Novel depicts wilderness of mirrors
Print Edition
RUSSIA’S intelligence agency has learned the identities of all the CIA case officers in Moscow and, even worse, most if not all of the CIA’s spies in Russia. If you’re caught as a spy in Russia, execution usually follows.
This potential debacle is envisioned in Mark Henshaw’s new novel, “The Fall of Moscow Station,” a thriller that deftly describes the wilderness of mirrors that is the world of spying, with intelligence agencies second-guessing their opponents’ actions and motives while constantly trying to trick each other.
Henshaw, a former CIA analyst, also salts his book with examples of tradecraft practiced by case officers to keep themselves and, more importantly, the spies they are handling safe. Readers get to see the protagonist make napalm from household items, using it to destroy a building.
CIA officer Kyra Stryker tries to save the day after one of her former bosses, Alden Maines, decides to start selling the agency’s secrets to the Russians. She encounters him in Berlin and gets the chance to beat him up. Then it’s off to Moscow for her.
Opposing her is a Russian intelligence chief, Arkady Lavrov, who is also selling weapons on the sly to other countries. He also longs for the era when there were two superpowers, telling Stryker that back then the main enemy was clearly defined and the world was more stable because of it, with countries falling in line with either Washington or Moscow.
The rocket-fueled pace of “The Fall of Moscow Station” leaves little room for character development. It is the third in a series, and fill-ins of backstories can sometimes feel incomplete.
Sometimes it delves into real-life history, though not always accurately.
The book has enough action and plot twists to keep you engaged until the end.
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