Overworld : The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy ebook

by Larry J. Kolb

Just finished this fascinating book Kolb is a better writer than he was a spy I think

Just finished this fascinating book. Mr. Kolb has an amazing wit, kindness and self-understanding that make this a pleasure to read. I laughed out loud several times and, fortunately, owning the hardback, have dog-eared pages so I can return to several specific incidents again and again. Wish I would have known about it when first published. Kolb is a better writer than he was a spy I think. The story grabbed me from page one and even though this is a huge tome, I was pouring through it at every free minute I had until the end. The stories he tells that aren't directly about "spy" work are the most interesting parts of the book. His experiences with Muhammad Ali were fascinating.

Upon the publication of Overworld, Kolb was again recruited, this time by the Department of Homeland Security, to help investigate two white collar . Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy. NY: Riverhead Books.

Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy.

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Raised in various countries around the world as the son of an American spymaster, Larry Kolb tells how his father taught him to think, look and listen like a spy, and how a friend and colleague of his father attempted to recruit him to the CIA. Kolb declined, choosing instead to become an international businessman. His early success - in his mid-twenties he became an agent for several professional athletes, including Muhammad Ali - brought him into contact with many of the world's wealthiest and most powerful men, making him irresistible to master spy and CIA co-founder, Miles Copeland.

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In his first book, Overworld, Larry J. Kolb told a dizzying, spy-studded story of his lifelong adventures as the son of a senior United States intelligence official. For a man who had lived so much of his life in the shadows, Mr. Kolb used this book to cast an improbably bright light. Overworld came out in 2004.

Larry Kolb was born into a house of spies. reads like the best of John le Carré-but it's all true. How To Get Book For Free. download Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy Full PDF version. Powered by TCPDF (ww. cpdf. Raised all over the world as the son of a. high-ranking American spymaster, Kolb was taught by his father to think, look, and. listen like a spy. But when Kolb himself was recruited to join the CIA, he declined, choosing instead to pursue a career in business. Read This First: We offer two ways that you can get this book for free, You can choose the way you. like! You must provide us your shipping information after you complete the survey.

Raised around the globe by a high-ranking American spymaster, Larry Kolb learnt to think, look and listen like a spy. Overworld - his father's term for the powers-that-be - is Larry Kolb's story of his own life-long interaction with those powers.

Kolb's investigation of Robert Sensi and Richard Hirschfeld led him to discover and foil a conspiracy to smear the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign . Bibliographic Details.

Very good in very good dust jacket. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Minor bottom edge soiling. Publisher: Riverhead Books, New York, NY. Publication Date: 2004.

Spying has always been portrayed as a glamorous occupation. Overworld is where the truth meets the fiction...Larry Kolb's life reads like it's been ripped from the pages of a spy thriller. The son of an American spymaster, Kolb is shown the basics of tradecraft at his father's knee. He is taught to think, look and listen like a spy. And it is no surprise when the CIA approaches him barely out of his teens. But Kolb declines and instead becomes a highly successful sports agent for athletes including Muhammad Ali, which brings him into contact with some of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people. But the CIA always get their man. Master spy and CIA co-founder, Miles Copeland, sees the opportunity that Kolb's tireless globetrotting represents. When Kolb relents and finally takes the job, he is soon embroiled in covert intrigues in Beirut, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Pakistan and India. Peopled by larger-than-life characters such as Adnan Khashoggi, Imelda Marcos, Rajiv Gandhi and Ronald Reagan, Overworld is a real-life adventure story, offering a unique and compelling picture of the danger, glamour and psychology of espionage - as well as an extraordinary insight into how the wheels of global power really turn...

Togor

Although the writing is not the most polished this book has a lot of information that will be new to the neophyte espionage readers and even manages to sneak in a few things that are very good for every day life that most of us either don't know or ignore. It is written from a very personal point of view, as if the author was just sitting in your living room and was an acquaintance. The problem I find with that is that most people, including myself, will take anything someone we don't really know with a grain of salt and this takes away from the book; there's a point in the book where you begin to doubt the veracity of it. Most of the non-espionage claims can be authenticated easily enough but there's a lingering doubt as to the participation of the author in these events the way he described it. The book is worth reading.

Arlana

Shou

Abuseyourdna

Great story. It was a little hard to follow chronologically.

