Renowned espionage writer Alex Berenson says he draws some inspiration for the plots of his acclaimed spy thrillers from the headlines, but that he would best describe his novels of undercover CIA agent John Wells as “reality-adjacent.”
Berenson chatted on Wednesday with attendees of The Cipher Brief's State of Play Salon Series about his newest book, The Prisoner, his career as a bestselling novelist, and how he incorporates the biggest national security issues of the day into Wells’ fictional world.
“I’m not going to pretend this book is in any way a real depiction of a CIA operation,” Berenson said, “And it shouldn’t be.”
Berenson said he does want the books to “feel real” in their depiction of the CIA and its interaction with the government and larger world affairs, “Not because I feel any duty to the CIA to be accurate, I just think the books are better if they’re close to being accurate.”
His latest John Wells book, which hit shelves in January, offers a flashy take on the most dominant national security issues, from ISIS to insider threats. There's a mole inside the CIA, and to help catch them Wells must go undercover with the aim of getting captured and thrown in a secret Bulgarian prison. His goal is to cozy up to a high-level member of ISIS jailed there who the agency believes can pinpoint the mole.
Wells is now in his mid-40s — and he “really shouldn’t be in the field anymore,” Berenson said. The CIA agent, a convert to Islam who spent years undercover with al Qaeda, has also learned he’s a father again. Berenson said readers have told him that Wells’ life as a father and partner to the mother of his child have “made the stakes higher” and “humanized” the character.
What’s next for the agent?
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep him in the field,” Berenson said. “And he doesn’t really belong in [CIA headquarters] in Langley. It would drive him crazy.”
Berenson — who contemplated killing Wells in his first book, but ultimately found he couldn’t put him in the ground — said that “one day” that fate awaits his fictional creation.
“When I have to kill him — and one day I’ll have to kill him — it’s not like a family member, but it’s like my dog,” Berenson added later on in the evening. “Wells is like my dog.”
Two stints reporting from Iraq spurred his career shift from New York Times journalist to spy novelist, leading him to write his debut novel, The Faithful Spy. According to Berenson, Wells isn’t based on any particular person, but the fictional agent does share some characteristics with soldiers he met in Iraq.
As for Berenson’s own journey from reporting in the field to penning spy novels, he offered some words of wisdom to other journalists who want to make the shift.
“A lot of journalists want to be novelists,” Berenson said. “They think it’s easier, and it’s not.”
But, he said, as a reporter he knew how hard it was to get a story — that sources sometimes lie or the whole truth never gets told. As a novelist, “you control the whole world,” he said.
“Characters can lie to each other and to themselves, but they can’t lie to me,” Berenson said.
He covered a wide range of topics at the Times, from the drug industry to Hurricane Katrina, but in 2010 he decided to make a go of it as a full-time fiction writer. The only regret Berenson said he has from abandoning his reporting days is that he never became a real foreign correspondent with a bureau.
He hasn’t lost the travel bug, though. For each book he writes now, he said, he makes sure to visit the significant locations, such as Saudi Arabia or Paris, to add flavor or meet interesting people on the ground.
“It gets me into the mindset of Wells,” Berenson said.
Don’t confuse the two, however.
“Wells is so much tougher and a better guy than me,” according to the author, “My wife says Wells is my ego projection.”
As for Wells’ future off the page, Berenson said he’s talking to a studio and they “say they’re interested.” So far, though, Berenson said, there’s no check and no set plan for a filmed version. Back when he wrote the first Wells novel, the rights were sold for a movie starring Keanu Reeves, although it never came to fruition. Now, Berenson said, actor Christian Bale would be on his wish list for Wells.
Along with his Wells novels, Berenson wrote one nonfiction work, The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America, several years before he turned to thrillers. In 2007, he won the Edgar Award for best first novel for The Faithful Spy, the book that introduced readers to CIA agent Wells.
“It turned out I’m better writing about spies than accounting,” Berenson said.
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @mweinger.
