Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden exposes how academia has become the center of foreign and domestic espionage—and why that is troubling news for our nation's security. Grounded in extensive research and reporting, Spy Schools reveals how academia has emerged as a frontline in the global spy game. In a knowledge-based economy, universities are repositories of valuable information and research, where brilliant minds of all nationalities mingle freely with few questions asked. Intelligence agencies have always recruited bright undergraduates, but now, in an era when espionage increasingly requires specialized scientific or technological expertise, they’re wooing higher-level academics—not just as analysts, but also for clandestine operations. Golden uncovers unbelievable campus activity—from the CIA placing agents undercover in Harvard Kennedy School classes and staging academic conferences to persuade Iranian nuclear scientists to defect, to a Chinese graduate student at Duke University stealing research for an invisibility cloak, and a tiny liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio, exchanging faculty with China’s most notorious spy school. He shows how relentlessly and ruthlessly this practice has permeated our culture, not just inside the US, but internationally as well. Golden, acclaimed author of The Price of Admission, blows the lid off this secret culture of espionage and its consequences at home and abroad.

Twelve-year-old Ben Ripley leaves his public middle school to attend the CIA's highly secretive Espionage Academy, which everyone is told is an elite science school.

In the fifth book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben goes undercover in the White House to take on a SPYDER operative determined to assassinate the president. Thirteen-year-old Ben Ripley has had a lot of field success despite only just beginning his second year at Spy School, something even graduates rarely experience. But he’d never have survived without the help from experienced agents and his friends. Now he’s been called in on a solo mission—and the fate of the United States of America is on his shoulders alone. The mission: Prevent a presidential assassination by infiltrating the White House and locating the enemy operative. And when everything goes wrong, Ben must rely on his spy school friends to save his reputation…but even friends can double-cross or be swayed to the enemy’s side.

"With SPYDER defeated, Ben Ripley is looking forward to his life getting back to normal, or as normal as possible when you're a superspy in training. For once, everything seems to be right in Ben's world...until someone bombs the CIA conference room next door. To Ben's astonishment, the attacker is none other than Erica Hale, the spy-in-training he respects more than any other. Ben refuses to believe Erica is working for the enemy...even if the rest of the CIA does. His mission: prove Erica is not a double agent working against the US, locate the fabled colonial-era insurgent group that's blackmailing her, figure out what their devious plot is, and thwart it. But this time, Ben finds himself up against opponents he has never encountered before: his own friends. They're not as ready to trust in Erica as he is, and Ben is forced to rely on his own wits and skills more than ever before. How can he succeed when he doesn't even know who he can trust?"--

“Combines Alex Rider’s espionage skills with a huge dose of the sarcasm of Artemis Fowl.” —School Library Journal Can an undercover nerd become a superstar agent? In the first book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben Ripley sure hopes so—and his life may depend on it! Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he’s already pegged his dream job: CIA or bust. Unfortunately for him, his personality doesn’t exactly scream “secret agent.” In fact, Ben is so awkward, he can barely get to school and back without a mishap. Because of his innate nerdiness, Ben is not surprised when he is recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science—but he’s entirely shocked to discover that the school is actually a front for a junior CIA academy. Could the CIA really want him?

Thirteen-year-old spy in training Ben Ripley is sent to Mexico to try to thwart the evil organization, SPYDER--the CIA's main enemy.

Recruited into an evil spy organization after being expelled from the CIA's spy school, 12-year-old Ben works as an unofficial undercover agent while mastering bad-guy techniques and investigating clues about an imminent plot. Simultaneous eBook.