A Firing Offense - A Novel

New York: Random House. Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 1997. First Edition. Hardcover. Autograph; Clean and secure in original binding in very nice dustjacket. Inscribed and signed by the author on the halftitle "For my friends Rowly and Kay Evans / with best wishes / David Ignatius / May 1997" While in Paris, New York Mirror reporter Eric Truell lands the scoop of a lifetime. But when a maverick CIA agent starts leaking explosive, highly sensitive secrets to the savvy journalist, his career skyrockets.As his ties to the CIA deepen, Truell becomes tangled in a dark web of espionage and murder that spans from Washington to Beijing.Uncovering shattering truths in a realm of deceivers, and even more shocking lies in the world of journalism, Truell will make a perfect spy. And an even better victim ... David Ignatius is a critically acclaimed novelist and award-winning journalist whose fiction is cited on the CIA's Web page as work that should be read as the truth. He is now assistant managing editor for business news at The Washington Post, where he has also served as foreign editor and editor of the Outlook section. Before joining the Post, he was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he spent three years chronicling the collapse of Lebanon and the rise of terrorism. He is a graduate of Harvard and Cambridge. PROVENANCE: Rowland Evans was a provocative newspaper columnist, commentator and author who antagonized liberal politicians and championed conservative causes. He left Yale and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942 during World War II and was discharged in 1944 because of malaria. In 1963, Mr. Evans and Mr. Novak began writing ''Inside Report,'' an insider's view of politics that was published four times a week until Mr. Evans retired in 1993. Mr. Evans and Robert Novak began their work as columnists in the early 1960's, a time when newspaper columnists wielded outsize influence in national politics. The pair pioneered in transferring that influence to the medium of cable television with the political discussion program ''Evans & Novak'' -- carried on CNN from that cable network's beginning. Rowland Evans and his wife Kay (Katherine Winton Evans), also a respected writer and editor, were mainstays on the Washington social scene, hosting many memorable gatherings in their handsome Georgetown house -- to which flocked influential and remarkable people drawn from journalism, politics and general society over the decades from the 1960s to the 2000s. Both Evans and Novak became more predictably conservative over the years, particularly during the Reagan years. Reportedly, both columnists voted for JFK in 1960 and for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Evans earned a place on Richard Nixon's infamous "Enemies List." Novak reported that Evans had JFK as a guest for the first dinner party the latter attended as President Elect. Kay and Rowland Evans has a particularly close friendship with Robert F. Kennedy, his wife Ethel and their family.; Signed by Author .