“Mitch is a funny, dynamic speaker, and our audience was enthusiastic about his presentation.” –  lson D. Lankford, Ph.D. Vice President for Programs, Virginia Historical Society

Mitchell Zuckoff is the Redstone Professor of Narrative at Boston University. He covered 9/11 for The Boston Globe and wrote the lead news story on the day of the attacks. Known for his revealing narratives on historical events, his most recent work The Secret Gate, published in 2023, covers the incredible true story of a breathtaking rescue in the frenzied final hours of the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan.

Zuckoff is the author of eight previous works of nonfiction, including the #1 New York Times bestseller 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, which became the basis of the Paramount Pictures movie of the same name. Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11, another of Zuckoff’s recent books, is an indelible portrait of 9/11. It opens new avenues of understanding for everyone who thinks they know the story of 9/11. This book brings to life—and in some cases, brings back to life—the extraordinary ordinary people who experienced the worst day in modern American history.

His other works include Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II, Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II, Robert Altman: The Oral Biography, Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend, Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders, and Choosing Naia: A Family’s Journey.

As a member of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting. Zuckoff’s honors include the Livingston Award for International Reporting, the Winship/PEN New England Award for Nonfiction, the Heywood Broun Memorial Award, and the Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and numerous other publications. He lives outside Boston with his family.

Mitchell's Featured Titles

The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan

Random House |
Nonfiction

The incredible true story of a breathtaking rescue in the frenzied final hours of the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan—and how a brave Afghan mother and a compassionate American officer engineered a daring escape—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 13 Hours

When the U.S. began its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Afghan Army instantly collapsed, Homeira Qaderi was marked for death at the hands of the Taliban. A celebrated author, academic, and champion for women’s liberation, Homeira had achieved celebrity in her home country by winning custody of her son in a contentious divorce, a rarity in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society. As evacuation planes departed above, Homeira was caught in the turmoil at the Kabul Airport, trying and failing to secure escape for her and her eight-year-old son, Siawash, along with her parents and the rest of their family.

Meanwhile, a young American diplomat named Sam Aronson was enjoying a brief vacation between assignments when chaos descended upon Afghanistan. Sam immediately volunteered to join the skeleton team of remaining officials at Kabul Airport, frantically racing to help rescue the more than 100,000 stranded Americans and their Afghan helpers. When Sam learned that the CIA had established a secret entrance into the airport two miles away from the desperate crowds crushing toward the gates, he started bringing families directly through, personally rescuing as many as fifty-two people in a single day.

On the last day of the evacuation, Sam was contacted by Homeira’s literary agent, who persuaded him to help her escape. He needed to risk his life to get them through the gate in the final hours before it closed forever. He borrowed night-vision goggles and enlisted a Dari-speaking colleague and two heavily armed security contract “shooters.” He contacted Homeira with a burner phone, and they used a flashlight code signal borrowed from boyhood summer camp. For her part, Homeira broke Sam’s rules and withstood his profanities. Together they braved gunfire by Afghan Army soldiers anxious about the restive crowds outside the airport. Ultimately, to enter the airport, Homeira and Siawash would have to leave behind their family and everything they had ever known.

The Secret Gate tells the thrilling, emotional tale of a young man’s courage and a mother and son’s skin-of-the-teeth escape from a homeland that is no longer their own.

Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11

Harper |
Nonfiction

“Better and more comprehensive than any prior account. . . . Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.” — John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and author of The Ground Truth

“With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.” —David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

Years in the making, this spellbinding, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting narrative is an unforgettable portrait of 9/11.

This is a 9/11 book like no other. Masterfully weaving together multiple strands of the events in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Fall and Rise is a mesmerizing, minute-by-minute account of that terrible day.

In the days and months after 9/11, Mitchell Zuckoff, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote about the attacks, the victims, and their families. After further years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff has filled Fall and Rise with voices of the lost and the saved. The result is an utterly gripping book, filled with intimate stories of people most affected by the events of that sunny Tuesday in September: an out-of-work actor stuck in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 deciding to take action; a veteran trapped in the inferno in the Pentagon; the fire chief among the first on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; a team of firefighters racing to save an injured woman and themselves; and the men, women, and children flying across country to see loved ones or for work who suddenly faced terrorists bent on murder.

