Problem is, the hunter and the hunted have become friends.

Lyndsey’s investigation leads straight to Theresa as the traitor. The widow is Theresa Warner, an embittered analyst still with the CIA whose husband was presumed killed on a covert mission in Russia. Which brings us to the titular Red Widow, whose point of view occasionally takes control of the narrative. Lyndsey, her romantic “indiscretion” put aside for the moment, is tasked with investigating the death of her former asset, along with discovering the identity of the mole, who the powers assume is responsible for this betrayal as well. And the double agent seems to have flown stateside to seek Lyndsey out, but for reasons unknown.

The post-mortem reveals the cause: a poison close in composition to Novichok, Moscow Station’s signature weapon of choice for eliminating enemies. It’s pretty serious.īut a seemingly fateful occurrence intervenes: A Russian double agent Lyndsey once managed dies mysteriously on a midnight flight into JFK. This flavor of dalliance, frowned on in the agency’s male-dominated hierarchy, has Lyndsey back at HQ, deskbound and awaiting a decision on her future. Why? She had a clandestine romantic relationship with a British MI6 operative while on station in Lebanon. But they all serve as gripping backdrops to the central spine of the investigation undertaken by Katsu’s protagonist, who - in a refreshing departure from the standard spy-fiction model - is a woman.Īt the outset, field agent Lyndsey Duncan has been recalled to Langley. Some are violent, while others smolder with chilling menace, even when recalled in flashback. In depicting it, Katsu portrays the workaday realities of the spy game at the CIA with singular skill: its organization, its operational practices, and, most tellingly, its internecine jealousies, petty personal rivalries, and dog-eat-dog grudges.īeyond these revealing jaunts into intra-agency culture, Red Widow abounds in vivid action scenes and riveting cloak-and-dagger moments. Katsu’s protagonist, intent on unmasking a traitorous double agent suspected of outing at least two CIA operatives planted in the Russian government, doggedly tracks the mole through the CIA’s tangled documentary jungle: its data bases, knowledge-sharing apps, and classified memos and reports.

Red Widow is a driving, step-by-step procedural bristling with suspenseful authenticity. Katsu succeeds brilliantly here in capturing the ambience of espionage in action. The author has reason to know the realm of spies and tradecraft well: She spent 35 years as a senior intelligence analyst at the CIA and NSA, among other organizations. In Red Widow, Alma Katsu, an accomplished spinner of creepy supernatural thrillers, sets aside the spectral torments of her earlier novels to give us a vivid spy story with a twist.

Red Widow by Isabelle G. Snow