The Mercenary, Paul Vidich
The Mercenary, Paul Vidich
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Mercenary

Author: Paul Vidich

Narrator: Jeff Harding

Unabridged: 7 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/29/2022


Synopsis

Moscow, 1985. The Soviet Union and its communist regime are in the last stages of decline, but remain opaque to the rest of the world—and still very dangerous. In this ever-shifting landscape, a senior KGB officer—code name GAMBIT—has approached the CIA Moscow Station chief with top secret military weapons intelligence and asked to be exfiltrated. GAMBIT demands that his handler be a former CIA officer, Alex Garin, a former KGB officer who defected to the American side.

The CIA had never successfully exfiltrated a KGB officer from Moscow, and the top brass do not trust Garin. But they have no other options: GAMBIT's secrets could be the deciding factor in the Cold War.

Garin is able to gain the trust of GAMBIT, but remains an enigma. Is he a mercenary acting in self-interest or are there deeper secrets from his past that would explain where his loyalties truly lie? As the date nears for GAMBIT's exfiltration, and with the walls closing in on both of them, Garin begins a relationship with a Russian agent and sets into motion a plan that could compromise everything.

About Paul Vidich

Paul Vidich is the acclaimed author of The Mercenary, The Coldest Warrior, An Honorable Man, and The Good Assassin, and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, LitHub, CrimeReads, Fugue, The Nation, Narrative Magazine, Wordriot, and others. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on February 20, 2021

As the author, I am partial to this book, but early reviews, including today's review from Tom Nolan in the Wall Street Journal, confirm this book got a few things just right. Nolan called The Mercenary 'edgy' and 'an outstanding' spy saga.......more

Goodreads review by Alex on November 26, 2022

Every job had its moment of truth, when the unexpected met the unforgiving, forcing him to improvise. Moscow, 1985. A high-ranking Soviet official codenamed GAMBIT seeks to defect, carrying important defence secrets to the west, but his plans are derailed by a mole, either within Moscow Station or Wa......more

Goodreads review by Mal on November 03, 2020

Even if you’re a fan of espionage fiction, you may not yet be familiar with the name Paul Vidich. You should be. Vidich writes spy novels in the grand tradition of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. His historical espionage tales rank with those of his better-known contemporaries, Alan F......more

Goodreads review by Truman32 on March 08, 2021

Spies are an interesting lot, always scurrying about in their wide-brimmed hats, trench coats, and fake mustaches. But the secret they can never uncover is why they are so lonely. The confidential information they can never obtain is will they ever be loved? No matter how many ballpoint pen grenades......more

Goodreads review by 8stitches 9lives on March 17, 2021

The Mercenary is a first-class, top tier espionage thriller and Vidich’s fourth CIA novel packed with danger, drama and intrigue. As the U.S.S.R. begins to crumble and half a century of the Cold War stutters to a halt, Russian-born, KGB-trained American Aleksander Garin, a former CIA asset, who had......more