Moscow X
A Novel
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4.2 • 18 Ratings
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
"A smart, sleek, and absolutely gripping thriller that swept me away." —Brad Thor
A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?
CIA officers Sia and Max enter Russia under commercial cover to recruit Vladimir Putin’s moneyman. Sia works for a London law firm that conceals the wealth of the superrich. Max’s family business in Mexico—a CIA front since the 1960s—is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple to target Vadim, Putin’s private banker, and his wife, Anna, who—unbeknownst to CIA—is a Russian intelligence officer under deep cover at the bank. As they descend further into a Russian world dripping with luxury and rife with gangland violence, Sia and Max’s only hope may be Anna, who is playing a game of her own. Careening between the horse ranch in northern Mexico, the corridors of Langley, and the dark opulence of Putin’s Russia, Moscow X is both a gripping thriller of modern espionage and a raw, unsparing commentary on the nature of truth, loyalty, and vengeance amid the shadow war between the United States and Russia.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This sexy spy thriller puts the heat back into the Cold War. As Vladimir Putin’s criminal empire extends into thoroughbred-horse breeding and cryptocurrencies, CIA officers Max and Sia go deep undercover in Russia and cozy up to Vadim, the Russian leader’s private banker. The ensuing game of cat and mouse pits everyone involved against each other as they negotiate conflicting personal and political loyalties. Author David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst, evokes serious anxiety in his interrogation scenes, focusing on the victims’ psychological states as much as their physical realities. Like John le Carré or Mick Herron, McCloskey is interested in capturing the mundane bureaucracy of international espionage alongside its more salacious realities. A kinetic blend of simmering tension, sex, and sudden violence, Moscow X is a real pageturner.
