I really enjoyed this book. While the actual search that he described was interesting, I found the history to be of more interest. I didn't realize the reasons that the USAF was having such challenges during the Vietnam War. I also enjoyed the historical information about the development of the IDF. I recommend this book for anyone that is interested in the IDF or in a book about a conspiracy. ( )

I loved this book and have a lot of praise for it, but first I have to debunk the subtitle. Chasing Shadows is advertised as the story of "a Special Agent's lifelong hunt to bring a Cold War assassin to justice," however, the author/investigator is actually retired from the Diplomatic Security Service when he undertakes his investigation and has to rely on records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with also-retired investigators. And as for "Cold War" - the main players all come from Israel, the United States and Palestinian territories, though there is a spectacular firefight in Berlin that isn't the least bit "Cold".

This book provides an exhilarating, inspiring history of Israel's tiny Air Force and the extraordinarily fierce and smart tactics they used to preserve their nation in the face of existential threats from their neighbors after World War II. One of the brightest stars in their air service was Joe Alon, a pilot who invented many of Israel's air war tactics and trained a generation of pilots on how to compensate for their inferior equipment and tiny numbers. Alon then came to the United States as an Air Force liaison (and possible spy) until he was gunned down in his driveway in Bethesda, Md.

Fred Burton was a teenager living a few blocks away when that shooting occurred and never forgot it. After he retired, he spent years trying to solve the long-forgotten cold case. He follows not only Alon but also all of his suspects through the decades of the Cold War - through the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Munich Olympics and many other events rarely told as vividly as they are here. And it's the only time I've ever read the CIA, Mossad and the Montgomery County Police department mentioned in the same paragraph.

For the Israeli military history alone, I recommend this book. But the true-crime espionage story at the heart of the book is exceptionally interesting and ultimately leaves you feeling like Fred Burton really may have cracked the case in the end. ( )

Chas­ing Shad­ows: A Spe­cial Agent's Life­long Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assas­sin to Jus­tice by Fred Bur­ton is a non-fiction book which tells about the author’s life­long inves­ti­ga­tion into a polit­i­cal mur­der of one of his neigh­bors. The prod­uct of the inves­ti­ga­tion is a mes­mer­iz­ing book of an inves­ti­ga­tion of a lifetime.

July of 1973 in Bethesda, MD Joseph Alon was shot to death. Mr. Alon was a high rank­ing Israeli Air Force pilot, a fam­ily man and a diplo­matic attaché. Fred Bur­ton, the Alons 16 year old neigh­bor, was shocked by this hor­ren­dous crime in his sleepy neighborhood.

As he grew up, Fred Bur­ton, now a coun­tert­er­ror­ism spe­cial agent, reopened the case and found more than he bar­gained for try­ing to solve this almost for­got­ten murder.

Chas­ing Shad­ows by Fred Bur­ton is an amaz­ingly fast pace, excit­ing and inter­est­ing book. Mr. Bur­ton writes a com­pelling account of a four decade old unsolved mur­der which involves Israeli diplo­mats, Amer­i­can and Israeli intel­li­gence, Black Sep­tem­ber, the PLO, CIA, FBI, PFLP, the USAF and more.

At the time of the mur­der Mr. Bur­ton was 16, as he grew up, entered the gray world of intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment, the crime never left his mind. When he started to inves­ti­gate he found out some­thing strange: it seemed that none of these enti­ties want the mur­der to be solved!
That includes the Israeli gov­ern­ment who has prided itself on aveng­ing the mur­der of its cit­i­zens regard­less of bor­ders and local or inter­na­tional laws.

This very com­pelling account is not only about the mur­der, but a small les­son in his­tory to put every­thing in con­text. The strug­gle of the US Air force against the MiG fight­ers, the birth of the Israeli Air force, as well as the mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship between the two coun­tries, as well as sec­tions devoted to how Mid­dle East­ern ter­ror­ism oper­ated in the 70s.

In my opin­ion, the mys­tery took a back seat to the fas­ci­nat­ing his­tory les­son, but that’s not to say it is not mes­mer­iz­ing as well. Due to the subject’s diplo­matic stature, many of the sus­pects can­not be named and were dif­fi­cult to track lead­ing only to dead ends or false leads. How­ever, once in a while, through sheer deter­mi­na­tion and per­sis­tence, Mr. Bur­ton slowly made progress.

The nar­ra­tive weaves the pain of the Alon fam­ily who are being blocked by the Israeli gov­ern­ment and his own frus­tra­tion of run­ning into brick walls at every turn. Mr. Bur­ton is a won­der­ful sto­ry­teller who weaves inter­na­tional intrigue and com­pli­cated rela­tion­ships between peo­ple, orga­ni­za­tions and coun­tries in a very read­able format.

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A fast reading story on the 1973 murder of Joseph Alon, the air force attache at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Alon's own story, from his birth in what then was British-ruled Palestine to his command of Mirage and Phantom squadrons, is told along with how unsatisfactory U. S. Air Force air-to-air experiences in Vietnam combined with Israel's relative successes in this field combined with its obtaining an Iraqi MiG-21 in 1966 and success against Soviet pilots over Egypt in 1970 led to a closer Air Force relationship with Israel and his subsequent posting to the United States.
The author, Fred Burton, lived near Alon and was 16 at the time. He credits the murder as part of the reason he joined law enforcement and then the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service. He well weaves the story of the original investigation which was closed with no resolution, the growth of terrorism (Black September in particular) and Israeli anti-terrorism with his own reopening of the case in 2007 and the eventual 2010 climax. ( )

When Fred Burton was 16 a murder occurred in his quiet community that was never solved. Burton had a difficult time accepting the fact that something like this could occur in his neighborhood in 1973. Nothing like it had occurred before and he had a difficult time accepting that it could happen and never be solved. It was one of the factors that led Burton into the field of law enforcement and he never forgot that morning when he first heard of the murder. In each stop in his career as he advance through various levels of law enforcement he kept that murder in mind and was always open to any facts or stories that might come his way as a police officer. His final position, before retirement, was with the Diplomatic Security Service in the State Department. As deputy chief of the Counterterrorism Division of the DDS he made contacts and heard things that would enable his private investigation of the 1973 killing to go on once he retired.

After retiring he made contact with two daughters of the victim who were still looking for answers to their father’s death. Burton uses sources that he made contact with before his retirement, the first police officer on the scene that night, and others to attempt to track down the person of persons that committed the murder in 1973. Of course he started with the victim, the Military Attaché to the Israeli Embassy. This leads Burton to give us a brief history of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians that started at the Olympic Games of 1972. Was the Military Attaché killed as part of this “Shadow War” or was he victim of a robbery gone badly.

Chasing Shadows is an excellent book tracing the conflict that possibly led to the death on a quiet street in the USA. It is also the story of one man’s search for justice for an invasion in his quiet community that as a teenager he did not understand. He needed to bring closure in his own mind to an occurrence that he did not understand. An excellent book and an easy and enjoyable read. It is fast paced and keeps one’s attention. Highly recommended. ( )