Vonalij

Just finished this fascinating book. Mr. Kolb has an amazing wit, kindness and self-understanding that make this a pleasure to read. I laughed out loud several times and, fortunately, owning the hardback, have dog-eared pages so I can return to several specific incidents again and again.

Wish I would have known about it when first published. Oh well, better late than never. Learned so much about Muhammed Ali, I admire the man even more.

Must read for those who enjoyed Harlot's Ghost.

Gholbirdred

I know Larry Kolb. When I heard some of his stories, I, like many others, must have wondered what was true and what wasn't. Over the course of a few years, it became clear that it was true. I saw tapes of Ali and him and asked others who knew about him with Jan Stephenson (Kolb is a darned good golfer, and instructor, too), and they all verified his stories.

When I saw that he had a book published, I purchased it out of curiousity. Now that I've read the entire work, I can only say that it is a very impressive piece of work, and an incredible life. Considering the time that we are in now, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how things work in this world. Fascinating.

My only reason for not giving it five stars, was that I thought the editing could have made it a smoother read.

Bys

Kolb is a better writer than he was a spy I think. The story grabbed me from page one and even though this is a huge tome, I was pouring through it at every free minute I had until the end.

The stories he tells that aren't directly about "spy" work are the most interesting parts of the book. His experiences with Muhammad Ali were fascinating. And I'll admit I read on in some places wondering who's name who get dropped next: we go from his connections with Jan Stephenson to Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton to Daniel Ortega, Imelda Marcos (mix a little Rudi Guliani into that plot), everyone who was every prime minister or aspired to be prime minister of India, 1/2 the ruling class of the middle east, Stewart Copeland (drummer for The Police), and Dodi al Fayed in a matter of a few hundred pages. And yes, I went to google and did a search for ""muhammad ali" "jesse jackson" photo elvis" as well as ""rajiv gandhi" kolb" after reading this to convince myself that maybe at least some of it is true.

But what I was baffled by as I got to the end was this: did the author deliberately telegraph the ending so the readers would see it coming easier than he did? Or was it just this obvious who was setting him up and for all of his connections and sophistication, he missed it?

This is a must read for any lovers of spy novels or thrillers of the Clancy genre, with the added benefit that despire the "hero" stepping in something too big of, the story and characters are real.

Kolb tells the true story of the son of a spy who tried not to follow in his father's footsteps but ended up doing so anyway. But it's more than a spy thriller. Somehow this vast, swirling storm of a memoir is also a social and cultural history of the second half of the American Century-with some of the most amazing real-life characters ever written all shifting in and out of the author's life. We meet the author's father, an American spymaster at the height of his powers while the author was still a child, living in Cold War Japan, Britain, and Germany. By the age of eleven, Kolb is so curious about his father's work, that he takes to spying on his father and the spies who worked for him-beginning to learn about the secret world. While still in his twenties, Kolb becomes a close friend of Muhammad Ali, and soon he is traveling around the world with Ali "meeting presidents and kings and dictators." This gives Kolb the sort of access in Middle Eastern capitals that brought him to the attention of CIA co-founder and Middle East specialist Miles Copeland. Copeland recruits Kolb, trains him in the ways of spies, then sets him to work. And now we meet Saudi billionaire and covert statesman Adnan Khashoggi, President Ronald Reagan, and Vice President George Bush--who seems to be still running the CIA while working out of the Reagan White House. We go to war-torn Beirut for a secret meeting in a safe house in the middle of the night, where we meet Hizbollah terrorist leaders to try to arrange the release of the American and British hostages held in Beirut. We meet Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, deep in the throes of one of his most difficult struggles with the CIA. We meet Iranian arms dealers, Israeli spymasters, Saudi kings and princes, mujahideen, assassins, gem smugglers, patsies, and secret warriors. We meet Imelda Marcos and her putative protector Doris Duke. We meet an Indian swami who is plotting to take over control of India, and almost manages it. We even meet Elvis Presley, almost. Yet all of this, and all of these characters, are part of one true spy story-which makes it rather amazing. Beyond the fact that it explains espionage better than any book I've ever read before, and shows us the roots of the problems now plaguing America's intelligence services, with such a rich cast of real-life characters this book is also somehow like Zelig, or Little Big Man, only it's true. Read this book.