From the acclaimed author of Being There and The Painted Bird , this "dazzling succession of . . . erotic anecdotes . . . brilliantly def[ies] the limitations of its form" ( The New York Times Book Review ). An agent known only as Tarden is a former operative of the mysterious security agency "the Service." He has erased himself from all dossiers and transcripts. Now a fugitive, he moves across the landscape free of identity, in search of adventure and intrigue. But Tarden is a man of many disguises, and he is alternately avenger and savior, judge and trickster, as he enters the lives of others, forcing them into the arena of his judgment. In Cockpit , Kosinski is at his most startling and powerful, stripping away pretension and illusions of security to reveal the source of real strength within. "Jerzy Kosinki's work glistens with social observation and psychological apprehension. Not since Conrad has an Eastern European found so profound a voice in the English language." — Time "A vicious peepshow-parable about a world we reluctantly recognize now and then." — Kirkus Reviews