Moscow X

Former CIA officer McCloskey (Damascus Station) serves up another entertaining espionage caper. Disgraced CIA case officer Artemis Aphrodite Procter sees a way to get back into her superior’s good graces with a scheme to turn Russian private banker and intelligence officer Anna Andreevna Agapova into a spy for the U.S., and to use her key position to destabilize Putin’s regime. To recruit her, Procter selects Max Castillo, whose cover involves running his family’s horse-breeding operation, and Hortensia “Sia” Fox, a London-based lawyer who helps the rich hide their assets. The stakes are high for all involved, as Max suggests they offer Anna his mother’s most prized horse to sweeten the deal, and things become complicated when Max and Sia fall in love. Standing in the way of their operation is Konstantin Konstantinovich Chernov, a Javert-like Russian intelligence officer. McCloskey mixes the tradecraft of John le Carré with the glitz of Sidney Sheldon and the effervescence of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man to produce a narrative filled with double- and triple-crosses enriched by pitch-perfect insider details, such as the paperwork Max and Sia must submit to the CIA before they can consummate their affair. This sparkling work of escapism contains a smattering of real-world jitters. (Oct.)