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Imperfect but compelling While Perkins' writing style leaves much to be desired - perhaps too many years composing corporate memos and dry economic forecasts - the content makes this book truly compelling. The author's frequent bouts with guilt feel gratuitous (enough with the mea culpas; we get it already), but the fragmented tales of empire building draw the reader in. Perkins' lack of substance regarding several key issues, including those whom he calls jackals, creates deserved skepticism. By contrast, his first-hand experiences in the exclusive game of international shadow politics is sometimes revelatory (yet ultimately much like what many of us already guessed but never had the proof). Conspiracy theorists will read this book with Biblical reverence while the rest of us should simply admire it for what it is: a fascinating, if flawed, personal confession from a cog in an immense, ethereal machine.