INSIDE THE SECRET WORLDS OF THE RAW AND THE ISI

With unprecedented access to two of the world’s most inscrutable spy agencies, the RAW and the ISI, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-clark describe the workings of bitter rivals, mapping their complicated history from the 1960s to the present day. From the Parliament attacks to Pulwama, 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the rise of terror’s shadow armies to the fall of Kulbhushan Jadhav, here are some of the key events that have shaped the region, told from the split viewpoints of duelling enemies.

Levy and Scott-clark also uncover a darker seam, of the destructive impact of CIA interference, and how the ISI fought for its life against dark forces it once funded, while RAW strengthened its hand. Revelatory and unputdownable, Spy Stories clears the fog to reveal the spies and their assets, as you have never seen them before.

It’s the late 1960s. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world — Auroville, an international utopian community. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut beside a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville and never understood those deaths. Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the underexplored yet universal idea of utopia. Richly atmospheric, this is narrative writing of a high order.

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Better To Have Gone; Love, Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville