by David Ignatius.

W.W. Norton. 347 pages. $24.95.

By Sam Coale
Special to the Journal

Novels like this, riddled with CIA plots, counterplots, conspiracies, up-to-the-minute quests for Al Qaeda operatives, with characters leaping from Amman and Washington to Rome and Tripoli, Geneva and Ankara, with some sex and love and self-doubt tossed in on the side, mirror the very worlds they describe.

For example, Ed Hoffman, the gruff boss of ace CIA agent Roger Ferris, “was a series of compartments. You could be in one box, thinking you understood the big picture, and then suddenly discover that what really interested Hoffman was in another compartment, which you might or might not have known about.” It’s Alice through the Looking Glass, a world of betrayal, double-dealings, set-ups, illicit transactions and triple crosses that leaves a trail of corpses behind.

Don’t get me wrong. I love this stuff. You just have to realize that you’ll get deceit and deals in place of any kind of depth. The style has to be lucidly transparent so that we can be surprised when the other shoe drops, and we realize the plot we think we’ve been following is merely a scam set up by secret conspirers and intelligence personnel.

Okay, so this is airport reading. It evaporates the minute you finish it. But of its kind, it’s swift and sure.

I admire the guy who can create such a crackerjack, suspenseful plot, which in this case involves a dead body, swiped to be used later on; slick Dean Martin-smooth Hani Salaam, who runs Jordanian Intelligence and is in league with Ferris, up to a point; the plot to infiltrate the Al Qaeda operation of the mysterious, elusive Suleiman and discredit him entirely, since he’s been in charge of bombing various sites in Europe; Alice Melville who helps Palestinians in refugee camps and with whom Ferris falls in love; Sadiki, the Jordanian architect, whom Ferris sets up to appear to be a rogue Al Qaeda agent, unbeknownst to Sadiki; and various moles, terrorists, car-bombers and double agents, mired in their labyrinthine web of cell phones, fake Web sites, Islamic fanaticism and American payoffs.

Of course everyone is tough and cool, and their actions are always described as awesome and amazing, more in the telling than in the orchestration. But that’s part of the deal.

Having recently been to Amman, I can tell that Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, really knows his stuff and describes that city in swift broad strokes that are right on target. The novel reads like an insider’s narrative, which propels the clever and crafty yarn every step of the way.

The war in Iraq does not come off looking too well here, despite Ferris’ belief, which slowly crumbles, in the We vs. They scenario. The good guys win. The resolution comes neat and tidy. Would that that were true in the interminable fiasco that continues to kill our soldiers as I sit and enjoy this engaging, realistic, CIA fairy tale.