Fans pick 77 books like The 9th Man

By Steve Berry, Grant Blackwood,

Here are 77 books that The 9th Man fans have personally recommended if you like The 9th Man. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination

Christopher Beauregard Emery Author Of White House Usher: "Who Killed the President?"

From my list on presidents from a White House insider’s perspective.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my twenty-nine nears in the federal government, I maintained a Top Secret clearance while being a CIO, Chief Architect, & Director of various things with the White House, US Congress, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, where I served in a senior management role for the National Security Division, the agency responsible for serving as the liaison between the Attorney General and the Intelligence Community. Today, my passion is writing about my White House experiences, in both fiction and non-fiction.

Christopher's book list on presidents from a White House insider’s perspective

Christopher Beauregard Emery Why did Christopher love this book?

I have read dozens of books on the Kennedy assassination. This book an Audible, was my favorite. I learned new details to theories that have been reported on in the past, however, the author offers new research which I felt was convincing. The author, Lamar Waldron is the ultimate subject matter expert on the Warren Commission, and all related investigation notes. Over the years, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) releases previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records. Waldron spends endless hours interpreting these new and fascinating revelations.

By Lamar Waldron,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Five decades after one of America's greatest tragedies, this compelling book pierces the veil of secrecy to document the small, tightly held conspiracy that killed President John F. Kennedy. It explains why he was murdered, and how it was done in a way that forced many records to remain secret for decades.

The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination draws on exclusive interviews with more than two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, in addition to former FBI, Secret Service, military-intelligence, and Congressional personnel, who provided critical first-hand information. The book also details the FBI confessions of notorious Mafia…


Book cover of Red Joan

Seth Rosenfeld Author Of Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power

From my list on spies and radicals.

Why am I passionate about this?

Seth Rosenfeld is an independent investigative journalist and author of the New York Times best-seller Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. As a staff reporter for The San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, he specialized in using public records and won national honors including the George Polk Award. Subversives, based on thousands of pages of FBI records released to him as a result of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, won the PEN Center USA’s Literary Award for Research Nonfiction Prize, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Award, and other honors.

Seth's book list on spies and radicals

Seth Rosenfeld Why did Seth love this book?

Inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, who was exposed in 1999 as the KGB’s longest-running British spy, Red Joan is an enthralling novel that vividly reconstructs her life and explores with great authorial compassion her conflicting emotions and unsettling ambiguities as she is drawn deeper and deeper into atomic espionage by a college lover at the dawn of the Cold War.

By Jennie Rooney,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Red Joan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'If you loved William Boyd's Restless, you'll enjoy this' Viv Groskop, Red

Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists - to unworldly Joan it is dazzling.

After a chance meeting with Russian-born Sonya and Leo, Joan is swept up in the glamour and energy of the duo, and finds herself growing closer and closer to them both.

But allegiance is a slippery thing. Out of university and working in a government ministry with access to top-secret information, Joan finds her loyalty tested as she is faced with the most difficult question of all: what price would you…


Book cover of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

Daniel C. Hellinger Author Of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump

From my list on separating conspiracy fact from fiction in American politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a political scientist, a professor emeritus at Webster University, with scholarly publications about Latin American and U.S. politics. My interest in conspiracy theories was piqued by a reviewer who dismissed my book on the “democratic façade” of U.S. politics as a “conspiracy theory.” I took umbrage and denied being a “conspiracy theorist.” Years later, conversing with a colleague about Oliver Stone’s JFK, I dismissed his doubts about the lone gunman theory as a conspiracy theory. He asked whether I would similarly dismiss questions about official stories regarding assassinations in South Asia or Latin America. This all set me on the path to studying the role of conspiracies.

Daniel's book list on separating conspiracy fact from fiction in American politics

Daniel C. Hellinger Why did Daniel love this book?

A positive NY Times review “in brief” of this “journey through the Deep State” caught my attention and mind immediately.

Most political scientists and top-tier journalists, like Ms. Howley, want no part of any association with the “deep state,” yet here was Hawley straying from the usual tone of dismissal, disdain, or stigma about the idea.