Fall and Rise will open new avenues of understanding for everyone who thinks they know the story of 9/11, bringing to life—and in some cases, bringing back to life—the extraordinary ordinary people who experienced the worst day in modern American history.

Destined to be a classic, Fall and Rise will move, shock, inspire, and fill hearts with love and admiration for the human spirit as it triumphs in the face of horrifying events.

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

Twelve |
Nonfiction

The harrowing, true account from the brave men on the ground who fought back during the Battle of Benghazi.

13 Hours presents, for the first time ever, the true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale. This is their personal account, never before told, of what happened during the thirteen hours of that now-infamous attack.

13 Hours sets the record straight on what happened during a night that has been shrouded in mystery and controversy. Written by New York Times bestselling author Mitchell Zuckoff, this riveting book takes readers into the action-packed story of heroes who laid their lives on the line for one another, for their countrymen, and for their country.

13 Hours is a stunning, eye-opening, and intense book–but most importantly, it is the truth. The story of what happened to these men–and what they accomplished–is unforgettable.

Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II

Harper |
Nonfiction

#1 New York Times bestseller!

Frozen in Time is a gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War II, from the author of New York Times bestseller Lost in Shangri-La.

On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation. But after picking up one man, the Grumman Duck amphibious plane flew into a severe storm and vanished.

Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures.

Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.

A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff’s Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard.

Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

“May 13, 1945. Twenty-four U.S. soldiers stationed in Dutch New Guinea pack into a C-47 for a sightseeing trip over a lush, mysterious, newly discovered valley. Unable to navigate the dense tropical clouds and steep mountain faces, the pilot crashes the plane deep in uncharted jungle. Only three injured passengers, including a WAC, survive. How they attempt to save themselves while caught between Japanese troops and hostile headhunters, what happens when they encounter a Stone Age tribe that had never seen white men or women, and how they are finally rescued is at the heart of this amazing true story.”
— Lisa Howorth, Square Books, Oxford, MS
View the List

Description

“A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush and impenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame with great gams, for heaven’s sake), a startling rescue mission. . . . This is a true story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly compelling and deeply satisfying read!” —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic
 
Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoff unleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War II rescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost City of Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfully recounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery in jungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.

Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders

A riveting investigation of the brutal murders of two Dartmouth professors –– a book that, like In Cold Blood, reveals the chilling reality behind a murder that captivated the nation.

On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of Dartmouth College was shattered by the discovery that two of its most beloved professors had been hacked to death in their own home. Investigators searched helplessly for clues linking the victims, Half and Susanne Zantop, to their murderer or murderers. A few weeks later, across the river, in the town of Chelsea, Vermont, police cars were spotted in front of the house of high school senior Robert Tulloch. The police had come to question Tulloch and his best friend, Jim Parker. Soon, the town discovered the incomprehensible reality that Tulloch and Parker, two of Chelsea’s brightest and most popular sons, were now fugitives, wanted for the murders of Half and Susanne Zantop.

Authors Mitchell Zuckoff and Dick Lehr provide a vivid explication of a murder that captivated the nation, as well as dramatic revelations about the forces that turned two popular teenagers into killers. Judgement Ridge conveys a deep appreciation for the lives (and the devastating loss) of Half and Susanne Zantop, while also providing a clear portrait of the killers, their families, and their community—and, perhaps, a warning to any parent about what evil may lurk in the hearts of boys.

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Hiding in Plain Sight: Finding and Telling True Stories That Other Writers Overlook

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The Life and Career of Director Robert Altman

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Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11

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13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi

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Frozen in Time: An Epic True Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II

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Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Icredible Rescue Mission of World War II

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Ponzi Schemes: Financial Fraud, Old and New - From the Original Ponzi Scheme in 1920 to Madoff and His Ilk

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To Heal the World

The Secret Gate Book Trailer

Honors, Awards & Recognition

#1 NYT Besteller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
National Bestseller
Professor of Journalism | Boston University

Media Kit

By clicking the link below you will be directed to a Google Docs Folder
where you can download author photos and cover images.

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