The Shepherd

Former CIA officer Alex Matthews finds himself caught in a dangerous investigation where politics and crime are two sides of the same coin, in the latest espionage thriller by Paul Vidich.

Washington, DC. Fall 2020. It's the month before the presidential election, with polls showing a dead heat, and former CIA Moscow Station Chief Alex Matthews has been brought into the White House by an old friend to help with the reelection effort. The question is why? The president doesn't like him, and he doesn't fit on the White House team of hard-charging idealogues, and in time, it is clear to Matthews that he’s been recruited for his Russian connections.

Matthews tries not to get involved in the vicious infighting of a polarized country, but events begin to spiral out of his control at a Republican fundraiser. He spots Irina, a Russian woman he is dating, get in the hotel elevator with a senior White House colleague and a second Russian woman. Matthews sees that Irina is upset and he follows them to a fifth-floor suite where he overhears a violent confrontation. He leaves unnoticed as Secret Service arrive, but outside he comes upon bystanders crowded around a woman’s naked body, dead on the sidewalk. It's the woman who was with Irina; meeting her untimely death from the hotel window.

Speculation circulates that the dead woman worked on the campaign but reported to Moscow. Matthews is enlisted by the deputy chief of staff to locate two suspects seen in hotel surveillance video before the police do—Irina and a fleeing man. Matthews recognizes himself in the video and he turns from witness to suspect—from hunter to hunted. Matthews keeps his head down and tries to stay one step ahead of the investigation, while keeping his reputation clean. But who is Irina, really? Why did the administration hire Matthews? And will he be caught up in a scandal that threatens the president’s chance of reelection?

A timely and gripping political thriller by an acclaimed “master of the genre.” (Publishers Weekly)