"Alex Matthews thought he had left it all behind. His CIA career, the viper's den of bureaucracy at headquarters and the lies and stress of the cat and mouse game of double agents. But then the Director came asking for a favour.
Alex is a different man from when he had run Moscow station, where he recruited a network of 'poet spies' including the one he names BYRON. He has pieced his life back together after a tragic boating accident killed his wife and daughter but the scars remain. But Alex remains, in his mind, a patriot, and so he begrudgingly accepts the Director's request.
Something, though, is off about the whole operation from the start. The Russians seem one step ahead and the CIA suspects there is a traitor in the agency. Alex realizes that by getting back into the game he has risked everything he has worked for: his new marriage, his family’s safety, his firm. As the noose tightens around Alex, and the FSB closes in, the operation becomes a hall of mirrors with no exits. To find redemption, Alex must uncover the secrets behind BYRON or lose everything.
The Poet's Game is a remarkably sophisticated, timely, and emotionally resonant portrait of a spy from a master of the genre."
"A stunning new espionage book by a master of the genre, Beirut Station follows a young female CIA officer whose mission to assassinate a high-level Hezbollah terrorist reveals a dark truth that puts her life at risk.
Lebanon, 2006. The Israel–Hezbollah war is tearing Beirut apart and the country is on the brink of chaos.
The CIA and Mossad are targeting a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist. They turn to young Lebanese-American CIA agent, Analise, who has the perfect plan. However, Analise begins to suspect that Mossad has a motive of its own.
She alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Analise is now the target and there is no one she can trust.
A tightly-wound international thriller, Beirut Station is Paul Vidich's best book to date."
"In the vein of Graham Greene and John le Carré, The Matchmaker delivers a chilling Cold War spy story set in West Berlin, where an American woman targeted by the Stasi must confront the truth behind her German husband's mysterious disappearance.
Berlin, 1989. Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe.
Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears, and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door.
Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker--a high level East German counterintelligence officer--who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.
The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany.
But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?
Praise for Paul Vidich's The Mercenary:
'A richly detailed work of investigative crime writing perfect for fans of procedurals and spy fiction alike.'-- 'LitHub'
“One of the foremost espionage novelists working today.” CRIMEREADS
'Edgy. At first, The Mercenary seems an outstanding example of a familiar sort of spy saga. But there's more to Alek Garin than most people know.'--Tom Nolan 'The Wall Street Journal'
'Evoking without imitating classic le Carré. Vidich supplements the world-weariness we expect from cold warriors in the game too long by giving Garin a satisfyingly contrarian 'contempt for Agency puppetteers.''-- 'Booklist'
'Justly praised by his peers, Vidich is an espionage novelist who deserves to be more widely known. His noir cold war spy stories are laced with echoes of Graham Green and Eric Ambler. A finely written, taut novel.'-- 'The Financial Times'"
"From acclaimed spy novelist Paul Vidich comes a taut new thriller following the attempted exfiltration of a KGB officer from the ever-changing--and always dangerous--USSR in the mid-1980s.
Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world--and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer--code name GAMBIT--has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side.
The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War.
Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self-interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT's exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian agent and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything.
Praise for the Author: 'A terrifically paced page-turner with convincing red herrings and a surprise ending. These feats are not to be understated . . . Without ever slowing the pace or detracting from the novel's central mystery or action, Vidich still manages to carve out time in his taut narrative to provide snapshots of men trapped in personal cold wars of their own making.' SHELF AWARENESS
'A terse and convincing thriller. Vidich proved his talent for noirish spy fiction in two earlier books. This standalone work reaches a new level of moral complexity and brings into stark relief the often contradictory nature of spycraft.' WALL STREET JOURNAL
'Justly praised by his peers, Vidich is an espionage novelist who deserves to be more widely known. His noir cold war spy stories are laced with echoes of Graham Green and Eric Ambler. A finely written, taut novel.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Reads like a le Carre novel for the postwar American moment. Vidich's writing is as assured as ever, and his handling of difficult, charged material is truly admirable, and a pleasure to read.' CRIMEREADS"
"The new novel by acclaimed espionage author Paul Vidich explores the dark side of intelligence, when a CIA officer delves into a cold case from the 1950s-with fatal consequences.
In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson, a government scientist, died when he 'jumped or fell' from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of the incident remain buried for twenty-two years. With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, the Wilson case suddenly becomes news again. Wilson's family and the public are demanding answers, especially as some come to suspect the CIA of foul play, and agents in the CIA, FBI, and White House will do anything to make sure the truth doesn't get out. Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It's Gabriel's last mission before he retires from the agency, and his most perilous. Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more his entire family is at risk.
Following in the footsteps of spy fiction greats like Graham Green, John Le Carré, and Alan Furst, Paul Vidich presents a tale - based on the unbelievable true story told in Netflix's Wormwood - that doesn't shy away from the true darkness in the shadows of espionage.
Praise for the author: “A simmering, old-fashioned literary spy tale” - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“An Honorable Man is that rare beast: a good, old fashioned spy novel” - JOHN CONNOLLY
“Cold War spy fiction in the grand tradition - neatly plotted betrayals in that shadow world where no one can be trusted and agents are haunted by their own moral compromises” - JOSEPH KANON"
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