography, though. Ultimately it is the study of the making of a great man, a great proponent for peace, as well as a comprehensive study of the twentieth-century turmoil that has engulfed the Middle East.

Listen to an excerpt of the unabridged audiobook below, and then check out this interview with the author.