The Collaborators

The search for a missing hedge fund manager with ties to Russian intelligence animates screenwriter Idov’s bumpy fiction debut (after the memoir Dressed Up for a Riot). At the center of the action is CIA officer Ari Falk, who’s investigating the likely murder of one of his prized assets, a Russian blogger who was taken off a passenger jet during an unplanned stop in Latvia and never seen again. Falk eventually connects that case to the disappearance of billionaire financier Paul Obrandt, who recently jumped from the back of his yacht off the coast of Portugal. Paul’s daughter, Maya, is looking for her dad, not out of love but out of a suspicion that he staged his own death. She and Falk team up, repressing their mutual attraction as they trace Obrandt’s trail across Eastern Europe to Moscow, where they learn of his links to Russia’s military intelligence agency. Idov, whose TV credits include the espionage series Deutschland 89, shows promise in his transition to the page—the details of the tradecraft feel especially authentic—but the action lurches along at an awkward shuffle, with a few too many time-lapses, and it all culminates in an unconvincing finale. It’s a letdown. Agent: Amanda Urban, CAA. (Nov.)