As I started reading about Reality Winner’s harrowing experience, I first thought I had mistakenly taken it for non-fiction. In fact, Winner’s name and her experiences are all too real. If there is any paranoia in Winner’s encounter with the deep state, it is to be found in the darker world of the national security state, not Hawley or her subject.

By Kerry Howley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR A VANITY FAIR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Riveting and darkly funny and in all sense of the word, unclassifiable.”–The New York Times

A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America—from the acclaimed author of Thrown

Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections—a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs…


Book cover of Presidents' Secrets: The Use and Abuse of Hidden Power

Robert Ledger and Peter Finn Author Of The Official Record: Oversight, National Security and Democracy

From my list on democracy and secrecy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I (Robert) am primarily interested in modern British history. During my postgraduate studies, I worked mainly with government papers that had just been declassified. Like many historians, I enjoy unraveling the mystery that archival research offers and shedding light on forgotten or unheard stories. Meanwhile, Peter, my co-author, is passionate about the intersection between national security and human rights. He developed this interest during his PhD research, which examined the institutionalization of torture during the Iraq War. This research relied heavily on documents released via freedom of information requests and leaks, both of which are relevant to our book on the Official Record. 

Robert's book list on democracy and secrecy

Robert Ledger and Peter Finn Why did Robert love this book?

Written by Mary Graham of the Harvard University-affiliated The Transparency Policy Project, this book explores how eight presidents stretching backward from Barack Obama to George Washington have dealt with the tensions inherent in government secrecy within a society that (at least in theory and often only for some) allows citizens to feed into the management of government affairs.

Graham illustrates that secrecy has been utilized as much to hide mistakes as it has been to protect national security, as well as exploring key moments in the history of secrecy in the US, such as the labyrinth inquiries that followed the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the Nixon administration.

By Mary Graham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Presidents' Secrets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How presidents use secrecy to protect the nation, foster diplomacy, and gain power

Ever since the nation's most important secret meeting-the Constitutional Convention-presidents have struggled to balance open, accountable government with necessary secrecy in military affairs and negotiations. For the first one hundred and twenty years, a culture of open government persisted, but new threats and technology have long since shattered the old bargains. Today, presidents neither protect vital information nor provide the open debate Americans expect.

Mary Graham tracks the rise in governmental secrecy that began with surveillance and loyalty programs during Woodrow Wilson's administration, explores how it developed…


Book cover of The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia

James M. Olson Author Of To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence

From my list on counterintelligence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m passionate about spying. It was an absolute privilege for me to have been able to spend my life in the shadows, so to speak. I was undercover my entire career doing espionage and covert action operations for our country and the CIA. I discovered very early on that I had a particular fascination for the arcane and Byzantine subspecialty of counterintelligence. It’s hard to describe the exhilaration I felt when we nabbed an American traitor and brought him or her to justice. It doesn’t get any better than that.   

James' book list on counterintelligence

James M. Olson Why did James love this book?

This case makes me very angry. As a former CIA officer myself, I felt deeply the malignancy of this betrayal from within. I was riveted by Denson’s account of how Howard James Nicholson, a CIA clandestine service colleague, let his personal problems and amorality get the better of him. Selling out to the Russians was certainly not the right answer for him, nor was dragging his son into spying. Denson has written a compelling counterintelligence treatise.

By Bryan Denson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spy's Son as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The riveting true story of the father-and-son co-conspirators who sold US national secrets to Russia.

Jim Nicholson was the highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. A single father, respected mentor, and brilliant case officer, he was also a double agent selling thousands of state secrets to the Russians. However, it was from behind the bars of a federal prison that he conducted his greatest betrayal. Just 12 years after Jim's conviction, his youngest son, Nathan, was arrested for the same crime.

