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Alex Berenson Books in Order

Browse Alex Berenson books in order, with John Wells reading order, key nonfiction, short summaries, and straightforward guidance on the best place to start.

Last updated: January 12, 2026

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23 books

Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns: Part 4: Vaccines

by Alex Berenson

2021

The fourth booklet focuses on COVID 19 vaccines, especially the first mRNA shots. Berenson discusses trial data, early safety reports, and real world effectiveness, arguing that the risks and limits of the vaccines were downplayed in public messaging.

The Power Couple

by Alex Berenson

2021

FBI counterterrorism agent Rebecca Unsworth and her NSA coder husband Brian hope a European vacation will fix their faltering marriage. When their college-age daughter vanishes in Barcelona, the search forces buried secrets, betrayals, and high level cyber espionage into the open.

Recommended by:

Hugh Hewitt

Pandemia

by Alex Berenson

2021

In Pandemia, Berenson expands his pandemic arguments into a full length book, contending that COVID 19 became the pretext for sweeping lockdowns, expanded government power, and cultural panic that far outweighed the virus’s actual risk for most people.

Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns: Part 3: Masks

by Alex Berenson

2020

Here Berenson turns to masks, reviewing studies and official guidance on face coverings. He highlights gaps and contradictions in the evidence and questions whether mask mandates for the general public produced the benefits promised by health authorities.

Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 2

by Alex Berenson

2020

Part 2 updates the numbers and looks closely at lockdowns as a strategy. Berenson walks through the pre COVID history of social distancing plans, then argues that broad shutdowns did little to slow spread while inflicting serious economic and social damage.

Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1

by Alex Berenson

2020

This first booklet in the Unreported Truths series introduces Berenson’s skeptical take on the pandemic. He examines how COVID 19 deaths are counted, who is most at risk, and how worst case projections compare with emerging mortality data.

Tell Your Children

by Alex Berenson

2019

In this polemical nonfiction book, Berenson argues that heavy cannabis use can trigger psychosis and, in a vulnerable minority, violent behavior. Drawing on case studies and selected research, he challenges the idea that marijuana is a harmless or purely medicinal drug.

The Deceivers

by Alex Berenson

2018

A drug bust staged at a Dallas basketball arena turns into a massacre, igniting outrage across the country. As Wells follows a lead to Colombia, he uncovers a wider Russian driven scheme using terror attacks, sleeper cells, and political manipulation to tilt an American presidential race.

The Prisoner

by Alex Berenson

2017

Evidence suggests a senior CIA officer is secretly feeding information to ISIS. To unmask the traitor, Wells once again adopts his old jihadist cover, arranging to be thrown into a brutal Bulgarian prison where befriending a key Islamic State commander may be his only chance.

The Wolves

by Alex Berenson

2016

After barely preventing war with Iran, Wells goes after the financier who orchestrated the crisis. His personal vendetta pulls him into a deadly contest involving Wall Street money, Russian and Chinese interests, and a fragile CIA outpost in Afghanistan that may already be compromised.

Alex Berenson Quotes

by Alex Berenson

2016

This slim volume gathers short quotations attributed to Alex Berenson, drawn from his journalism, fiction, and public appearances. It is aimed at readers who enjoy his voice and want a compact collection of favorite lines and observations.

Twelve Days

by Alex Berenson

2015

Picking up after The Counterfeit Agent, Wells, Ellis Shafer, and Senator Vinny Duto have less than two weeks to prove that a supposed Iranian attack was staged. With no hard evidence and powerful people invested in war, they scramble to stop the United States from striking Iran.

The Counterfeit Agent

by Alex Berenson

2014

A shadowy source in Istanbul claims Iran is targeting a CIA station chief and planning to ship radioactive material toward the United States. When the first warning comes true, Wells is pulled into a global chase to learn whether the evidence pointing to Tehran has been faked.

The Night Ranger

by Alex Berenson

2013

Four American aid workers vanish after leaving a Somali refugee camp in Kenya for a weekend drive. Asked as a personal favor to help, Wells heads to East Africa, where tangled motives, clan politics, and Washington pressure complicate a race to bring the hostages home alive.

The Shadow Patrol

by Alex Berenson

2012

Years after a Jordanian double agent blew up CIA officers at the Kabul station, sources in Afghanistan are still dying. Sent back to his old battleground, Wells must discover whether the Taliban have penetrated the agency itself, even as suspicion turns inward.

The Prince of Beers

by Alex Berenson

2012

This narrative nonfiction audiobook follows August Busch IV from his rise as chief executive of Anheuser Busch to his abrupt fall from power, addiction struggles, and the death of his girlfriend Adrienne Martin. Berenson pieces together a family dynasty unraveling in public.

The Secret Soldier

by Alex Berenson

2011

Saudi Arabia is shaken by a string of attacks that threaten King Abdullah’s hold on power. With the kingdom unsure whom to trust, Wells is asked to unravel a plot that reaches beyond Riyadh toward rivals hoping to ignite a wider war between America and the Islamic world.

