Former CIA analyst David McCloskey has written a well-crafted spy novel. “Moscow X,” Mr. McCloskey’s follow-up to his debut novel “Damascus Station,” is a complex story with many moving parts, a variety of main characters, and geographic locations from Mexico to Washington to St. Petersburg. To Mr. McCloskey’s great credit, he harnesses the complexity of the story to streamline the narrative, never making it difficult to connect the dots.
The book combines separate plots—an American and Russian storyline—with characters collaborating while simultaneously pursuing separate ends. Sia, a lawyer for a firm that represents Russian oligarchs, and Max, a Mexican horse breeder, are CIA operatives brought together to recruit Vadim, a Russian banker, in an effort to wreak havoc on Putin’s system. Vadim’s wife, Anna, who happens to be Russian intelligence, wants to throw a wrench in the system, but for very different reasons. Her father, and the bank’s owner, is being pushed out by a competing and vicious oligarch. The story ultimately pursues the old adage: an enemy of my enemy is my friend. The question is whether these “friends” can trust each other.
