Cowboy Angels is a grim and paranoid book about world-hopping CIA operatives involved in a conspiracy to unite every America in the multiverse under the banner of Freedom and Empire. There's no glory here, and little redemption. Just lies, murder, and obligations from the grave. The language is hard and spare as befits the subject, and I think McAuley backed away from the Big Implications of his multiverse, but he kept me hooked all the way through.