In 1953, at the end of the Korean War, Dr. Charles Wilson, an Army bio-weapons scientist, died when he “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of his death remain buried for twenty-two years.With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, LSD is linked to Wilson’s death, and suddenly the Wilson case becomes news again. Wilson’s family and the press are demanding answers, suspecting the CIA of foul play, and men in the CIA, FBI, and White House conspire to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It’s Gabriel’s last mission before he retires from the agency, and his most perilous as he finds a continuing cover-up that reaches to the highest levels of government. Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more he puts himself and his family at risk.Following in the footsteps of spy-fiction greats such as Graham Green, John Le Carré, and Alan Furst, Paul Vidich presents a tale―based on the unbelievable true story told in Netflix’s Wormwood―that doesn’t shy away from the true darkness in the shadows of espionage.

Coldest Warrior

Vidich, Paul

Oldcastle Books Ltd

"Atria /Emily Bestler Books fiction original hardcover" -- Verso title page.

An Honorable Man

Literature & Fiction

United States

Thorndike Press Large Print

“This looks like the launch of a great career in spy fiction.” —Booklist (starred review) “A moody debut spy novel inspired by real events…Dead-on Cold War fiction. Noir to the bone.” —Kirkus Reviews “Cold War spy fiction in the grand tradition—neatly plotted betrayals in that shadow world where no one can be trusted and agents are haunted by their own moral compromises.” —Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author of Istanbul Passage and The Good German Publishers Weekly Top Ten Mysteries &amp; Thrillers of Spring 2016 A debut espionage novel in the style of Alan Furst and John le Carré, An Honorable Man is a chilling Cold War spy thriller set in 1950s Washington, D.C. Washington D.C., 1953. The Cold War is heating up: McCarthyism, with all its fear and demagoguery, is raging in the nation’s capital, and Joseph Stalin’s death has left a dangerous power vacuum in the Soviet Union. The CIA, meanwhile, is reeling from a double agent within their midst. Someone is selling secrets to the Soviets, compromising missions around the globe. Undercover agents have been assassinated, and anti-Communist plots are being cut short in ruthlessly efficient fashion. The CIA director knows any news of the traitor, whose code name is Protocol, would be a national embarrassment and compromise the entire agency. George Mueller seems to be the perfect man to help find the mole: Yale-educated; extensive experience running missions in Eastern Europe; an operative so dedicated to his job that it left his marriage in tatters. The Director trusts him. Mueller, though, has secrets of his own, and as he digs deeper into the case, making contact with a Soviet agent, suspicion begins to fall on him as well. Until Protocol is found, no one can be trusted, and everyone is at risk.

An Honorable Man: A Novel

Atria/Emily Bestler Books

For fans of Alan Furst and John le Carré comes An Honorable Man, a chilling Cold War spy thriller set in postwar Washington, DC that Kirkus Reviews called, “noir to the bone.” Washington DC, 1953. The Cold War is heating up; McCarthyism, in all its fear and demagoguery, is raging in the nation’s capital, and Joseph Stalin’s death has left a dangerous power vacuum in the Soviet Union. The CIA, meanwhile, is reeling from the discovery of a double agent within their midst. Someone is selling secrets to the Soviets, compromising missions and endangering lives around the globe. The CIA director knows any news of the traitor, whose code name is Protocol, would be a national embarrassment and weaken the entire agency. He assembles an elite team to find Protocol. George Mueller seems to be the perfect man to help the investigation: Yale-educated; extensive experience running missions in Eastern Europe; an operative so dedicated to his job that it left his marriage in tatters. Mueller, though, has secrets of his own, and as he digs deeper into the case, making contact with a Soviet agent, suspicion begins to fall on him, as well. Paranoia and fear spreads and until Protocol is found, no one can be trusted.

“Paul Vidich’s likable and reluctant spy, George Mueller, will keep readers guessing in this eerily real Cuba of 1958. The Good Assassin is a keen historical adventure from the best noir tradition.”—Elizabeth Kostova, #1 New York Times bestselling author “The Good Assassin opens up Hemingway’s Cuba. Possessing Alan Furst’s attention for period detail and the deft character touches of John Le Carré, Vidich has quickly carved out a place for himself among the very first rank of espionage writers. It’s a masterful effort and the author’s best work to date.”—Michael Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of The Chicago Way “The Good Assassin is first-rate literary espionage . . . Author Paul Vidich has evoked not only the intrigue and brutality of Batista’s Cuba, but the island itself . . . a masterful work of noir fiction.”—Susan Isaacs, New York Times bestselling author of A Hint of Strangeness Paul Vidich follows up his acclaimed debut spy thriller with a suspenseful tale of Cold War espionage set in 1950s Cuba, as foreign powers compete to influence the outcome of a revolution. Former CIA Agent George Mueller arrives in Havana in August 1958—the last months before the fall of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista—to look into the activities of Toby Graham, a CIA officer suspected of harboring sympathies for the rebel forces fighting the unpopular Batista regime. Mueller knew Graham as an undergraduate and later they were colleagues in Berlin fighting the Soviet NKVD. Under the guise of their long acquaintance Mueller is recruited to vet rumors that Graham is putting weapons, covertly provided by the CIA to Batista, into the hands of Castro’s forces. Public exposure of the CIA weapons mission, and the activity of one rogue agent, threaten to embarrass the agency. Mueller uncovers a world of deceit as the FBI, CIA, and State Department compete to influence the outcome of the revolution in the face of the brutal dictatorship’s imminent collapse. Graham, meanwhile, is troubled by the hypocrisy of a bankrupt US foreign policy, and has fallen in love with a married American woman, Liz Malone. Paul Vidich has written a powerful story of ideals, passions, betrayals, and corrupting political rivalries in the months before Castro’s triumphant march into Havana on New Year’s Day 1959. This sequel showcases the widely praised talents of Paul Vidich, who Booklist says, “writes with an economy of style that acclaimed novelists might do well to emulate.”

