Mobius: A Memoir – Available Now

“I absolutely loved the book. It was quite a hero’s journey with the
pitfalls that so often plague the hero. I also loved the
structure—the impressionistic painting of the broad narrative with
the honed in story of the narrator and Penny. I frequently Googled
people or events to see which ones were openly known to be real.
And I sat there musing about who Richard Thieme really was. What
a ride!!!”

“Everything in the first thirty pages is my head and my life turned inside out.”

Beautifully written. Mobius is the everyman of the intelligence world, cavalierly sidestepping ethical quandaries and hanging onto his humanity with the help of his sole (soul) friend, Penny. But every man has his limits. This adventure to the underworld is well worth taking.

This book. It’s intense. Read it if you want to learn the inner thoughts of a spy after decades of deception. The rest of us are ‘humplings,’ happily thinking one thing about reality, and maybe we should stay naive and not read this book. But I am glad to be reading it, learning how I as a media person could be manipulated into believing a string of facts that are put out for me like breadcrumbs. This is based on TRUTH, but written as Fiction. I strongly recommend anyone who wants to get inside the head of a spy, particularly one who is now old and experiencing regrets, give this a read.

“I have only one thing to say: buy this amazing work. Richard, your other
work and books are phenomenal but this one caps them all. A must have, not
only for our clans, but for any library that has any security/intel books at all”

“Mobius is as real as it is surreal.”

Richard Thieme’s latest book ‘Mobius’ truly is a beautiful compilation of all the occupational mental warps one develops by spending a professional career inside that house of mirrors commonly referred to as the ‘intelligence community’. He brilliantly captures what it does to a person when you spend your entire life compartmentalizing both the information in your head, as well as the people in your professional and social life. It’s full of these odd little quirks and mental pathways you’ll recognize all too well, and you can’t help but wonder how he got into your head like that. In fact, he captures all of this so well, that I spent the entire last quarter of the book wondering…. “Who is Richard Thieme really?”. At the same time, it’s a strong and damning social critique of the ever-present surveillance society we live in, and the tragic plight of the modern whistleblower. An absolute must-read!

This book is an intense look at the life of a spy and his search for what is real in the midst of the unreal in his life. There are poignant intermittent moments in his search because of his relationship to Penny, who is crucial in his ultimate discovery. Thieme’s own journey brings rich meaning to the story of Nick. This is an excellent read, masterfully crafted.

The best “genre” spy fiction, notably that by Le Carré and Greene, addresses the toll that a career built on deception takes on one’s relationships and psyche, but this always happens within the larger context of a suspense story with a more or less formulaic plot arc. Richard Thieme’s new book pulls off the opposite: it’s an in-depth exploration of how someone who starts out with a typical moral compass learns to deceive (everyone, everywhere) and even to torture, and subsequently is forced to come to terms with the disconnect between the requirements and sensibility of his work, and what he knows to be right. Along the way, the protagonist (Mobius/Nick) carries out a covert drop/exchange with a Dutch asset, meets various people for clandestine conversations, and dives into the front lines of Extraordinary Rendition. These are all strong passages, but in this book the action serves to tell us more about the protagonist’s inner self, which is where the story really takes place. (If you think about it, isn’t that true for each of us?) For me, this unconventional structure works for the simple reason that I find the protagonist engaging, unpredictable, and if not always sympathetic at least good company. (His arrogance, which seems to be common among people who think they have a lock on “how the world really works”, can be off-putting at times. However, it’s at least matched with acute self-awareness and, ultimately, a conscience. This is a character in some serious need of redemption, and he knows it.) So this book is a meditation more than a story per se, a meditation with many timely insights on how realities are subverted, often replaced by new ones created out of thin air, and imposed on us by powerful people with few scruples who claim to be acting “for our own good.” This is a common thread in much of Thieme’s body of work, and he always finds fresh angles on it. If you’re after car chases and explosions you won’t find them here, but if you’re ready for a thinking person’s book about what it might be like to be in the actual, real-world, covert services, I enthusiastically recommend “Mobius: a Memoir!”

I have been meditating on your words. So much insightful nuance.

“your book is brilliant. You’ve nailed it, Thieme. Can not get enough. Thank you.”