In the fullest account yet of the events that led to the fateful day, Wright unmasks the secret
world of Osama bin Laden
and his collaborators and also chronicles the
efforts of a handful of American intelligence officers alert to the approaching danger but frustrated, time and again, in their efforts to stop it. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, builds his heart-stopping narrative through the patient and meticulous accumulation of details and through vivid portraits of Al Qaeda''s leaders. Most memorably, he tells the story of John O''Neill, the tormented F.B.I. agent who worked frantically to prevent the impending terrorist attack, only to die in the
World Trade Center.