The Paladin

This started as a guilty pleasure read (who doesn’t like a good spy novel), but turned into something that was also helpful for my understanding of some of the more disruptive modern technologies that will play an important role in geopolitics during our time, especially deepfake technology.

Ignatius really did his homework for this book, visiting (or living in) each of the plot’s locations, crediting folks who work directly in the fields of question for his research, and of course drawing on his own deep reservoir of knowledge from his day job reporting for the Washington Post.

This is a great book for a weekend read — it sucks you in early, is a page turner, and changes pace quite often. But for a practitioner in technology, intelligence, or just someone curious about some of the real implication of narrow AI available now, it is also up to snuff. Would happily recommend.