Still, shady intelligence was better than none; so rescue teams were told Bergdahl might not leave his captors peacefully and were instructed to use auto-injectors of Valium to quell him.
Figon loves the company of movie people (his girlfriend is a movie and stage actress), intellectual celebrities, the criminal milieu, the police and the shady intelligence community and they all come into play when his film plans crystallise into a documentary on the subject of decolonisation.
Toiling away at redundant reports, poring over rumours bought from shady characters, intelligence analysts get depressed.
But there have been occasional eerie flashes of light, not least recent testimony by Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese-born oil financier described by American intelligence officials as "shady", that he had gained access to the White House by making donations to the Democrats of $300,000, and next time would happily give $600,000.
The broader, less funny allegation concerning the pee tape is that Russian intelligence has proof of Trump's shady doings they could hold over him.
Before long, the two are up and running, apart and then together, chasing and being chased amid the swelling intrigue and shady characters, including an American journalist (Julia Stiles) and a British intelligence officer (Riz Ahmed, very fine).
Harry Brett is recruited by British intelligence, which hopes to use his Rookwood connection to discover what shady business Sandy is up to in Madrid, specifically whether his company has found gold reserves that will strengthen Franco's hand.
In the "Worricker" trilogy, Hare has points he wants to make about the shady laundering of money in the global economy, war profiteering and the ways in which the press, intelligence agencies and governments collude and collide.
Choi's father, the leader of shady religious cult, emerged as Park's mentor after Park Chung-hee was assassinated by his head of intelligence in 1979.
"As Iran becomes increasingly isolated from the international financial system and energy markets, it is turning increasingly to convoluted schemes and shady actors to maintain its access to the global financial system," David S. Cohen, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the Treasury announcement.
Broger, meanwhile, completes an energetic Javier Marias readathon with the third and final volume of Your Face Tomorrow, in which the protagonist-narrator, Deza, who works for a shady, MI6-like surveillance/intelligence group, is forced by his boss to watch horrific acts of torture, pain and death on video.
