LITERATURE + LECTURES

Brazos Bookstore is pleased to welcome author and State Department special agent Fred Burton on Thursday, May 26 at 7 PM to discuss and sign his new book, Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent's Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice.

On a warm Saturday night in July 1973 in Bethesda, Maryland, a gunman stepped out from behind a tree and fired five point-blank shots into Joe Alon, an unassuming Israeli Air Force pilot and family man. Alon's sixteen-year-old neighbor, Fred Burton, was deeply shocked by this crime that rocked his sleepy suburban neighborhood. As it turned out, Alon wasn't just a pilot - he was a high ranking military official with intelligence ties. The assassin was never found and the case was closed. In 2007, Fred Burton - who had since become a State Department counterterrorism special agent - reopened the case.

Here, Burton spins a gripping tale of the secret agents, double dealings, terrorists, and heroes he encounters as he chases leads around the globe in an effort to solve this decades-old murder. From swirling dogfights over Egypt and Hanoi to gun battles on the streets of Beirut, this action packed thriller looks into the dark heart of the Cold War to show how power is used, misused, and sold to the most convenient bidder.

Chasing Shadows encompasses the last century's greatest events, including Alon's boyhood Holocaust survival, work in Czech underground, and national hero of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Fred Burton is one of the world’s foremost experts on security, terrorists, and terrorist organizations. He is vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security at Stratfor, an influential private intelligence company. He is the former deputy chief of the Diplomatic Security Service, the Department of State’s counterterrorism division.