Lost in Kandahar

by Alex Berenson

2011

In this short nonfiction piece, Berenson recounts his time embedded with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. He portrays brave, exhausted soldiers, grinding patrols, and a costly mission whose goals even the men on the ground struggle to define.

The Midnight House

by Alex Berenson

2010

Retired members of a secret interrogation team are being murdered one by one, and their deaths point back to a covert prison in Poland known as the Midnight House. Wells digs into what happened there, balancing loyalty to colleagues against the truth about torture and revenge.

The Silent Man

by Alex Berenson

2009

Burned out from years undercover, Wells is trying to build a quieter life with CIA officer Jennifer Exley when enemies target them in Washington traffic. At the same time jihadists steal nuclear material, drawing Wells into a hunt to stop a catastrophic strike on American soil.

The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

2008

Back from his first mission, Wells is restless and half broken when signs emerge that the Taliban are being armed by a mysterious foreign power. Sent back into Afghanistan, he uncovers a web that links North Korea, China, and a mole inside the CIA.

The Faithful Spy

by Alex Berenson

2006

John Wells is the only American agent to infiltrate al Qaeda, living for years as a jihadi in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Returning to the United States after 9/11, he must prove his loyalty to a wary CIA while racing to stop a devastating new attack.

The Number

by Alex Berenson

2003

This nonfiction book explains how Wall Street’s fixation on quarterly earnings per share encouraged executives, auditors, and bankers to bend the rules. Berenson traces the culture and incentives that helped set the stage for Enron, WorldCom, and other accounting scandals.

Where should I start?

If you want to follow John Wells from the beginning: The Faithful SpyThe Ghost WarThe Silent ManThe Midnight House
If you prefer a standalone modern thriller: The Power Couple
If you like real world business and politics: The NumberThe Prince of Beers
If you’re curious about his policy arguments: Tell Your ChildrenUnreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 2Pandemia

Author bio

Alex Berenson is a novelist and journalist who moves between spy fiction and deeply reported nonfiction. Readers often meet him first through his John Wells thrillers, then discover his books on Wall Street, cannabis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.(alexberenson.com)

He was born in New York City in 1973 and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, a commuter town just across the river from Manhattan. At Yale University he studied history and economics, the mix of storytelling and numbers that would shape the rest of his career.(alexberenson.com)

After graduating in 1994, Berenson joined The Denver Post as a reporter covering business and local companies. Two years later he became one of the first employees at a new online financial news outlet, learning the mechanics of markets and corporate balance sheets from the inside.(alexberenson.com)

In 1999 he moved to The New York Times as an investigative reporter. Over the next decade he wrote about the pharmaceutical industry, Hurricane Katrina, financial fraud, and, most intensely, the American occupation of Iraq, where he embedded with troops in 2003 and 2004.(alexberenson.com)

Those months in Iraq gave him the raw material for his first novel, The Faithful Spy, which introduced CIA operative John Wells, a long term infiltrator inside al Qaeda who returns to the United States under suspicion from his own side. The book won the Edgar Award for best first novel and launched a series that would follow Wells through shifting fronts in the post 9/11 world.(en.wikipedia.org)

Berenson went on to write more than a dozen John Wells novels, including The Ghost War, The Silent Man, The Midnight House, and The Wolves. They blend field level action with bureaucratic infighting in Washington, drawing on his reporting background for tradecraft, weapons, and policy detail.(penguinrandomhouse.com)

Alongside the fiction he has produced several nonfiction works. The Number digs into how the obsession with quarterly earnings warped corporate behavior, while Lost in Kandahar and The Prince of Beers offer shorter narrative pieces on America’s wars abroad and the fall of beer executive August Busch IV.(publishersweekly.com)

In 2019 he published Tell Your Children, arguing that heavy cannabis use can trigger psychosis and violence in a vulnerable minority of users. During the COVID 19 pandemic he wrote the Unreported Truths about COVID 19 and Lockdowns booklets and Pandemia, sharply critical of lockdowns, mask mandates, and mass vaccination campaigns. Those books and his public commentary have attracted a large following along with strong criticism from many scientists and reporters.(en.wikipedia.org)

Berenson now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his wife, Dr. Jacqueline Berenson, a forensic psychiatrist, and their children. He divides his time between new thrillers, investigative nonfiction projects, and writing directly for readers through his own newsletter.(alexberenson.com)

Whether he is following a burned out CIA operative across Afghanistan or parsing a government spreadsheet, he tends to write like a reporter, favoring documents, interviews, and concrete detail over abstract argument. That mix of on the ground storytelling and contrarian analysis is part of why his work sparks such strong reactions, on and off the page.(alexberenson.com)

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 23 Alex Berenson Books in Order (Complete List 2026)