The Good Assassin: A Novel

“The Good Assassin opens up Hemingway’s Cuba. Possessing Alan Furst’s attention for period detail and the deft character touches of John Le Carré, Vidich has quickly carved out a place for himself among the very first rank of espionage writers. It’s a masterful effort and the author’s best work to date.” —Michael Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of The Chicago Way “The Good Assassin is first-rate literary espionage…Author Paul Vidich has evoked not only the intrigue and brutality of Batista’s Cuba, but the island itself…a masterful work of noir fiction.” —Susan Isaacs, New York Times bestselling author of A Hint of Strangeness Paul Vidich follows up his acclaimed debut spy thriller An Honorable Man with “a keen historical adventure from the best noir tradition” (Elizabeth Kostova, #1 New York Times bestselling author) set in 1950s Cuba, as foreign powers compete to influence the outcome of a revolution. Former CIA Agent George Mueller arrives in Havana in August 1958, during the last months of dictator Fulgencio Batista’s reign, to look into the activities of Toby Graham—an in-country CIA officer suspected of harboring sympathies for the rebels fighting the unpopular Batista regime. Specifically, Mueller’s old friend Graham may be putting weapons into the hands of Castro’s forces, in bold defiance of the United States arms embargo on the island. But when Mueller uncovers a world of deceit as the FBI, CIA, and State Department compete to influence the outcome of the revolution in the face of the brutal dictatorship’s imminent collapse, he realizes that nothing and no one is what they seem. This is a powerful story of ideals, passions, betrayals, and corrupting political rivalries in the months before Castro’s march into Havana on New Year’s Day, 1959. As New York Times bestselling author Michael Harvey raves, “It’s a masterful effort and the author’s best work to date.”

Emily Bestler Books

The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin

A&nbsp;New York Times Book Review&nbsp;Editors' Choice In the vein of Graham Greene and John le Carré,&nbsp;The Matchmaker&nbsp;delivers&nbsp;a chilling Cold War spy story set in West Berlin, where an American woman targeted by the Stasi must confront the truth behind her German husband's mysterious disappearance. Berlin, 1989.&nbsp; Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears, and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker--a high level East German counterintelligence officer--who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his "Romeos" who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB.&nbsp; They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Pegasus Crime

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.\nLebanon, 2006.\nThe 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.\nIn 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.\nThey 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.\nShe alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Analise 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…\nA tightly-wound international thriller, Beirut Station is Paul Vidich's best novel to date.

Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy: A Novel

Short Stories & Anthologies

The Coldest Warrior: A Novel

The new novel by acclaimed espionage author Paul Vidich explores the dark side of intelligence, when a CIA officer delves into a cold case from the 1950s—with fatal consequences. In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson, a government scientist, died when he “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of the incident remain buried for twenty-two years. With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, the Wilson case suddenly becomes news again. Wilson’s family and the public are demanding answers, especially as some come to suspect the CIA of foul play, and agents in the CIA, FBI, and White House will do anything to make sure the truth doesn’t get out. Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It’s Gabriel’s last mission before he retires from the agency and his most perilous. Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more his entire family is at risk. Following in the footsteps of spy fiction greats like Graham Green, John Le Carré, and Alan Furst, Paul Vidich presents a tale—based on the unbelievable true story told in Netflix’s Wormwood—that doesn’t shy away from the true darkness in the shadows of espionage.

The Mercenary: A Novel

From acclaimed spy novelist Paul Vidich comes a taut new thriller following the attempted exfiltration of a KGB officer from the ever-changing--and always dangerous--USSR in the mid-1980s. 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.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Vidich, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Vidich, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Vidich, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Coldest Warrior

An Honorable Man

An Honorable Man: A Novel

An Honorable Man: A Novel

The Good Assassin: A Novel

The Good Assassin: A Novel

The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin

Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy: A Novel

The Coldest Warrior: A Novel

The Mercenary: A Novel