First Casualty

“Harnden…secured a coup by persuading the CIA to give him access…a terrific action narrative.”–Max Hastings, Sunday Times of London
“First Casualty reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, yet every word is true, and painstakingly researched. This is modern warfare close-up and raw: the pity, the heroism, the cruelty, and very occasionally some moments of glory too, as human beings are pushed to their furthest limits of endurance, and beyond. Harnden tells the extraordinary story of the battle of Qala-i-Jangi with verve, intelligence, acute analysis and flashes of ironic wit. It would make a terrific movie.”–Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
“An absolutely gripping read”–Brad Thor
“First Casualty is the closest most readers will come to really knowing a spy; Harnden intimately portrays who these men were and are as America attempts to extract itself from its longest war.”–James Pekoll, Booklist
“Harnden skillfully interweaves dramatic action sequences with the backstories of the book’s central figures, and briskly highlights the failures of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Readers will be swept up in this little-known chapter of America’s ‘forever war.’”–Publishers Weekly
“Harnden’s scoop is to have convinced the CIA to give him access to its key men from those early days.” –The Spectator
“Run, don’t walk to pick this up. Toby Harnden has done a masterful job…What a powerful read.”–James A. Gagliano
“The hard-to-imagine drama, in the hands of another narrator, could easily turn overwrought; in this book, it is not. First Casualty is rife with heroic moments. But it is the variety of the human reactions in those moments, and afterward, that separates this book from others. Fear, combat fatigue, and sadness appear often in the narrative…This book is compelling, sometimes disturbing, but in a necessary way.” –Philip Mudd, former senior CIA officer, The Cipher Brief
“This is an amazing book - highly recommended.” –Marc Ambinder
“This is Afghanistan’s Black Hawk Down…Harnden’s account is both well-informed and panoramic.” –Daily Telegraph (UK)
“Vividly describes the rollicking adventures Langley’s men enjoyed amid the blood, dust and tribesmen.” –Bloomberg News
A Good Morning America September Buzz Pick

Toby Harnden is a winner of the Orwell Prize for Books. A former foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London and the Daily Telegraph who reported from thirty-three countries, he specializes in terrorism and war. Born in England, Harnden was imprisoned in Zimbabwe, prosecuted in Britain for protecting confidential sources, and vindicated by a $23 million public inquiry in Ireland. A dual British and US citizen, he spent a decade as a Royal Navy officer before becoming a journalist. He holds a First Class degree in modern history from Oxford and is the author of First Casualty, Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh, and Dead Men Risen: An Epic Story of War and Heroism in Afghanistan. Previously based in London, Belfast, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Washington, DC, he lives in Virginia.

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