Through interviews, private letters, and access to Jim's personal journal, Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson pieces together a…


Book cover of The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

Kate Andersen Brower Author Of Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon

From my list on rule-breaking, risk-taking, bad a$# women.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I covered the White House as a young reporter I was always more interested in understanding what was happening in the upstairs residence than in what briefings we were getting from the president’s advisers in the Roosevelt Room. I was raised with the understanding that in the end everyone is equal and that no one, no matter how powerful they are, gets out of the human experience. I think that’s what makes me interested in iconic women, from Elizabeth Taylor to Betty Ford. There’s nothing I like better than reading their letters and trying to understand what made them tick, and how they navigated their complicated and very public lives.

Kate's book list on rule-breaking, risk-taking, bad a$# women

Kate Andersen Brower Why did Kate love this book?

My friend Denise Kiernan shines a light on the thousands of women who worked on the Manhattan Project.

If you’ve seen Oppenheimer and you’re interested in the story behind the development of the atomic bomb, then this book will help you understand the hidden figures behind its creation. What I love the most about Denise’s writing is the way that she brings the mysterious origins of Oak Ridge, a Tennessee town created to house the people working on the bomb, to life. 

At a time when the stakes couldn’t have been higher, women were at the center of the story.

By Denise Kiernan,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Girls of Atomic City as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback—an incredible true story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb.

“The best kind of nonfiction: marvelously reported, fluidly written, and a remarkable story...As meticulous and brilliant as it is compulsively readable.” —Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, and consumed more electricity than New York City, yet it was shrouded in such secrecy that it did not…


Book cover of Last Second in Dallas

Seth Rosenfeld Author Of Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power

From my list on spies and radicals.

Why am I passionate about this?

Seth Rosenfeld is an independent investigative journalist and author of the New York Times best-seller Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. As a staff reporter for The San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, he specialized in using public records and won national honors including the George Polk Award. Subversives, based on thousands of pages of FBI records released to him as a result of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, won the PEN Center USA’s Literary Award for Research Nonfiction Prize, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Award, and other honors.

Seth's book list on spies and radicals

Seth Rosenfeld Why did Seth love this book?

In some ways, the current epidemic of crackpot “deep state” conspiracy theories can be traced to the miasma surrounding one of the greatest unsolved murders of our time, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Thompson’s new book is an antidote: a rigorous, transparent and compelling investigation of acoustic, photographic, and medical evidence. The philosophy professor turned San Francisco private eye interweaves his own fascinating personal journey with the story of how he came to find, examine, and re-examine forensic evidence that, he concludes, proves Kennedy was killed not by a lone assassin as the Warren Commission found, but in a cross-fire from at least two shooters.

By Josiah Thompson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Last Second in Dallas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this long-awaited follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1967 classic, Six Seconds in Dallas, Josiah Thompson reveals major new forensic discoveries since the year 2000 that overturn previously accepted 'facts' about the Kennedy assassination. Together they provide what no previous book on the assassination has done - incontrovertible proof that JFK was killed in a crossfire.

Last Second in Dallas is not a conspiracy book. No theory of who did it is offered or discussed. Among the discoveries: The test showing that all recovered bullet fragments came from Oswald's rifle was mistaken. Several fragments could have come from bullets of…


Book cover of The Bishop's Pawn

Cathy O'Bryan Author Of A Child of the Cold War: Code Name: Kitten

From my list on the Cold War, Nazi hunting, and growing up with spies.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a wife of 38 years, mother of two fine adults, teacher of 30 years in art, speech, theatre, art…well painter, and now author, I enjoy hearing about others' stories. Purely by accident, I wrote a small personal story and found that people wanted more… so I wrote more and shazam I had a book. My first book is about childhood experiences and growing up in my normal world. For me it was normal but the outsiders looking in today would see anything but normal. My parents’ careful actions sheltered my sister and me from the outside world's bad influences until things blew up. Then with care they showed us their world of Nazi hunting.

Cathy's book list on the Cold War, Nazi hunting, and growing up with spies

Cathy O'Bryan Why did Cathy love this book?

I really enjoy all of Steve Berry’s books but this one stuck with me. This adventure of Cotton Malone examines the death of Martin Luther King from a very different perspective. As a teenager at the time of King's demise, I was intrigued by his spin. Rarely do I feel compelled to do research after I read his books because he does it for you at the end of his books. This one had me looking for some of Rev King's speeches and reading for myself. Pick this one up you won’t want to put it down.

