{"product_id":"the-asset-edward-c-distel-9798235019669","title":"The Asset","description":"\u003cp\u003eBill Tinsley was an Army Ranger who believed the country would tell him clearly where to stand. It did - until it didn't.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter his discharge, Tinsley takes a contractor position with a private security firm in Baghdad, where a chance encounter in a hotel bar introduces him to Peter Strand - a man who says he's CIA, who speaks Tinsley's language, and who understands exactly what a disciplined, idealistic veteran needs to hear. The work is quiet. The information seems low-grade. The trust comes easily. It always does, when someone has studied how to take it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Tinsley is abruptly fired and flagged as compromised, he has no idea what he actually gave away or to whom. Strand has vanished. The agency denies everything. And the contractor system that employed him has already moved on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRebuilding from nothing, Tinsley follows a thread that leads him out of Baghdad to Zurich, then Algiers, then into an alliance with a Mossad officer and an Algerian intelligence agent - the last two people he expects to trust. What they uncover together is not simply a spy operation. It is an architecture of false identity that stretches across years and continents: a constructed Russian legend called Misha Volkov, a domestic extremist cell given the fiction of official sanction, forged documents designed to trigger a diplomatic crisis, and behind all of it, a single MSS officer who has been patient enough to let everyone else do the damage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Asset is a novel about what happens when the machinery of intelligence meets the very human need to be useful - and about the distance between those two things, which is wider than any contractor is ever told.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSmart, precise, and deliberately paced, THE ASSET is for readers who want a thriller that respects their intelligence as much as it tests their nerves.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Edward C. Distel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798235019669\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Edward Distell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/22\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 518\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.51lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.15d","brand":"Edward C. Distel","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50666039050495,"sku":"9798235019669","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-asset-edward-c-distel-9798235019669","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}