White Fox
The acclaimed, chillingly authentic Cold War thriller
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- £0.99
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Publisher Description
The new novel from a master of the Cold War thriller . . .
'This is Robert Harris storytelling territory' Daily Mail
'Outstanding' Sunday Times
'Tense, exciting and authentic' Charles Cumming, author of Judas 62
'Stunning' The Times
'Brilliantly plotted' John Sweeney, author of Killer in the Kremlin
'A standout thriller' Financial Times
1963. In a desolate Russian penal colony, a radio broadcasts news of the killing of
President John F. Kennedy . . .
Alexander Vasin's new posting as director of a brutal gulag camp is far from a promotion. This is where disgraced KGB officers are sent to disappear, quietly, and forgotten.
But when a violent revolt breaks out, Vasin must decide: run or die. So he runs. With him goes a mysterious prisoner – an individual who might hold the key to an extraordinarily dangerous secret: the identity of who really ordered Kennedy’s assassination.
Racing from bleak Siberian wastelands to the grey streets of Soviet Moscow, Vasin needs to stay one step ahead of the most ruthless intelligence organization in the world in order to keep the most wanted man in Russia alive. And with his loyalty, morality and patriotic duty tested to the limits, he will face the ultimate choice: fall in line, or die fighting the system . . .
Weaving together a critical moment in history with the cut-throat machinations of Soviet politics, this tautly told, nail-bitingly atmospheric novel is a superb Cold War thriller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rogue KGB agents plot to assassinate JFK in the confusing third and final volume of Matthews's Black Sun trilogy (after 2021's Red Traitor). In September of 1963, Andrei Fyodorov, the former KGB station chief in Miami who recruited Lee Harvey Oswald for the hit, realizes that "the plan was insane" and decides he doesn't want to go through with it. His efforts to stop it fail. When Kennedy is assassinated, Fyodorov, who fears certain people want to kill him because he knows all the details of the plot, is sent to a Siberian penal colony under an assumed name by the KGB's General Orlov, who knows Fyodorov can implicate him in the assassination plot. The commandant of the camp, Lt. Col. Alexander Vasin, decides to help Fyodorov in retaliation against his rival, Orlov. Exciting chase scenes across Russia, including through the brutal, unforgiving Siberian countryside, compensate only in part for the surfeit of exposition on the KGB's internal politics and the lack of characterization. Matthews, who was once a Newsweek bureau chief in Moscow, has a deep, wide-ranging knowledge of the Soviet Union and the era, but his overly dogged attention to detail doesn't generate a lot of thrills. Even JFK assassination conspiracy buffs will be disappointed.
