The Poet's Game: A Spy in Moscow

“Trust Paul Vidich, a powerful and seasoned author of this genre, to tie the rot and losses of both the former espionage assignments and the current ‘small favor’ to the grief that continues to dog Matthews . . .”

One of the best ways to turn aside the day’s political distractions is to delve into a work of Cold War espionage from Paul Vidich, whose taut writing and evocative Moscow moments tug at both ends of passion: America’s endless relationship with Russia, and the intimate details of love across borders.

At the opening of The Poet’s Game (the seventh from Vidich, each standing alone), Alex Matthews is 52, “remarried, and comfortable in a successful second career”—he’s left behind the life of espionage and government orders, and savors time on a boat with his young Russian-born wife. He’s turned his knowledge of doing business in Russia into a layered capitalized investment firm that stays lowkey and highly profitable. And he’s only waiting for a man to get off a bus in Moscow as part of a favor he agreed to do for his previous employer. He expects to meet one of his former recruits, code-named BYRON, for a quickly arranged reconnection.

Instead, a Russian journalist in high heels demands his attention, then accuses him of assaulting her, and suddenly Matthews is on his way to Lubyanka Square’s notorious prison. “Nothing happened,” he protests futilely. But his attorney witnesses his arrest: “Maybe she was hit, maybe she tripped, maybe she’s lying. It doesn’t matter. Once the police are involved, an arrest has to be made. That’s how it works in Moscow.”

As a result of this fiasco, even though he’s released by Russia’s FSB the next day and hasn’t accomplished the meeting he’d agreed to handle, tentacles of investigation, accusation, and abruptly the downfall of his carefully built business latch onto him. And nothing’s going as planned in any part of his life. His former CIA boss is sure there’s a double agent in action, giving away crucial details. And it must be one of the former colleagues that he knows well and, for the most part, respects and likes.

“Agency planning was terrible,” Matthews asserts. “A clean slot rookie dressed like a kid on spring break. Inexcusable. Meeting outside a five-star hotel a short walk from the Kremlin. Irresponsible . . . Incompetence all around.” Top that off with learning that his other recruited assets—code-named Keats, Shelley, and Blake—are gone. Angry, spooked, and concerned, Matthews should pull out. But the deep sense of responsibility that drove his career is now enflamed, and he’s determined to get “Byron” to safety. “He had never lost an asset on his watch. Grigoryev put his life in Matthews’s hands and he had a duty to protect him.”

However, that means betraying the expectations of his own half-grown son, who has good reason already to hate him. And even his “asset” thinks that’s a bad idea. “Who knew this is how things would. turn out? Talk to your son. Don’t let him grow up like I did, hating his old man.”

There is, of course, a deep twist inside the betrayals taking place around Matthews. Trust Paul Vidich, a powerful and seasoned author of this genre, to tie the rot and losses of both the former espionage assignments and the current “small favor” to the grief that continues to dog Matthews, despite the outer success his life seems to show. Perhaps the book’s only small flaw is that Vidich offers readers a chance to see that final betrayal coming, sooner than Matthews can. But that’s the catch in many a narrative, and it doesn’t dampen the suspense at all.

If Russia’s arrival in the 21st century marketplace means it’s as obsessed with success as the America it learns from, who is going to sell out most violently and cruelly? It’s a pressing question that Vidich answers through the choices Matthews negotiates, and the pain he navigates, for the sake of his own sense of responsibility and honor.