[Iron Budokan]

I finished By Way of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy. Eh, not very good.

It purports to be a true story about a Mossad katsa (assassin) but I'm not buying it -- not completely. I think it gives a good description of what the initial training is like...but I also think Ostrovsky is putting himself in more of a good light than he deserves. He was kicked out of the Mossad, according to him because they wanted to cover up a blown operation. Sounds too much like revisionist CYA history. The book also isn't structured very well. The first half is about Ostrovsky but then the second half is about several other Mossad operations -- themselves written and structured to show how bad the Mossad is.

I'm not arguing the Mossad is either good or bad...but this comes across as more of a polemic than an examination of history. It also smacks more of Philip Agee than anything else. Skip this turkey.