The Pickle Factory by Sam R. OYKEN

THIS IS A PRE-ORDER TITLE AND WILL RELEASE JULY 28, 2026

THE PICKLE FACTORY DEVOURS ITS OWN

KRAY is a nonofficial cover CIA case officer—an overseas NOC operator who works without embassy backup, relying on nerve and ingenuity to recruit and run foreign agents. That is until Headquarters summons him home and drops his naive keister into a dizzying bureaucratic maze, where initiative is taboo and solid officers get torpedoed.

KRAY’s bosses seize on a congressional bonanza—a multibillion-dollar money stream earmarked to field more NOCs. Enter Project GOOWIKI, the “Transformational Human Resources Worldwide Outreach Program.” The covert plan: Spend every penny on consultants and donuts, stack managers on top of managers, and advance nincompoops. KRAY begins to glimpse that the one thing missing is actual spies.

When seven CIA officers die in an overseas suicide bombing, top Headquarters apparatchiks spring into action—not to hit back, but to cover their own broad backsides. Meanwhile, KRAY’s career corkscrews downward. And his return to the field gives Headquarters the perfect opportunity to solve the KRAY problem. Permanently.

Fast, sharp, and bone-dry funny, Sam R. OYKEN’s vast comic debut is Catch-22 with a security clearance, A Confederacy of Dunces with a nation on the line. Bureaucrats obsess over mandatory trainings, cafeteria upgrades, and birthday cakes, while competence quietly bleeds out in a corner. Underneath the laughs and the irony runs a hard moral line: contempt for cowardice, anger at waste, and respect for those who actually risk their lives for the country. None of which plays well—or at all—at the Pickle Factory.

Praise for The Pickle Factory

“An absurdist masterpiece . . . a provocative commentary on America's out-of-control intelligence services and a laugh riot.”—Mark Hemingway, senior writer, RealClearInvestigations, review editor, The Federalist

“The real deal. With merciless wit, OYKEN exposes and pillories the stultifying banality of the mind-numbing, self-serving bureaucracy at CIA headquarters. The only obvious disinformation is the author’s disclaimer that he made it all up.“—J. Michael Waller, author Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains

“Does to the CIA what Joseph Heller did to the Air Force in Catch-22. Oyken’s CIA rewards charlatans, yes men and embittered viragos while honest officers—there are some—live a precarious existence as far away from CIA headquarters as they can get and stay—trying to get the nation’s spying done. It’s hard not to conclude CIA needs a flamethrower directed its way and rebuilt from scratch.”—Col. Grant Newsham, reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific, and author of When China Attacks

“In KRAY, the hero of this hilarious and harrowing merger of a spy caper and a kafkaesque nightmare, readers will discover an unexpected blend of Holden Caulfield, Jack Ryan, Austin Powers, and—most crucially—George Smiley, determined to get to the bottom of a seemingly bottomless pit of duplicity and misdirection.”—Andrew Ferguson, author of Crazy U, Land of Lincoln, and contributing writer to The Atlantic

“Absurd. Poignant. Filled with hard truths about the critical state of a vital government agency. Every person in Washington needs to read this book now and then ask themselves what they plan to do to fix CIA.”—Charles “Sam” Faddis, retired CIA officer, author of Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA

Print ISBN: 979-8-991641-52-4

• Jacketed hardcover, paper on board
• Sewn signatures