Shadow Of Doubt by Brad Thor

Lots of balls being juggled here in Thor’s 24^th Scot Harvath story:

1.     A big Russian cargo plane has left Russian airspace and appears headed for Belarus. Destination and cargo both unknown.

2.     A high-level Russian defector walks across the border to Norway asking for asylum, but only if he can hand himself over to Sølvi Kolstad, a very senior officer in the Norwegian version of the CIA . . . who is also Harvath’s fiancé.

3.     A career French spy is set to meet with the CIA’s Chief of Station in Paris, but is brutally murdered in his apartment the night before the meeting. Paris cops and the French DGSI are at odds about jurisdictional conflicts.

4.     Russia is still mired down in Ukraine, wants it done and is looking into ways to finish off Ukraine without invoking a NATO response.

5.     Russian hit squads have been told my Moscow to drop their gloves and do what’s necessary to silence the defector, set up the contents on the mystery plane, and to make sure that whatever secrets the French agent had discovered remain hidden.

6.     And all of that has landed on the Russia Desk at Langley resulting in many sleepless nights for analysts and Directors alike.

For the bulk of the book, Harvath and Kolstad are moving the defector around while staying one step ahead of various hit squads while the French cops and DGSI dance around each other trying to keep the other knowing anything sensitive.

And as usual for any Thor/Harvath book, you can get your bottom dollar that ‘there will be blood.’ Lots of it.

When I started Thor’s latest book, I had the inkling that maybe this story line had cooled off for me. That maybe this might my last foray into the violent world of Scot Harvath.

And that would be wrong path to take. 

Thor gives the reader a (seemingly) thorough treatment of East-West geopolitics presenting reasons why Russia (the real and this fictional one) is doing what it’s doing. Hint: Chapter 37 is a succinct account on some of the reasons behind why Russia is involved with Ukraine and what the likely next steps might be. 

A chilling and frightening discussion of what the next decade might be.

So bring it on Thor. My apologies for having doubted you. Fall 2025 can’t get here soon enough.

East Coast Don