The Quantum Spy

A suspected Chinese informant inside America's top-secret quantum computing labs sets off a mole hunt in David Ignatius's thriller. The stakes are a race between the United States and China to build the first quantum computer, a machine able to break any code or encryption and so, in effect, a digital nuclear weapon. CIA officer Harris Chang leads the investigation. The hunt is obsessive and uncertain, and the leaks may expose real secrets or may be false trails laid to mislead Beijing. It came out in 2017.

Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris picked it as summer reading in a roundup of books CEOs planned to read.