The Kremlin's Candidate

Matthews's own term psychological smorgasbord is the best summary for this final book in the "Red Sparrow" trilogy (after Palace of Treason). Vladimir Putin is a main player here as is the Russian appetite for meddling in U.S. affairs. Dominika Egorova, the synesthetic double agent, is about to become the head of the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service. In Washington, DC, an admiral who became a Russian mole owing to Egorova's successful seduction of her years ago, is about to be named director of the CIA. The clash of the Amazon warriors looms. The indestructible Nate Nash races in to protect his beloved Domi, although she, as ever, is spurred to hyperperformance. Subplots abound, and there is plenty of attention to spycraft in the cyberwar era. Read as a stand-alone or as the culmination of the high-energy earlier tales, this notably well-written saga plunges deeply into the human stew of fear, ambition, and lust. Matthews spent 33 years on the operational side of the CIA so the story is loaded with Clancyesque technology embellished with le Carré nuance.