Beirut Station
Two Lives of a Spy: A Novel
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4.0 • 38 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A stunning new espionage novel 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: bombs are raining down, residents are scrambling to evacuate, and the country is on the brink of chaos.
In the midst of this turmoil, the CIA and Mossad are targeting a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist, Najib Qassem. Najib is believed to be planning the assassination of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is coming to Beirut in ten days to broker a cease-fire. The spy agencies are running out of time to eliminate the threat.
They turn to a young Lebanese-American CIA agent. Analise comes up with the perfect plan: she has befriended Qassem's grandson as his English tutor, and will use this friendship to locate the terrorist and take him out. As the plan is put into action, though, Analise begins to suspect that Mossad has a motive of its own: exploiting the war’s chaos to eliminate a generation of Lebanese political leaders.
She alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Annalise is now the target and there is no one she can trust: not the CIA, not Mossad, and not the Lebanese government. And the one person she might have to trust—a reporter for the New York Times—might not be who he says he is…
A tightly-wound international thriller, Beirut Station is Paul Vidich's best novel to date.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This taut, nuanced spy thriller centered on Lebanese American CIA agent Analise Assad further establishes Vidich (The Matchmaker) as a new master of the genre. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, Analise is assigned to a joint mission by the CIA and Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, to assassinate Hezbollah militant Najib Qassem. After she aborts the original operation to avoid killing bystanders, she must formulate a new plan to eliminate Qassem before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Beirut to broker a cease-fire. Posing as a UN interpreter, Analise infiltrates Qassem's inner circle as a volunteer at the school his children attend. As the timeline of Analise's plan and Rice's arrival converge, she becomes the target of terrorist bombings, Israeli retaliation, and even a treacherous CIA mole, all while struggling not to fall for the New York Times reporter she's seduced in attempts to throw him off her scent. Vidich ably describes daily life in a war-torn setting and convincingly highlights the dangers Analise faces as a woman in her position. He brings the action to a satisfying conclusion but leaves a few threads dangling, opening the door for future installments. Fans of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, and John le Carré will be eager for more.
Customer Reviews
Extraordinary
Ambiguity Feels like today in the Middle East. Must read. Everything is not said but everything is understood.