In her gripping debut novel, Barbara Laken examines the paranoid subtext of the War on Terror, and the power conferred on criminal informants working for American intelligence agencies trying to protect the public from future attacks. Inspired by the true exploits of a financial criminal turned informant, The Cooperating Witness explores the perils of the United States’ growing reliance on surveillance technology as a means to pursue law enforcement.

Jamal Hassim, a decorated Air Force major and his wife, a biologist with the Centers of Disease Control would seem like the last people to attract the attention of FBI agents. But when the NSA accidentally picks up a suspicious phone call, the real purpose of an overseas charity the Hassim’s operate in partnership with the U.S. Aid Program becomes the focus of sting operation.

Leading the investigation is former con man Conner Skilling, an undercover agent posing as an investment banker. His job is to infiltrate the corporate structure of Aqua Venture, a new non-profit the Hassim’s have established on the Muslim island of Mindanao. He undertakes this assignment armed only with a recording device and his wits. With promises of lucrative investment capital, he lures his targets to a remote South Pacific plantation off the coast of Australia and begins a series of taped conversations to probe their true intentions.

Intricately plotted and forensically astute, The Cooperating Witness exposes liberties often taken with the collection and production of taped evidence, and asks if a prosecution based on words alone conforms with the American ideals of justice and truth. With a propulsive storyline based on real methodologies used by the Justice Department to evaluate uncertain threats, Barbara Laken’s first novel vividly chronicles the power of suspicion, and the combustible destructiveness of ambition and fear.