By Steve Berry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Bishop's Pawn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first case of New York Times bestseller Steve Berry’s iconic hero, Cotton Malone.

History notes that the ugly feud between J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King, Jr., marked by years of illegal surveillance and the accumulation of secret files, ended on April 4, 1968 when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. But that may not have been the case.

Now, fifty years later, former Justice Department agent, Cotton Malone, must reckon with the truth of what really happened that fateful day in Memphis.

It all turns on an incident from eighteen years ago, when Malone, as a…


Book cover of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

Kevin James Shay Author Of Death of the Rising Sun: A Search for Truth in the JFK Assassination

From my list on the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 1978, I happened to be the only person present in the cramped office of my college newspaper in Texas, when Kennedy assassination eyewitness Bill Newman entered. It was during the midst of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations’ investigation into the matter. Newman was standing no more than 15 feet from Kennedy when he was shot. His account intrigued me, sending me on a search that has yet to end. I witnessed Kennedy’s funeral in Washington, D.C., as a boy, grew up in Dallas, and even shared the same birthday with him. Several articles I wrote on the assassination and ensuing research have won awards, including a Best in Show Feature Writing Award from the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association. I have written books on other topics, but this is the one that most consumed me.

Kevin's book list on the John F. Kennedy assassination

Kevin James Shay Why did Kevin love this book?

Written in a deeply personal, even spiritual manner that incorporates a vast amount of research, this book moved Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to visit the assassination site in Dallas for the first time more than four decades after the tragedy. Douglass particularly investigates Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement with American intelligence agencies and writes in a highly readable style that appeals to both average readers and researchers. He provides perspective on not just how Kennedy was killed, but why, as well as why the assassination is important to continue to research to this day.

By James W. Douglass,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked JFK and the Unspeakable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The acclaimed book Oliver Stone called "the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance," JFK and the Unspeakable details not just how the conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy was carried out, but WHY it was done...and why it still matters today.

At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the…


Book cover of Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

Patti McCracken Author Of The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring

From my list on true crime books that are literary keepers.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a practicing journalist, I preferred getting my stories from the back road—“off the beaten path,” as is said. What I’m drawn to is the way a story is told, and since my game is journalism, I like the true ones. My father was a pretty good storyteller. My brother-in-law is wicked good. I hang with my jaw open, waiting on his next word. It’s like being able to tell a good joke. Few can do it. When it comes to True Crime, forget the blood and body count. Anyone can lay out the facts. It takes master storytelling to deliver us to the army of small truths that brought forth the crime—and the humanity that dissolved along the way.

Patti's book list on true crime books that are literary keepers

Patti McCracken Why did Patti love this book?

Oswald’s Tale is a book I’d like to read again. I was born the year after JFK was shot, but the tragedy hung over my family in such a way that each of my older siblings had a portrait of the dead president folded into their baby books.

Mailer depicts someone rootless and restless, hungry and in a hurry to make his mark. Oswald in Russia was the most disturbing to me. I spent nearly two decades in the former Soviet bloc and other so-called developing democracies. Time and again, I ran across aimless Americans who had set up camp abroad, just to be someplace “other.” In search of an identity. They were unsettled and uncomfortably eccentric. I could have run into any number of Oswalds during that long stretch of my life.

By Norman Mailer,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Oswald's Tale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work looks at the life of harvey Lee Oswald. In 1959 he defected to the Soviet Union and was sent to Minsk, where he was kept under constant KGB surveillance on the suspicion that he might be a CIA agent. In 1993 Norman Mailer spent six months in Minsk retracing Oswald's two and a half years in the USSR, interviewing Oswald's former friends and sweethearts. He obtained exclusive interviews with KGB officers and access to KGB surveillance reports. Mailer also provides an account of Oswald's disastrous childhood and of the events leading from his return to the US in…


Book cover of The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination
Book cover of Red Joan
Book cover of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

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Interested in assassins, conspiracies, and JFK?

Assassins 86 books
Conspiracies 45 books
JFK 71 books