Countdown bin Laden, Chris Wallace
Countdown bin Laden, Chris Wallace
34 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Countdown bin Laden
The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice

Bestseller

Author: Chris Wallace, Mitch Weiss

Narrator: Chris Wallace

Unabridged: 10 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/07/2021


Synopsis

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Following Chris Wallace’s “riveting” (The New York Times) and “propulsive” (Time) first book Countdown 1945 comes a deeply reported, revelatory, and thrillingly told account of the final months of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

On August 27, 2010, three CIA officers ask for a private meeting with CIA Director Leon Panetta. During that secret session, they tell Panetta that agents have tracked a courier with deep Al Qaeda ties to a three-story house at the end of a dead-end street in Abbottabad, Pakistan. But they say it’s more than a house—it’s a heavily protected fortress. No one in the meeting says the name bin Laden. They don’t have to. Everyone understands that finally, after nearly a decade, maybe, just maybe, they’ve found the world’s most wanted man.

In Countdown bin Laden, celebrated journalist and CNN anchor and Max host Chris Wallace delivers a vivid account of the final eight months of intelligence gathering, national security strategizing, and meticulous military planning that leads to the climactic mission when SEAL Team Six closes in on its target.

The book delivers new information collected from Wallace’s in-depth interviews with more than a dozen central figures, including Admiral William H. McRaven—leader of the operation in Pakistan—as well as CIA Director Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and the SEAL Team Six special operator who kills Osama bin Laden. Wallace also brings to life the human elements of this story, talking to families who lost loved ones on 9/11, sharing what relatives of SEAL Team Six went through, and bringing us inside the tense Situation Room during the raid.

Countdown bin Laden is a historical thriller filled with intrigue, cinematic action, and fresh reporting about the race to apprehend and bring to justice the mastermind of the most consequential terrorist attack in American history.

About Chris Wallace

Chris Wallace is an anchor for CNN and host of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, a wide-ranging interview program on Max. Prior to CNN, Wallace was the anchor of Fox News Sunday for eighteen years where he covered every major political event. Throughout his five decades in broadcasting, he has interviewed numerous U.S. and world leaders, including seven American presidents, and won every major broadcast news award for his reporting, including three Emmy Awards, the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton, and the Peabody Award. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Countdown Bin Laden: The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice and Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World.

About Mitch Weiss

Mitch Weiss is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist for the Associated Press, covering subjects ranging from military misconduct, government corruption, and white-collar crimes to the housing meltdown and unsafe medical devices. He is also the critically acclaimed author or coauthor of nine books.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lisa on September 21, 2021

Dissapointing This book has a lot of repetition and fluff filler. Tell me something once, maybe twice but in this book things were repeated often. I don’t need to know that the president “dressed down” for the event or that the team ordered sandwiches from Costco or that the general’s wife made oatme......more

Goodreads review by Mona on November 01, 2021

Disclaimer: This is updated review after me being able to read notes and bibliography included. The goods: If you are American and like thriller/action fiction novels there is 99% chance that you will love this book. Since most readers on Goodreads fall into this category, hence high notes. Author is w......more

Goodreads review by Devin on September 20, 2021

Much better books on this topic.the writer really gets off topic and throws in a lot of random details that don’t really have much too do with the search for bin laden and is constantly throwing in his political opinions and biases throughout..not what I was hoping for/expecting for this book......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on January 27, 2022

Phenomenal journalism here and an unbelievable recollection of an event that altered the course of history. Reading it as an adult was nothing short of thrilling.......more

Goodreads review by Mac on September 16, 2021

Countdown bin Laden by Chris Wallace, presents a conundrum. How can a book where you already know the outcome be compelling? Here, I’m talking extraordinarily compelling, an engrossing page-turner. In this case, the book’s title suggests the ultimate outcome of the story for anyone conversant in rec......more