The Mercenary

By: Paul Vidich

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

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.

©2021 Paul Vidich (P)2022 Tantor

His best yet!!

Each book he writes just gets better and better. This for me is by far his best and most compelling book. Of them all I think this one is the best one for a film or tv adaptation.
The narration was fine, nothing crazy good or bad. His Russian accents are good, but his “Texas” accent might be the worst I’ve ever heard, thankfully there wasn’t much dialogue that required it.

The twists made me take notice.

The story was a page turner! Plot twists were unexpected. Especially the romance plot! Normally women are written as weak and prone to emotional distress. The female character was strong and brave. This plot device was crafted brilliantly. Rare to see men portray women as anything other than sex objects.

Highly recommended.

Beware: The Narrator Is Hard to Take

A decent story written by someone with an insider’s knowledge of clandestine ops, but it was hard to keep track of the characters, and the plot was confusing at times. The narrator is terrible, especially when voicing characters other than the protagonist.